The Invitation Part 4 of 6

This story dramatizes the quality of Jesus and effect of his atonement that I most admire.

[Part 1]

[Part 2]

[Part 3]

…Sure enough, that night her dream began with a scene that made her cringe. It was a Sunday morning in their half-renovated brick house. She was thirty-one, Zoe four, Jack two. Theo was in church meetings already, and as always, Amanda was trying to get the kids ready on her own.

She had five minutes to make Jack’s snack, find the Sunday School lesson she’d printed, and finish drying her hair. Zoe was throwing a tantrum in Amanda and Theo’s room. She was already wearing her church dress, but the shoes she’d put on all by herself were sneakers. The fact that Amanda had washed and ironed Zoe’s dress the night before was rapidly losing credibility on the dusty hardwood floor, and Amanda’s distracted anger gathered in her throat as she searched her makeup bag again for mascara.

In this dream she was observing the scene from outside instead of taking part in it. As she watched, she couldn’t help whispering, “Oh please, not that day.”

From the master bedroom Amanda could hear Jack pouring dry cornflakes onto the kitchen tiles. Zoe’s thrashing and kicking positioned her next to the dresser, on top of which was a wedding photo in an elegant leaning frame.

“I’m wearing these shoes!” she screamed for the hundredth time, giving the dresser a solid kick with her heel. The photo frame tipped over, fell off the dresser, and the glass shattered on the floorboards within a foot of Zoe’s bunched, reddened face.

With a wordless screech Amanda grabbed Zoe’s arms and threw her onto the bed. “No you’re not!” she yelled, pulling off her shoes and throwing them through the doorway.

“Yes I am!” Zoe screamed back. In the dream Amanda watched the scene, crying from the exhausted frustration she felt then, compounded by the humiliation of witnessing it now. Just as she feared, she saw herself slap Zoe’s face, only this time it wasn’t Zoe’s face but the face of the Savior, who was now sitting beside Zoe on the bed.

There were four or five other scenes after that. In each one the Savior took the place of the person Amanda had hurt: a girl who got in trouble for a lie she told in third grade; her sister-in-law when Amanda ignored her at a family gathering; Theo whenever she verbally abused him for his stupefying lapses in awareness. Some of these things Amanda vividly remembered doing; of others she only had a vague recollection. In either case, seeing her cruelty from the outside pained her more than any other dream she’d had that week.

The final scene took place in the video store where Amanda worked during college. She was doing her Spencer routine in front of Holly, Robin, and Chris, her co-workers. Spencer worked at the store too but was off that night. He was a few years older than the average student, awkward, unpredictably groomed, and overly interested in Amanda. The Spencer routine consisted of her shrugging her shoulders, squinting, and talking to people a bit too close to their faces, and as usual, it sent Amanda’s co-workers into tearful fits of laughter.

From her dream-place outside the scene, Amanda grimaced and held her stomach, suddenly sick. That particular night, Spencer had come into the store to rent a DVD—right in the middle of her routine. She stopped herself at the frozen looks on her co-workers faces when they saw Spencer approaching behind her. Recovering from the surprise, she turned to greet him with a gush of fake enthusiasm—and stood face to face with the Savior.

He wasn’t angry. She could’ve taken that. He didn’t glance away in annoyance or roll his eyes in frustration or shake his head in disappointment. He just looked down, mouth bunched, blinking back tears. He was hurt.

There was no lunch after the scenes of this dream. Amanda woke that morning crying bitterly, feeling little else but the desire to hide under the blanket all day until nightfall. It was Friday, her last full day in the cabin. On her hike that morning, in her reading and writing all afternoon, she kept seeing his terrified look when she slapped him, his hurt as she taunted him. A sadness followed her late into the night before she finally fell asleep, half hoping that her dreams would be over now that Jesus certainly understood her at her best and her absolute worst.

But there was a dream that night. Amanda sat alone at that Mediterranean restaurant on the hillside overlooking the sea. “He won’t come. He won’t come,” she said in time to the distant wash of waves against the rocks. She closed her eyes, reciting her mantra, feeling the sun on her face, a tickle of wind at the wisps of her hair.

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