A wife and mother with no religious background senses God has been putting her in situations to do his work and is drawing her to herself. When her friend wants to talk to her about God and salvation and eternal life, she’s ready to listen.
This is the fourth story in the Limbless and Pregnant series, which also includes the stories Deeply Submissive and Truncated yet Tenacious. This story, But God Pursued Her, is actually what’s called a “sidequel” to Truncated yet Tenacious. It takes place in the same time period and involves the same main characters as Truncated yet Tenacious between about chapters 18 through 22.
The two stories emphasize different events in those characters’ lives. This story explores Jazmyn’s and Victor’s increasing interest in spiritual matters. The other story covers the secular aspects of their lives, with only occasional mentions of religion.
Go to Limbless and Pregnant, Part 1
Go to Deeply Submissive, Part 1
Go to Truncated yet Tenacious, Part 1
But God Pursued Her, Part 1 consists of the following chapters:
Chapter 1 – Returning the favor, part 1
Chapter 2 – Returning the favor, part 2
Recap: The story so far
Jazmyn and Victor Alvarez had been in a relationship for over five years and married for about three-and-a-half years. She was 26 years old and was the assistant manager of a coffee shop, where she’d worked since she graduated from high school. He was 31, and was a financial advisor and Marine Corps veteran of Puerto Rican heritage. Both had come from large families and wanted a large family of their own. So far they had a daughter, Valeria, who was a few months shy of turning three years old, but they were now ready to try for another child.
Jazmyn and Victor had some mutual sexual kinks, which had evolved to include what’s called domination and submission, first in the bedroom, and eventually on a full-time, permanent basis. However, this wasn’t what you might think it was. They actually had a very healthy, consensual relationship and both deeply loved and respected each other. They just found that they both preferred having him call the shots, or at least having the final say in everything that they did. It just worked for them.
Just after they were married and Jazmyn had become pregnant with Valeria, she was involved in a horrific calamity. Jazmyn was in a pharmacy shopping for a pregnancy test when a tornado descended on the store with no warning, and Jazmyn’s legs were crushed under the debris, requiring that they be amputated close to the pelvis. Then, in a bizarre twist of fate, they found out that Valeria would be born without legs. The obstetrician attributed that to either the trauma or drugs Jazmyn had been subjected to when her legs were crushed and amputated just at the time the baby’s legs were starting to develop.
Jazmyn and Victor were surprisingly okay with these events. They accepted them as their destiny, and Jazmyn was very determined to not let her lack of legs stop her from doing anything she wanted to do, and to instill that same determination in her daughter. They both realized that Jazmyn had become a better version of herself since the tornado took her legs. She had something to prove to herself and to the world now, that she wasn’t a cripple to be pitied, but rather a strong, capable woman to be admired and respected.
Jazmyn had saved the lives of two people since she’d become an amputee. She’d performed the Heimlich maneuver on her nephew who was choking to death, and she performed CPR on an elderly man pulled out the ocean on a beach in Puerto Rico, who turned out to be Victor’s grandfather’s cousin.
At a chance encounter in an airport on their way back from Puerto Rico, Jazmyn and Victor met Faith Rogers, who told them about her younger sister Hope’s own recent leg amputations following a car accident. Hope, then age 19 but now 20, was having a very difficult time emotionally coping with her new reality, and Faith asked Jazmyn if she could talk to her sister. Jazmyn did so and helped Hope see that life without legs was still very much worth living, and the two amputees became close friends.
Chapter 1 – Returning the favor, part 1
(Chapter 1 begins simultaneously with Chapters 18 and 19 in the story Truncated yet Tenacious.)
Ever since Jazmyn and Hope first met, they’d stayed in frequent touch with each other as Jazmyn mentored her in how to live without legs, both physically and emotionally, and Hope learned to accept her new reality. They saw each other in person regularly, often out in public somewhere, or otherwise at Jazmyn and Victor’s home. Jazmyn was glad that Valeria now had another legless role model in her life, and Hope became almost like another aunt to her.
Hope kept bringing up two subjects when she and Jazmyn talked. The first was that Jazmyn should put herself out there as a mentor to new amputees and probably also to parents of children born with missing limbs, in order to intentionally help more people in the same way she had helped her. The second was that Jazmyn should acknowledge God’s role in orchestrating her life and allowing an apparent tragedy to turn into such a blessing for Jazmyn herself as well as the people she encountered.
In Hope’s mind, the two subjects were linked. If God had blessed Jazmyn, it was her obligation to pay it forward and bless others, but it was also incumbent on Jazmyn to learn about and show appreciation to her benefactor.
