God Does Not Care About Numbers

By Juan Manuel Benjamin

In God Does Not Care About Numbers, Juan Manuel Benjamin takes readers on a journey about living life as it comes: full of ups and downs and the realization that life is not about counting numbers or relationships but about achieving self-acceptance and fulfillment through a single act of God’s love and mercy.

God Does Not Care About Numbers is a tale of everyday people who try to manage their shame and anger and seek love through self-sufficiency and countless unsuccessful human ways. They realize they missed the mark when life slaps their faces with unforgettable pain. They feel lost and abandoned like small islands in a raging ocean. Ultimately, a simple act of goodness and the help of a special friend help them overcome their self-imposed limitations to achieve freedom and redemption.

Written in a language that entertains and inspires, this novel will challenge you to stop counting useless numbers in your life and to seek the only number you really need.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Dec 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9781973606048

Juan Manuel Benjamin

Juan Manuel Benjamin is a Puerto Rican born writer who has been serving in the United States Army for over 29 years. He has utilized his writing skills as a translator and communicator for the Department of Defense, and for various nonprofit organizations in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is the first place winner in the 2015 Saint Leo University’s Core Values Essay Competition. Mr. Benjamin holds a Master’s Degree in Broadcasting, Telecommunications and Mass Media from Temple University and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Saint Leo University. He and his daughters, Emely and Fiorella Isabel live in Florida.

Book preview

1

ESTHER DESANCTIS MET HIM on the day she arrived at the campus of Villanova University to register for the last class of her doctoral degree program in journalism. She did not even know why she had decided to return to school in the first place. She had been asking herself why she was going back to college.

She pondered, Was it to become more competitive in my career field? Was it because I wanted to add to my list of accomplishments, or was it because I felt lonely?

The reasons did not matter. There she was, ready to finish a new project in a year that would change her life, but not because what she was going to accomplish. It was due to the people she would meet and those she would lose.

She began to fill out the tedious and repetitive paperwork at the registrar office when he stood next to her, so close that she was able to smell his soft, yet masculine fragrance. She did not think anything of it. She did not even turn to look at the man standing next to her. She just opened her mouth to complain about the many forms that needed to be filled out just to enroll in school.

Why so many forms just to enroll in school? she asked.

Uh-huh. I know, he agreed as he looked at her.

Still, very characteristic of her, she did not turn to acknowledge his presence, even after he had responded to her annoying question. She did not even care that another person was standing next to her, talking to her. She was too busy filling out forms and complaining. She signed the last page left on her packet, and as she started to walk away from the counter toward the registration clerk, she heard his voice again.

Have a pleasant day! he exclaimed.

She did not answer.

Hopefully we will not have to fill out so many papers next time, said the stranger who had been standing next to her.

Hopefully, she replied, still without looking at him.

Inadvertently and accidentally, she stood side by side to the man who would become the source of one her single-most life-changing experiences and the origin of her personal awakening. Two lives brought together by a mundane act of filling forms would soon embark on a journey full of discovery, transformation, and peace. He would just play a part. She would be changed forever.

By her own standards and others’, Esther was a very accomplished woman. She had completed a master’s degree in journalism at a very early age. She wrote for one of the most important papers in the town and ran a magazine in which she was the editor. As a very talented and gifted writer, many newsmagazines and newspapers sought her out.

She was very strict with her writings, continually very methodical, and always very rehearsed. She enjoyed writing about almost every topic. However, she tended to stay away from topics that had to do with matters of the heart and spirituality. She had earned a reputation for being a fact-finding writer.

On occasion, Esther would travel across the nation, giving speeches to different organizations. Her professional life had taken over her personal existence. She was used to the attention that she received from many businesspeople, news outlets, and other important members of the community. In fact, the superficial level of attention that she received was very satisfying to her.

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Esther stopped by her mother’s house after leaving the university. She did not visit her mother frequently, but she needed to borrow her station wagon. She was in the middle of moving from a medium-sized apartment to a bigger, high-end place.

