Waking the Dead

By Bruce Heydt

There are many ways to lose one's life. Eleanor Oberman lost hers when a careless driver broadsided her car. Her husband Jay lost his when he buried all his dreams for a happy future along with his beloved wife, leaving him with neither joy nor purpose. Then one dark night on a lonely stretch of highway, he heard a voice proclaiming a message of hope and encouragement, drawing him to the backwater community of Burning Bush. Would it prove to be another dead end or just the right place to begin a new life?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098098087

Book preview

Chapter 1

Holy Ground

Jay Oberman squinted into the setting sun. He’d been driving steadily since sunrise, with only two short breaks for lunch and dinner. He’d logged hundreds of miles again this day, but hadn’t outdistanced the haunting gloom that still encompassed him.

A year had passed since his Eleanor’s fatal accident. In a way, he reflected, it had been easier for her. She had never regained consciousness after the collision, and her fatally compromised brain had been unable to register any pain. But for Jay, the suffering was real, intense, and unending. He’d carried on like a trooper through the necessary arrangements for the memorial service and had even managed to smile once or twice, just to show his sympathetic friends that he was holding himself together. He’d dutifully sent thank-you cards to all the family and guests who’d been so polite and who’d offered their support before climbing back into their cars and returning home to their routine middle-class lives. But inwardly, he felt devastated. Unlike them, he couldn’t really go home again, not in the most meaningful sense.

Instead, he tried moving on. Initially, he sought solace from his church. He’d begun attending only recently at Eleanor’s urging. To his own surprise, he found the adult Bible studies interesting, and after the accident, he’d continued attending. He felt particularly encouraged when the topic of study turned to Moses and the exodus. It seemed to Jay that the story of the Hebrews’ escape from slavery into freedom might contain some clue as to how he might escape from his own slavery to depression and grief. But though the lessons were informative, they proved unhelpful, and eventually he stopped going.

He didn’t blame his friends. He knew they meant well, but they didn’t have the right words to say because no words are adequate for such an occasion. They knew it, and Jay knew it. And they knew that he knew it, which made things all the more awkward. They tried telling him the pain would pass. It’s good to mourn, they said, but life goes on. They advised him to take a little time off, maybe go up to his place in the mountains for a week or so to reflect, then come back home, find a new hobby, and get back to work. More than a few of them suggested that, in time, he should start dating again. It sounded reasonable. And Jay didn’t know any better. He’d never been through anything remotely like this, and he appreciated receiving some well-intentioned advice. So, sure enough, he’d gone off to the mountains for a week, and with nothing else to occupy his mind, he grew angrier at God with each passing day, shouting spiteful and hateful words at the uncaring trees and spending each night alone in the double bed, wracked by nightmares. The wind merely carried away his shouts and his sobs, bringing no answer in reply. That week had scarred him nearly as much as the accident itself.

When he returned, he immersed himself in his career, or tried to. But neither his heart nor his mind was in it, and his performance suffered. His boss understood and made allowances, but Jay fell off the fast track. Promotions he’d have been a shoo-in for prior to his funk went to coworkers with more modest talent but clearer heads and better attitudes. Jay could read the writing on the wall. Before long, the boss, despite his sympathies, would need to make a tough decision. Jay didn’t want to make it hard on him, so he’d turned in his resignation before things came to a head, and the boss had accepted it, a look of relief and gratitude on his face as he did so. He arranged for a nice severance package to help see Jay through. It wasn’t what Jay most needed, but he appreciated the gesture all the same.

And that was that. But not really. Quitting his job only made matters worse. It took away his only remaining purpose. As a distraction, it hadn’t been enough to take his mind off his loss, but at least, it had filled the time between sunrise and sunset. Afterward, he spent his days sitting around the house, haunted by the myriad reminders of his brief, happy past. Between darkness and dawn, the nightmares not only continued but grew ever more bizarre and frightening. It proved intolerable, and the anger he’d felt toward God while in the mountains returned with new strength. At first, he’d thought he could ease the pain by taking all his wife’s things to Goodwill. But that too had been a mistake. Now his grief was tinged with guilt over so cavalierly banishing every trace of his bride from the home they’d made together. And still the memories persisted, lovely and bitter at the same time. How, he often wondered, could it be possible to want nothing more than to remember her, and yet hurt so much every time he did?

