The Only Secret Left to Keep by Katherine Hayton

Author:Katherine Hayton [Hayton, Katherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780995100701
Publisher: Katherine Hayton
Published: 2017-09-24T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

Matthew leaned forward, shifting his weight from the base of his knees to further up his leg. He’d been kneeling in this position for long enough for his legs to go numb and then stayed longer until they started to throb with pain.

The pain was the trick that allowed him something to focus on to silence the raging thoughts churning through his mind. Once he had the pinpoint of aching knees to concentrate all his energies onto, the rest of the babble faded away into silence.

That was when God could enter and provide guidance.

Although he was aware on some level that he shouldn’t pester an almighty being for his small concerns, like an ant tugging on your trouser leg and wanting directions to the nearest sugar cube, Matthew still sought refuge in His knowledge from time to time. He’d come late to the Lord—his childhood had been one of state schools and secularism.

The people he congregated with now held that up as the perfect illustration of picking religion through choice. After living without God in his life until his late teenage years, Matthew had reached out into the darkness and clutched for the only lifeline that made sense.

For Matthew, though, the lack of early induction made him feel like he would always scramble to catch up. No matter how many times he read through the bible, sometimes cover to cover, sometimes opening it in sporadic sections to see what wisdom he could divine from chance, he didn’t know the passages like the children who’d been brought up reciting them.

If he wanted to use the words to illustrate his point, Matthew couldn’t just reel them off his tongue. He had to look them up, a painstakingly slow process that lost the argument before he could even begin to take a stab at winning. Even with his natural abilities at persuasion, Matthew grew infuriated at how much of his cajoling was initiated from within him, instead of calling on the written words of God.

Where others in his association called routinely on favors from on high, Matthew tried to limit his communion, except to give thanks. Even though he didn’t say grace out loud, Emilia’s indignation at his gratitude to someone other than her made him silent as a courtesy, he uttered the words inside his head. Each night, he ran through a list of all the things that had benefited his day and offered them up.

To ask for something when he had a burgeoning list every night, seemed selfish. To ask when each day he could turn on the television to see children starving and good men and women being blasted out of their homes by tyranny, made his skin crawl with white privilege.

Now, though, he needed help, and there was nowhere Matthew could turn to. A wife who didn’t know the first thing about the cravings that suffused his body? No thanks. Move on to another member of the congregation and pass them his most intimate secrets to have them sit in judgment? No use at all.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.