How did it go at the university? Ruth asked her daughter.

Oh, the usual paperwork. Nothing changes, Esther replied.

Well, you’ll be very happy at the end of this year. It’s all worth it at the end. You will have plenty of time to do other things—decorate your new place, volunteer your time somewhere in the community, give back—you know, Ruth said.

Esther was already becoming visibly upset. Not everything in her life was perfect. Her mother always found a way to remind her that she had abandoned the principles of her childhood since she was not in contact with her family and the community where she grew up and she was not going to church anymore. In her mother’s eyes, she had become a cold and aloof woman, a robot of the competitive world in which they all live in.

I am sure I will be very busy when I finish this degree. I will probably have other job offers. I will have even less time to do other things, she said with the most irritating sarcasm.

I am saying you could do other times with your time. Live a little perhaps.

Live a little? Live a little? What do you think I’m doing, sitting at home, watching TV, and eating popcorn? Esther shouted while piling plastic bags on the countertop.

You don’t have to get upset. I am just saying you could do fun things.

Like what? What I do is fun to me. It brings me satisfaction.

Well, you could probably spend more time with your family or travel just for fun, Ruth said, looking for empathy from her daughter. Not everything has to be work.

You always do the same. You continually preached to me. Esther’s veins were popping and hardening like a garden hose. And don’t even mention it. I am not going to that controlling, mind-eating church of yours, if that is what you are implying.

I am not saying that. I am not saying that getting ahead is bad, Ruth said.

But that’s what is on your mind. I know, she mumbled.

Esther, you are already a very accomplished person. But you should take time for yourself to do other things, like thinking about starting your own family or getting a stable home, more personal and lasting things.

In her own motherly ways, Ruth thought she was going get through her daughter’s anger and stubbornness by showing concern for Esther’s personal life and aspirations. But Ruth was wrong. She should have known Esther was not going to listen. And why should she? According to Esther, Ruth was the cause of her unhappiness and bitterness.

How dare you give me advice about starting a family when you destroyed your own? Actually not. I take that back. How could you possibly stand in front in from of me preaching to me about starting my own family when you destroyed the one I had with Dad? How could you? How dare you? she yelled as she grabbed her mother’s car keys without saying another word.

Unlike her mother, Esther didn’t have the guts to face life as it happened. She lacked the ability or willingness to look at the entire picture. She got tunnel vision. She was not able or did not care to see things objectively. Her need to blame someone or something brought comfort to her and saved her from doing the emotional work she needed to accomplish.

And unlike her mother, she did not care about church things. She did not have time for anything other than her own little projects. In her calendar, there was no time for Bible study and church on Sundays or never. If anything, she found this lifestyle a burden to her professional lifestyle. Esther did not see a gain in any of that. This was one of the points of disagreement between her and her mother.

Two years ago, a week before Easter Sunday, Ruth had invited Esther for a music recital in the church she attended and where she was the music director. Esther did not show up. She did not even call to let her mother know that she was not going to appear.

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Ruth always asked for guidance from the Lord, particularly from the Holy Spirit, through prayer. She was willing to pray at any time of the day of the night, although she had her quiet time moments, particularly at night before going to sleep. She would tell herself that it was her time to go in front of the throne. There, she would start long conversations with God. She would change her tone of voice in her conversations with the Lord, depending upon the type of issue she was discussing with Him. This was her safe time to be with Him, to cry in front of Him, and to laugh with Him. At times, it sounded like she was talking to a real person. A real person was what Ruth thought of her Lord.

Unfortunately for Ruth, her only daughter did not share this way of thinking with her mother. Esther always acted without consultation or very little forethought. She was perpetually sure of her thoughts, plans, and decisions. In her mind, there was no room for a conversation with a God she could not hear or feel, one who could not touch her. Her self-sufficiency had served her well in her quest for accomplishments but became an unsurmountable wall to climb over to find peace and happiness.