So eventually, he’d made the decision to leave the house altogether. He’d put it on the market on a Monday, and by Wednesday, he’d received a lowball offer that he’d gladly accepted. Then he’d loaded his car with a few necessities, took all his remaining possessions to Goodwill to reunite them with his wife’s things, and hit the road, foregoing any goodbyes. He preferred simply to disappear without a trace. Maybe someday he could come back, but he made no such plans, and he felt it best not to leave any expectations behind him.

And so, just three days ago, he dropped off the grid. He cancelled his Internet service, threw his cell phone into the trash, and headed west. How far he might go, he couldn’t say. As for what he went looking for, he knew no better. He wanted only to escape his past, and there wasn’t enough room to run on the East Coast. So, like the pioneers of old, he headed west hoping for a better life, but without a clear idea of what awaited him—just a vague hope that somewhere along the way, an opportunity for a new start would present itself, a new start and some answers to the big questions: What had he done to deserve this hurt? Where was God, and why had he allowed all this to happen? Most of all, why didn’t he show himself and explain everything in person? Was he ashamed of his own callous disregard for Jay’s happiness?

Deep down, Jay didn’t really expect that the answers he sought would be any more apparent out West than they’d been back East, but at least for the few days it took him to cross the country, mostly on lightly traveled secondary roads, he’d feel a sense of mission. Already he’d put the Mississippi and the Great Plains behind him. The Southwest and California beckoned. What he’d do if no clear course of action presented itself before he ran out of real estate and sat facing the Pacific Ocean, he had no inkling. But he could put off that worry for another day or two. His only immediate concern was when to call it a day and begin looking for a place to stop for the night.

He briefly weighed the merits of driving right on through until the next morning. He’d grown accustomed to spending the overnight hours in wakeful solitude of late in order to avoid the nightmares, and had come to consider the darkness a faithful and unobtrusive companion. The notion of spending the time by himself on this lonely stretch of highway, accompanied by only the stars and an occasional motorist heading east, actually appealed to him. But he knew he’d already been pushing the pace and needed another break. The endless ribbon of roadway was hypnotic, and he faced a real danger of unintentionally dozing off. In this remote part of the country, he stood little chance of hitting anything more substantial than an ankle-high sage bush, should he veer off the road, but it wasn’t a risk he needed to entertain. Besides, he was in no hurry. Not in the least. So he decided he’d put in another hour or so, then look for an inexpensive place to bed down.

For the first time since he had stopped for dinner, Jay turned the radio on and scanned the frequencies for a local station. Ever since leaving home, he’d been coming in and out of range of one station after another, and he’d grown tired of hunting for a new, clear signal every time the previous one dissolved into static. But now as the day drew toward a close, he hoped that having something to engage his overtaxed brain would help him stay alert for just awhile longer.

The radio stopped scanning when it found a station playing country music, but Jay feared that might have the worst possible effect on him, so he hit the button a second time, wondering as he did at the chances of finding two local stations along this particularly remote stretch of road. But he did; a talk show this time, which he judged to be just what he needed.

Welcome back to WKBC Christian radio, a pleasant female voice intoned. "You’re listening to Holy Ground with Sophie Arbuckle. That’s me, and I’ll be with you until the top of the hour, so let’s talk. I’m here to listen but not to judge, so tell me what’s on your mind, and I’ll tell you what God puts on my heart. I’ll have some answers to the questions you’ve been struggling with, you’ll see. Jay idly wondered whether anyone other than himself might be listening. Apparently so. Our next caller is Jonas, from way out in Seven Oaks, Sophie continued. Go ahead, Jonas."

