Make a Choice by Jeff Benedict

Author:Jeff Benedict [Benedict, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Inspiration
Publisher: Deseret Book Company
Published: 2016-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

Choose to Pray

You can’t see anything properly while your eyes are blurred with tears.” C. S. Lewis wrote those words while grieving the death of his wife, Joy. He described that period of his life as a “time when there is nothing at all in your soul except a cry for help.” This dark time prompted him to write A Grief Observed, a sad, honest account of what happens to a man of faith whose world goes dark. Lewis experienced doubt and resentment and despair during this period. But he never stopped praying. He wrote, “Everyone has noticed how hard it is to turn our thoughts to God when everything is going well with us. We ‘have all we want’ is a terrible saying when ‘all’ does not include God. As St. Augustine says somewhere, ‘God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full—there’s nowhere for Him to put it.’ Or, as a friend of mine said, ‘We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it’s there for emergencies but he hopes he’ll never have to use it.’”

This is a story about two people brought together by desperate circumstances and the power of prayer.

• • •

In 2000, my literary agent told me that a woman who wanted to hire me as a consultant had contacted him. She indicated that an Indian tribe had sued the private school her son attended, claiming the school had been built on tribal land. The tribe wanted the land back so they could construct a casino. I was fresh out of law school and had just published Without Reservation, a book about a counterfeit Indian tribe that sued private landowners, then annexed the land and built the world’s largest casino on it. The woman who called my agent had read my book and hoped that I would help the private school.

“What do you think?” I asked my agent.

“I think you should call her,” he said.

The woman’s name was Judith Paixao. She lived just outside New York City. When I reached her she asked if she and her husband could take me out to dinner. I was living in Boston at the time. They offered to come to me. And they encouraged me to bring my wife and children. Over dinner I made two observations: when our newborn cried, Judith walked him around the restaurant for a lengthy period of time, enabling my wife to enjoy her meal; and Judith and her husband wore expensive clothes and insisted on paying for our dinner. I concluded that she was very considerate of others and very well-off.

I ended up working for the private school. A year later Judith worked for my campaign when I ran for U.S. Congress in Connecticut. Judith was a woman who seemed like she had an idyllic life. Then hard things started happening. Her husband was diagnosed with cancer, and his final years were miserable. Then he died and left Judith both lonely and in deep financial trouble. One weekend she was visiting our family, and I invited her to attend church with us.

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