The Passing of Summer and Fall
A/N: I am such a goob for working on this story when I have a major History/English paper due in what. . .five days? You people are just so persuading with your reviews! (for which I am grateful to no end) Plus, if I'm gonna update Love and Loss, I have to update this one first. It's a punishment-reward system. Hahaha, just kidding; writing this is always a pleasure, never a punishment. It's just a whole lot more difficult to write, and Love and Loss is just so breezy and carefree...
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Weeks passed quickly, each of them bearing Bible studies at the Moonlit Farm. Most every night at my house, Cliff and I would read a chapter or so from what were called the epistles. I was informed that the epistles were letters that a man, the Apostle Paul, had written to all these different churches in all these different cities. They were super useful to my learning, just as Jack and Cliff had predicted.
Summer blew by without a moment of boredom. Chores were done in the earliest morning, generally before sunrise, so I could more thoroughly embrace the day. Mornings after chores were spent on the beach, sometimes with Kai but usually in solitude. The Flowerbud beach had always been a sort of retreat for me, a time to spend in thought only of things I cared to think of. Now my thoughts, I realized each morning as I gazed wistfully out at the sunlit oceanic view, were always drifting in God's direction.
My lunch hour, or hours, were spent either at the bakery or at Jack's, always accompanied by Ann or Elli or Popuri and almost always Kai. It was always afternoons and evenings when the real summer fun set in. Nearly everyday a bunch of us would meet up at the Green or Moonlit Farm and set out for fun whether it be at the beach, on the mountain, or at the Goddess Spring.
It was a summer of limitless adventure and fun of every size, shape, and color.
Finally it was autumn, much to the displeasure of the village children and to the disappointment of everybody else. The Cow Festival came and went with dullness and enthusiasm of the least kind, but by the sixth, excitement was rising concerning the Harvest Festival that would come a week later.
On the seventh, it was Bible study night at Jack's house, so I walked to the Moonlit Farm around seven o'clock with my teen devo Bible in hand. Contrary to the first Bible study I'd attended in late spring, the seats were now filled in Jack's small home. In them sat Jack and Cliff of course, Elli, Jeff, Harris, Basil, Popuri, Lillia, the potion shop dealer, Zach the shipper, Maria, and Rick. Same crowd as last week, I noticed.
For the first time, the study was on a book in the Old Testament, the first one, called Genesis. Jack and Cliff told us it was time to go back to the beginning and see how everything about Jesus had come to be. They led us through the Creation and the Flood, through Abraham's covenant and Jacob's children, through Joseph's dreams, betrayal, reign, revealing, and finally death. (A/N: if you want to read about this stuff, it's all in Genesis, just grab yourself a Bible from somewhere) The whole study took about five hours, so it was midnight by the time we were finished with the whole fifty chapters.
"Next week we'll do the next book, Exodus," Cliff told us, "so if you want to read ahead some, it might give you a better understanding when we go over it. By the way, the next study is here, right after the Harvest Festival."
I wondered if they always held the Bible studies on the nights of festivals to keep us from going out and doing something foolish, like people tend to do on festival nights. By now I had gathered from the epistles I'd been reading with Cliff that it wasn't pleasing to God for people to be "drunk with wine." I understood where God was coming from.
Again, Jack closed with the same thing he'd been closing with for the past few weeks. "Guys, if you want to accept the free gift of Jesus's salvation tonight, or if you want to learn more about accepting it, please talk to me or Cliff after we're done, which we almost are. That's why we're doing this. Even if at any other time in the week you just feel led, please come find one of us; we're never too busy, ever. Let's pray and then we can get to bed, unless you want to talk.
"Father, I can't ever thank You enough for this opportunity You've given so freely to me and Cliff to share Your truth with the people in this room tonight. Thank You for bringing all of them here to listen with open hearts to what You have to say. I pray Your blessing of salvation on each of them, that You would open their hearts this week and cause an uprising of longing for You. Help them, Lord, just to open their eyes and minds and hearts and souls to You, Father. Keep us all safe this week, and be by our side as we go about our lives with You. In the name of Your Son Jesus, amen."
"Amen," said Cliff, closing his Bible to keep the notes from overflowing.
I smiled at him and closed mine, too. Everyone got up and began chatting to one another concerning various things. "Ready to go?" I asked my cousin with a wide, tired yawn.
"Actually," he said, "I think Jack was wantin' to talk to you for a bit."
"Really?" I said, still yawning. I turned around to see the ball-capped farmer right behind me. "Oh, Jack. You wanted to talk?"
"Yeah," he said. "Go home, Cliff, I'll walk her back."
I lowered one of my eyebrows at him. "Something wrong?" I asked him, noting Cliff walking out the front door with a wave and smile.
"No, no," he told me, "just have something I need to talk with you about. Wanna go for a walk?"
"Oh-kay," I said hesitantly. When we'd exited the house, I stepped into stride with him as we walked toward the gate, asking, "What's on your mind?"