Thanks for taking my call, Sophie, a husky voice said in response. Jay detected a familiar, fatalistic tone and a quaver in the man’s speech and instantly recognized the distinctive sound of some deep-seated emotional trauma. Jay had heard and learned the sound from listening to his own voice. My wife was diagnosed with liver cancer a year ago. Jonas continued, She’s endured two surgeries since then and nearly a dozen chemotherapy infusions. She’s been a churchgoer all her life. In fact, I owe my own faith to her persistent and gentle leading. We’ve prayed for her to be healed every single day since that very first positive test, and yet for all the medical procedures and all our prayers… and here the voice broke, and the remaining words came out between sobs and gasps. Jay found that he was crying as well and got mad at himself for not having better control over his emotions. She got her latest test result back yesterday, Jonas went on, and the cancer has continued to spread. They’re not giving her much of a chance.

I’m so sorry for both of you, Sophie Arbuckle cooed consolingly. I can’t imagine how much pain you must be feeling. And anger too, if I had to venture a guess.

Jay could imagine it quite well and wished he could interrupt the dialogue in order to tell Jonas as much. Yet, what could he possibly say other than to sympathize with the pain and offer the same ineffectual platitudes he himself had submitted to for a year or more? But nothing Jay had received from well-meaning friends had ever helped, so he had nothing useful to share.

I don’t understand, Sophie, Jonas admitted, finally getting to his question. Why does God allow this sort of thing to happen? What has Sharon done to deserve cancer? Why doesn’t God listen to my prayers? Where is he? Why doesn’t he show himself? Please explain it to me.

Jay’s hands began shaking violently, and it took all his concentration to pull his car to the side of the road and put it in park. He fumbled with the radio until he managed to turn the volume up, then clutched the steering wheel once again as if holding on for dear life. He suspected but also feared that what he’d hear over the next thirty seconds or so could shape his future for the better, or else dash his already threadbare hopes. Either way, he desperately desired to hear it.

Thank you for your call, Jonas, the host responded. "You’re right. It isn’t always easy to understand why life plays out the way it does. The Bible doesn’t provide any easy answers either, which is significant, I believe. If the answer was simple, surely the Bible wouldn’t fail to offer it to us. But on the contrary, when Job asks these same questions, God in effect tells him that the answers aren’t to be found in the places we usually go looking for them. Job’s friends offered a number of strategies for finding answers—mysticism, folk wisdom, philosophy—one of them even suggests that the answers are ultimately unobtainable. But when God finally speaks, he rejects all of these ideas and tells Job that God alone knows the whole story. So the answers to your questions, Jonas, can really only be found by drawing closer to God and building a relationship of trust and understanding. Now, that’s not easy, but it’s the only way to move forward.

Very often, though, folks like yourself who are going through severe distress withdraw into themselves and languish in their grief. They get angry with God and shut him out of their lives, thinking they’ll manage better on their own than in the hands of this God whom they feel has let them down. That’s why they have so much trouble healing. They’ve cut themselves off from the one who has the solution. They don’t understand that while God wants to reach out to us, we need to reach back by persevering in faith and learning to recognize his voice. It’s almost like a placebo of the spirit. Sometimes in medicine, you have to believe a treatment will help you before it can. It’s the same with God. You need to trust him before he can get close enough to you to make a difference. Broken hearts are only mended from the inside. Sadly, few of us are prepared to do what it takes to let God in so he can get to work.

Jay wanted to hear more, but the top of the hour had come, and Sophie Arbuckle was done. Well, that’s all we have time for tonight, she abruptly concluded without providing the slightest clue as to how to go about letting God in. But before we go, do you need to get to work on your split ends? Here’s a word from Raynard’s Pharmacy about their complete line of hair-care products.

Jay ignored the commercial and had himself a good cry. When he ran out of tears, he pulled back onto the roadway once more and eased his Civic back up toward the speed limit. He felt a profound apathy toward split ends, but Sophie Arbuckle’s off-the-cuff comments about faith and trust had stirred his soul and brought some slowly dying embers back to fragile life. They sounded genuine, rational, and convicting. Since his wife’s accident, Jay certainly hadn’t drawn closer to God—or to anyone else for that matter—as Sophie advised. Far from it. If Sophie was right, then he, Jonas, and countless others had drifted away from their only real source of comfort, much like the way his car’s radio had drifted outside the coverage of one station after another throughout the past few days as he logged mile after tedious mile on his long westward journey. But that wasn’t the stations’ fault, was it? He’d been telling himself he was running from his pain, but was that all there was to it, or was he really running from God? He thought he knew the answer to that particular question, which counted for something, at least. But if that was the case, what exactly would ceasing to run look like?

