Riven by Jerry B. Jenkins

Author:Jerry B. Jenkins
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Prison chaplains, Christian, Prisoners, Problem youth, Fiction, Religious Fiction, General
ISBN: 9781414309194
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
Published: 2008-12-29T02:02:28.722821+00:00

Adamsville

While Brady Darby was trying to turn his life around, Thomas Carey was growing old. People always said he had aged before his time anyway, and the mirror did not lie.

In the nine years since Thomas’s crisis of faith, much had changed in his life, but not nearly enough in his heart. If he was honest with himself, he had never recovered from the disappointment the night Henry Trenton was hung. But as he ruminated about it over the years, Thomas realized—or at least felt he got closer to understanding—that it was what God’s silence had revealed to him about himself that had sent him into such a tailspin.

Thomas remained as devout and disciplined as he had always been, but still nothing seemed to really work for him. He wondered what he was doing wrong. It was as if God had turned His back on Thomas.

If his despair over the Henry Trenton debacle had birthed anything, it was a steeliness in Thomas that made him finally able to confront Grace about her health. As lovingly as he knew how, he had put his foot down and told her they both knew what her continuing bouts with fatigue and the return of her inexplicable bruises meant.

Against her wishes, he drove her to the doctor. “Don’t rob me of a healthy wife. You’re the only thing I care about anymore, Gracie.”

She lectured him about that, reminding him that there was his calling, his ministry, his daughter, his future son-in-law. “I know you care about all of that. You must. I’m as heartbroken as you over how a lot of our life has turned out, but we have many miles to go.”

The doctor, half Thomas’s age, confirmed their fears, and Grace was put under vigorous treatment for a slow but steadily debilitating form of leukemia.

Thomas met with the young man alone and demanded to know how badly he had erred by not forcing her to come earlier. The doctor was kind enough to phrase it gently. “Of course we always like to have as big a head start on treatment as we can. But if it makes you feel any better, early symptoms are often mild and indeterminate. The important thing now is medication and treatment.”

“What is her prognosis?”

“You have a difficult time ahead, sir. Her demise is not imminent, but it’s unlikely she will improve. There will be the occasional remission where she’ll feel herself again, but over the long haul, say the next decade, she will need more rest, more treatment, more medication. Eventually you will want help and perhaps a hospital bed in your home, unless you choose to institutionalize her.”

Thomas bit the inside of his mouth to steady his lips. “Oh, never. No. I will take care of her until I am unable.”

“Well, thankfully, that is a long way off, sir.”

Thomas could only hope.

It was clear Grace worried about Thomas too. He wanted to be chipper, to keep her happy and motivated. Her enthusiasm and spirituality never flagged, but

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