He looked around to make sure nobody was nearby and said, "Listen, I know you and Kai have been...'together' for a while now."
I looked at him, stuffing my hands into my jeans pockets. "Go on."
"Don't get offended or anything; I know this is none of my business, but..." He paused, closing his eyes for an instant and met my gaze with a look that said "help me."
"Spit it out, Jack," I told him. I thought I had a good idea where he was going with the subject. "It's no big deal. I won't get mad, I don't think, just say it."
"Have you two like..." He made a circling motion with his hand, looking up as if to check his brain, signaling he was looking for the most appropriate words. "Have you two like been together?"
I looked away from him for a moment, at my feet, at the crossroads ahead of us. "No," I answered plainly, wishing I could elaborate but not knowing the words. I didn't know why, but it just didn't seem like a big deal for him to be asking me this, so the conversation was more casual than I would ever have guessed it to be.
"Ok, before you ask why I asked you that," Jack said, pausing briefly to recollect his thoughts. "Have you ever thought about it, talked about it, been tempted or anything?"
I chuckled kind of weirdly and replied, "All of the above."
"Why didn't you just do it?"
"Well, right after we got together, the subject came up and we talked about it. We both agreed it wasn't like...Well, y'know, we just didn't want to do it so soon and neither of us really are ready - "
"You mean neither of you have ever...?"
I couldn't help but smile at him. "Right. And plus it was just so soon in our relationship. Since then, though, there've been more than a few times where we've been, y'know, in the right setting, the right mood, and it seemed to be the right time, and we really had to fight it." My gaze turned misty as I recalled three particular instances the past summer in which there had been a struggle with temptation. One had been the fireworks night, of course, on the beach, all alone, beautiful bright sky above the night ocean, dressed only in bathing suits. That night, though, there had been no wandering hands, just long, romantic hours kissing on the shore. But I can't tell you the thought of going further wasn't constantly crossing my mind. Another instance, this one considerably more PG-13, had come upon us when my parents were both gone and Kai and I were watching a romantic comedy on the couch in the living room. The last one had been the night of the Firefly Festival, when both of us had been overcome with a lovey-dovey feeling and literally had to start up an arguement just to stay away from each other.
"And all those times," Jack said suddenly, gently clogging my flow of thoughts, "you just...fought it? You just didn't do it because you knew it wasn't right?"
I nodded.
"Have you decided if you're ever gonna do it? Like before marriage?"
"Not really. We both just said, 'Eventually we'll take that step.' We didn't really set a date." I smiled a little. "Can I ask why you asked now?"
"Yes."
"Do I want to?"
He grinned a little. "I'd say so."
"Ok. Why do you ask?"
"First let me ask you this," he said with a smile, "do you see yourself ever accepting Jesus into your life like Cliff and I have been telling you about? Is there even a possibility?"
"I'd say there definitely is, Jack," I said.
"You're not just saying that to make me feel good?"
"Honest truth, I'm not." I felt an unusual warmth inside me, like something was tugging at my conscience, like the little voice in my head was screaming something and I couldn't make out its words. "I can honestly say that what you guys have showed me so far has been...true, from what I can see. But I don't just wanna go blindly putting my faith in something I haven't fully discovered. You know?"
"And that's not what we want you to do, that's not what I want you to do."
"So why the sex talk?" I asked him.
He let out a small smile. "If you can see yourself later committing yourself to God, losing your virginity isn't something you should do."
Again, I lowered an eyebrow at him.
"If I had my Bible with me right now, I'd show you a reference, but in the Word, God lays out the law. He says not to give yourself away until marriage. And even if you're not committed to Jesus now, once your purity is given away to somebody else, it's gone. You never get it back. It then belongs to that other person. But when you're married, it's like that purity is given to God instead. Does that make sense?"
"Yeah, it does," I said honestly. "I never really thought about it like that."
We were approaching my house at an extremely slow pace. "I just wanted to make sure you wouldn't do anything you would regret later."
"Thanks, it means a lot to me." I gave him a heart-felt smile and a warm hug. "Night, Jack."
"Night," he whispered in my ear. "Sleep good."
"You, too."
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And so passed autumn, with its Harvest Festival and its Egg Festival and its biannual horse races, which still bore no jockey for the Green Ranch.
The grapes were riper than they'd been in years, but still not up to the hype of Grandmother Eve's care. My family was busier than ever harvesting every day the new grapes and getting them pressed and processed. Things were picking up pace.
And on the thirtieth day of autumn, just after Daddy had chopped down all the trees in the grove, Mother did as Pappy had instructed in his will those seasons ago, placing into the ground the special seeds he had left behind.
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A/N: Oh, I know...it was so boring! I'm sorry! I just needed an update...I'm so ashamed! But I promise, the conversation thing between Jack and Karen wasn't pointless; it comes up later. 'Kay? Please review!