And Then Came Simon …

By Anna De Luca

This is the story of a Christian couples struggle as they search for God through a darkness that leaves them battle-scarred and spinning out of control. Surrounded by jaded white rules and black oppression, Beth and Simon discover a flickering light that steadily guides them back to an ancient wooden cross, where their Savior is waiting to lead them through their battles. Armed with a shining sword of truth, the couple finds forgiveness and hope for a marriage doomed for destruction.

And Then Came Simon uncovers the joy God desires for his children when they obediently look to His Word for daily guidance and instruction as they battle their way through a world of selfish desire and foolish beliefs.

When a fifty-year-old Western teacher in the Middle East discovers the details of her husbands shaded past, their lives are turned upside down and a spiritual battle ensues, trapping the couple in the clutches of an enemy they are not prepared to fight. Can the familiar words of a stained and forgotten paperback Bible provide the anchor they need to hold them steady in an unfamiliar world of harsh and unforgiving rules and judgment?

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Mar 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781449788353

Anna De Luca

Anna De Luca received her Bachelor of Education degree in English and social studies from the University of Alberta in Edmonton.  For the past twelve years, De Luca has been teaching English to high school and college students with a three-year detour in the Middle East.  De Luca and her husband make their home in the Middle East, teaching struggling high school and college-level English language learners.

Book preview

PART 1

Relocation

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23 ESV).

Chapter 1

She is gazing out of their tenth-story living room window. Home is a pink concrete tower that boasts an unobstructed view of the Arabian Gulf. As if in a trance, she ponders the ever-present dust line in the sky. It looks fixed and established, like a scar from a wound at creation. Deep inside her skull head games whirl and pull, urging unbridled thoughts to wander alone and unprotected. In her mind’s eye she watches a beginning unfold:

His flaming sword sliced through the cosmos as he threw back his head and bellowed, Let there be dust! Dust in the sky, dust in their eye. Let the dust cover them all when they die!

Her eyes close and her imagination is allowed to linger, mocking her faith and knocking on doors of uncertainty.

In her former life, she would read, compare, and contrast the King James, The Living Bible, the NIV, The Message: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding (Proverbs 3:5 ESV).

But in her present life, there is only The Disclosure. She spends hours, sometimes days, studying scenes and interpreting meaning. Then she composes her own paraphrase in dusty, dirty pink.

Beth and Simon are teachers in the Middle East, their lives ordered and structured by routine calls to prayer, black abayas, white robes, and men-only mosques. Both of them have become accustomed to the daily dynamics of the Arab world. Already they’ve spent one school year in the United Arab Emirates, another in Saudi Arabia. Now in Kuwait, they are two months into teaching at a private international school—eighth grade English for her, eleventh and twelfth grade American history and geography for him. Here in Arabia, all the sights, sounds, scents, and flavors are nothing more than a familiar and ordinary way of life.

Beth sighs, lights a cigarette, and frowns in Simon’s direction. She’s glad he is sleeping. His all-too-frequent reminder, Your heart needs you to stop smoking, hon! does nothing but add to her anguish. She knows the facts. She’s read the research. She is chained to addiction, and although she tries, she can’t break free. Beth studies the cigarette burning in the ashtray and indignantly thinks to herself,

Who is he to tell me what my heart needs? Maybe he should deal with the stains on his own heart before suggesting remedies for mine!

Her mind is confused, and her body is depressed. Beth stares out the window once more, and this time her focus is captured by incensed, briny waves crashing against the shoreline. The relentless slapping of the water captivates her, squeezing and twisting her outlook while a tormenting spirit called Demise brushes its wings against her thinking. Snorting and sneering, the demon hangs around the muse like an England fog, obscuring the woman’s will and rendering her hopeless. Caught in a mind trap, Beth surrenders her thoughts to a merciless wave of futility washing over her clouded senses. Deeper and deeper she sinks, her musings drowning in an ocean of gloom—"It’s been almost a year and a half, she thinks to herself. My right knee is still swollen, and both my legs have deep creases in the upper thighs. And there’s pain—so much pain! I’m mutilated—scarred and disfigured. Why do I even exist? I’m useless now—what have I got to offer? Nothing! Absolutely nothing!"

The demon grins and raises his wings in victory. He’ll leave her alone—for now.

The dust line disappears as daytime blue shifts to evening ink. Nightlife is stirring in Kuwait. Restaurants and shopping malls yawn awake, and roads become racetracks with Formula One taxi drivers weaving in and out of challenges. Horns blare as black and white arms shake their fists through open windows. Perpetual motion sputters and trembles as a call to prayer emerges like a prehistoric predator, winding its way through the mayhem. The peculiar sound ripens and swells, becomes piercing and severe.

Within moments, a collective obedience throws a break in discordant Arabic rhythm. Alhamdulilah! Praise be to God! Kuwaiti magic, or uncanny Qur’an? As if on cue, blaring horns are reduced to little more than a nuisance hiccup. Black and white arms retreat, and fingers quickly glide over jade-colored beads. This is the last call to prayer for the day. Thirty minutes from now, chaos will return with bottlenecks and bumper-to-bumper traffic jams. Insha’Allah—God willing—dinar flowing freely.