But with Esther, the problem was bigger than that. In her mind and heart, being a religious person like her mom and an accomplished professional like she was were totally incompatible. There was no way that she could be active in church like her mother had been her entire life.

Esther always had an inquisitive mind. She questioned everything from her mother’s rules to even her own name. In fact, she never liked her name. She always found it unimportant and a name given to old women, or so she would say. However, she never asked her mom why she named her Esther. For all the questions that Esther always liked to ask, the one about her name was one she never inquired, probably because she considered it unimportant or perhaps because she did not have time to think about it.

She had gained a reputation for being a chronic fixer. She liked to think of herself as a problem solver. However, in her mother’s mind, she was a chronic fixer. Esther had an answer for every single question and a solution for each individual problem, or so she thought. Growing up, if her mother or any of her brothers needed anything, Esther was always ready and willing to help. She always knew when, where, and to whom to make the right phone call or send the right message. She was a little know-it-all packaged in the body and mind of an incredibly talented and beautiful, but unhappy, woman. Her mother was the total opposite. They could not have been any more different than day and night when it came to asking for guidance before acting.

Ruth had learned not to wait for a letter or phone call from her children, or at least from three of them. Now in her late sixties, her days had become a replica of the same: waking up, walking the dog, gardening, rehearsing for church, and reading. Ruth did not enjoy watching TV that much. She loved getting lost in her garden without a watch to constrain her and anybody to keep her busy.

She had divorced her husband more than twenty years ago and never remarried. No one heard from him again. He was a well-to-do man who kept more than food on the table and who showered the children with endless demonstrations of materialism. Ruth’s children grew up translating gifts, money, and privilege into love. But for Ruth, the flow of money from her husband did not erase the loneliness and profound sadness that accompanied her every minute, year, summer, and Christmas. A web of money, lies, and indifference had trapped her and the children.

Ruth loved her children equally. She tried to make them understand that all were a gift from the Lord. However, Michael, the oldest, was an enigma to Ruth and everyone else. Esther always thought of him as a mama’s boy. Although he was very social and talkative, he never spoke about his personal life to anybody. Family and friends knew he was a successful accountant, a handsome man now in his early forties who had some girlfriends but never committed to any. He had been dating Margaret on and off for the last five years, with no visible intentions to commit.

Ruth liked Margaret very much. For once, Margaret was a churchgoing lady who came from a very formal family full of believers. She was seven years younger than Michael was, which in Ruth’s mind made a prime candidate to be the mother of Michael’s children. Ruth loved children, and she expected the day would come when she would make breakfast for all her grandchildren and then take them to Sunday school. But that was a dream that only existed in the mind and heart of a mother.

The reality of Michael’s life was different. He had become very guarded about his emotions and feelings when he was approximately seventeen years old. His apparent indifference about matters of the heart had created a distance between him and his siblings, his mother, and, of course, Margaret. He had moved through life with the utmost privacy and secrecy, not knowing that his own silence was going to become the heaviest of the crosses that he someday would carry.

2

JOSEPH RETURNED HOME FROM his evening shift to find his two children sleeping. He quietly went into their room to contemplate the peacefulness in their faces that brought joy to his heart and reminded himself once again of the blessings he enjoyed of having two healthy and promising children. Joseph had always wanted to be father. He wanted to pass along the life lessons—good and bad—that he had learned from his parents. He always saw himself as a student of life, but he also saw himself as an open book for his children to read and to learn.

As he kissed the children and fixed the blankets over them, he smiled and left the room. He quietly entered his bedroom. His wife quickly turned toward him.

Eva, are you up again? Sweetheart, I’ve asked you not to wait for me at night.

Eva always waited faithfully and patiently for his arrival from the hospital where he worked as a nurse practitioner.

You must be exhausted, working all day and taking care of the children.

I’m not that tired, honey. Eva extended her arms to embrace her husband. "I really feel better