How in the world did one go about reaching back, as Sophie had said, and allowing God to get inside him? The answers to these questions lay outside his personal experience. But on the other hand, he was clearly in the proximity of someone who seemed willing to share her insights. Maybe God was reaching out to him through Sophie Arbuckle even in the midst of his running and had used his car’s radio to get his attention. Could it be a sign that this was where his running should stop, and where he could find some hope? Maybe. He couldn’t imagine he’d find a more promising opportunity between here and the Pacific Ocean.

But where, exactly, was here? Jay hadn’t been paying any particular attention to road signs and didn’t even know for sure which state he was in. Have a good night, Sophie’s voice called to him through the radio. "You’ve been listening to WKBC, Burning Bush’s very own Christian talk radio station. Stay tuned for a taped rebroadcast of our interview with Jotham Tittle, author of Yesterday’s News, a fascinating exploration into the beliefs and customs of ancient Mesopotamia…"

Jay was no longer listening. Burning Bush? Who or what or where in the world is that? he wondered out loud. Even as he did, a green-and-white highway sign loomed into view up ahead:

Burning Bush

Next Right

Population 5,414

Jay nearly missed the intersection despite the advanced notice. The narrow, dusty roadway that bisected the highway stretched off into the growing darkness to either side of the main road. Jay turned right, wondering at the unknown destination off to the left that failed to merit even a faded road sign or mile marker.

In twenty more minutes, he had left the highway far behind and had passed no further turnoffs, intersections, nor even a single occupied house, although several run-down and abandoned farms came briefly into the range of his headlights before vanishing again into the gloom as he passed. Finally, he glimpsed another small road sign ahead and strained to make out what it said: Welcome to Burning Bush. Yet even then, he detected no buildings or streetlights to confirm he had arrived at a place of human habitation, only a slightly luminescent patch of sky indicating that somewhere not too far ahead, ground lights did indeed illuminate some sort of settlement. A brilliant fireball meteor flashed overhead before vanishing beyond the horizon. At last, on cresting a small bluff and turning sharply to follow the roadway where it sliced into the side of a steep butte, he spotted a small town ahead. He came first to a small gas station, already closed for the night, and next to that an equally modest inn, the Great Scot Motel, that looked as though it boasted just a dozen or so rooms. Jay couldn’t imagine what made the place worthy of its name, but he wasn’t surprised to see the word Vacancy in flickering neon light. It amounted to an invitation. Jay guessed he’d not find a better option that evening, and from the look of things certainly not a cheaper one, so he slowed and gave his steering wheel a turn.

A well-worn pickup speckled with rust had the parking lot to itself until Jay pulled alongside and came to a stop just a few strides from the entrance. He put his Civic in park and turned off the ignition but remained behind the wheel, pondering the long series of events that had led him to this unlikely and eerily remote spot. Was his arrival the result of fate, or providence, or just a fool’s errand? Barely a year ago, he had a bright future and seemed to be going places. Now he had arrived, but where? Certainly not anywhere he’d anticipated, or that he had set out to find. But he had no better place to go, so he determined to spend the next day poking around and seeing what there was to see in Burning Bush—if anything—before calling in to Holy Ground and talking with Sophie Arbuckle. After all, he had planned on stopping for the night anyway, and as long as this motel had a bed and a commode, it would serve his immediate purposes well enough. Anything he might find in addition to those bare essentials would be more than he had cause to hope for when he’d set out from home, so there was no reason he should feel disappointed even if this remote town proved to be a dead-end, either literally or figuratively. Of course, he would feel disappointed all the same. Geez, he thought, I have become a pessimistic bastard, haven’t I? And with good cause too, he reminded himself.

He emerged from the car and ventured through the entrance into not so