Simon exhales a long, deep breath, and Beth turns to watch her husband as he sleeps. Stretched out on the odd-shaped couch in their too-small-for-two apartment, Simon’s face is peaceful, the sound of his snoring like a lullaby choking on lyrics. Beth’s eyes mist as she studies the steady rise and fall of her slumbering husband’s chest. Slowly trailing her fingers over her legs, she dives deeper and deeper into an ocean of angst as shadowy thoughts and emotions envelop her sense of reality. Staring intently, Beth’s eyes drill holes into the slightly upturned corners of Simon’s mouth. Inside her mind, trust is extinguished as Demise stands proud and sneering at the end of a springboard, bouncing up and down, up and down, and then jumps, plunging a thousand leagues into a swirling pool of confusion, dragging Beth’s thinking to the bottom of a subconscious chasm. Desperate, Beth grapples for an answer to the misery that haunts and alters her moods. But there’s no clarity there, only a deep Cimmerian cave reeking with the dank odor of resentment and hate. Demise hisses and spits, chortling and yanking on hope while the frantic woman’s arms reach and search for a refuge.

On the couch, Simon appears restless. His heart rate quickens, and his temperature rises as subliminal thoughts, embodied by sights and sounds, set him on his knees, pleading and crying at the foot of an ancient cross.

In the heart of darkness, the demon has vanished. The water is calm, and a tiny light flickers, revealing the outline of an aperture. Beth cautiously swims toward the light, and as she passes through the opening, a still, small voice whispers, Woman, you are loved.

Chapter 2

His sky blue eyes adore her, and his arms ache to embrace her. He can’t remember when he didn’t love her. He wants to open doors for her, close windows for her, and throw away the trash for her. He wants to do whatever he can for her. He needs her to do what she can’t do for him.

Every morning, Simon brews a small pot of coffee. He prefers iced tea. The taste of coffee, any coffee, Starbuck’s finest, or Arabic gold, is in his opinion, repugnant. Simon knows that Beth loves the taste of morning coffee. Beth knows that Simon loves the taste of her kisses. Simon keeps on doing. Beth keeps on taking. Simon washes her clothes, washes her hair, and washes the dishes. He makes her lunches, carries her books, and doles out her pills.

Daily Beth swallows what she refers to as medication madness. Every morning after breakfast, Simon unscrews the lids of her pill bottles, directs a whispered, thank you, toward the ceiling, and remembers last year’s panic in Saudi Arabia. Beth had unwittingly walked through the gates of Hell. Or, had she held the hands of Heaven?

Methodically, Simon prepares Beth’s prescriptions while his memory replays the trauma of a day he will never forget. His struggling wife couldn’t breathe, couldn’t find air. Her oxygen levels had dipped to deadly. Before his eyes, Beth was dying—body, mind, and spirit.

For two days Beth lay in the Intensive Care Unit on the women’s wing of a government hospital. No husbands allowed! Simon’s prayers were urgent, silent, and hidden from disapproving Muslim eyes. In Saudi Arabia, Jesus may love you, but Allah has rules. Disobey, and die.

It was you! I know it was you. I could hear you; I could see you. You were right there with me, walking beside my bed when they wheeled me to radiology. You were holding my hand. You were telling me to breathe. ‘Breathe, honey, breathe! Just breathe!’

Beth stamps her right foot while Simon chuckles his reply—grinning, and shaking his head. It must have been an angel, hon. They wouldn’t allow me to be with you. Don’t you remember? Segregated Saudi—no husbands allowed!

On Friday mornings after breakfast, Beth will fall asleep on the Sultan style couch in what they jokingly refer to as their office-living-room. Simon will quietly place her pills on the coffee-table, bend down, and lovingly stroke his sleeping wife’s silky blonde hair while he watches the rise and fall of her chest. Then he will kiss the pad of his right index finger, and gently place it on Beth’s forehead while his eyes travel from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. Beth’s body is recovering, but her mind and spirit have been left behind—shocked and paralyzed in a stronghold that Simon patiently strives to break. As she sleeps, Beth’s body will twist and turn, her subconscious thinking antagonized by a vicious legion of demons called Doubt, mocking her reason and piercing her logic as they taunt, How can he suddenly shift from sinner to saint? Come on now, Beth—can’t you see that he’s lying? Nobody can make a change like that! Once a liar, always a liar…

Chapter 3

The summer they met was a daily dose of infatuation and connotation. At school, while her students were writing, Beth would giggle to herself and check to make sure her cell phone was set on silent. Then she would tap out read-at-your-own-risk text messages, her finger hitting the send button over and over again. At his desk, on the other side of the campus, Simon would happily run the risk and quickly text her back. His words percolated with desire while his messages skillfully and intentionally enticed Beth’s curiosity.

Do you like seafood? I know a great place not far from where you live. Simon tapped.

Mmmm! Seafood! But my home-made lasagna is to die for! Beth tapped back.

One week later, after thoroughly immersing himself in Beth’s home cooking, favorite old movies, and after midnight kisses, Simon hastily packed up his worldly belongings, and waved goodbye to his Christian standards and beliefs. Then he hopped in his car, started the engine, turned the radio dial to Classic Rock, and hummed his way past stop signs and red lights to Beth’s house in the suburbs.

At home, Beth was busy creating space in her master-bedroom closet. She was jittery, her mind and heart locked in a heated debate about Christian principals and old-fashioned thinking. While she worked, the stereo in the living room belted out a breezy country twang…

"He’s all I’ll ever need