It bugged Hope that Jazmyn and Victor were secular. Even though on the day she and Jazmyn had first met she was relieved that Jazmyn didn’t preach to her, and Jazmyn’s non-religious encouragement had lifted her out of her debilitating despair, she felt that her faith in God was also key to her mental and emotional recovery. Hope decided that there was no time like the present, and no one better than her, to try and do something about it.
Hope knew her chances would be better if she talked to Jazmyn one-on-one. She’d wait for her chance to catch her when Victor wasn’t around. God must have been reading her mind, because the next day Jazmyn mentioned that Victor was out of town for the next few days to attend a conference for work. “Want some company?” Hope asked. “We could have a legless girls’ night; you, me, and Valeria. I’ll pick up some Chinese for dinner.”
“Sure, why not? Sounds like fun,” answered Jazmyn.
Valeria thought it was hilarious when Hope arrived and told her it was legless girls’ night. “No boys allowed! And no legs, either!” Valeria shouted, giggling. “We don’t need boys or legs!”
“That’s right!” agreed Jazmyn. “Not tonight. Who needs stupid legs, anyway?”
“And who needs stupid boys?” chimed in Valeria.
Jazmyn looked at her disapprovingly. “Valeria, that wasn’t a nice thing to say. Boys aren’t stupid.”
“Yes they are!” disagreed Valeria.
“No, they’re not,” Jazmyn said much more firmly. “Your daddy is not stupid, and yes we do need him. Now, not another word about boys.”
“I guess I got her started on that,” Hope said sheepishly. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. I put the idea in her head by using the word ‘stupid’”, Jazmyn said in response. The moment then passed, and Hope unloaded the bag full of Chinese food. Valeria didn’t care for Chinese food, except for the white rice, but Jazmyn had something she did like all ready to go. Hope knew Jazmyn’s family didn’t say grace, but she decided not to make an issue of it. She had bigger fish to fry that evening.
After dinner, Hope and Jazmyn got on the floor and played with Valeria until it was her bedtime. Valeria loved the attention from the only two people in her universe who looked like her and moved like her. Jazmyn returned from putting her to bed and poured two glasses of wine, put them on a small cart on wheels, pushed the cart into the living room, and transferred them to the coffee table where they could reach them from the sofa. The two women the climbed up onto the two ends of the sofa, respectively, and faced each other.
It was clear to Jazmyn that Hope had something on her mind. “Okay, out with it, Hope.” Jazmyn ordered her. “What’s bugging you?”
Hope took a deep breath and said a quick, silent prayer with her eyes open. “You know, that morning when you showed up in my bedroom, you kind of saved my life. I mean, I wasn’t contemplating suicide or anything; not yet, anyway, but you showed me that life was still worth living even without legs. It’s been weighing on me almost ever since then that I need to return the favor.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Hope,” replied Jazmyn.
“I know,” Hope replied. “Not in the way you’re thinking, anyway. But your life needs saving, too; you just don’t realize it.” Jazmyn wondered what that meant. “Jazmyn, you’re one of the nicest, most selfless people I know. Even if you still had legs, you’d be an inspiration to me. If I didn’t know better, I would assume you’re a Christian, and an exemplary one at that. So I guess my question is, Why aren’t you? What’s stopping you?”
“I dunno,” Jazmyn said in response, feeling very much put on the spot. “My family never went to church or did anything religious, and I suppose I never saw the need. Even when I had my accident and lost my legs, I accepted my fate and didn’t feel the need to talk to God about it.” She thought about protesting that she celebrated Christmas, so didn’t that make her a Christian?, but she knew Hope would shoot that idea down in an instant.
Hope then knew what she needed to say, based on Jazmyn’s answer. “Do you believe in God, Jazmyn?” she asked.
“Sure,” she said, “I can’t imagine that all of nature just came to be by some cosmic accident. Everything’s too perfect and in harmony and complex for it to have happened by chance. I’ve experienced firsthand how God arranges things to happen at just the right time or for people to be in just the right place. People have told me that God used me to save those two lives, and I believe them.”
Hope asked another question. “What do you know about Jesus?” she asked.
“Let’s see… His mother was supposedly still a virgin when he was born, and he went around performing miracles and talking about God. He was put on a cross and died, and then people said he came back from the dead. Oh, and John the Baptist was his cousin. That’s about it, I guess. It sounds pretty far-fetched, to be honest.”
“Do you know how to be sure you’ll go to heaven when you die?” Hope asked.
“Not really. I don’t think anybody really knows that for sure until it happens. I think if your good outweighs your bad, and you go to church and pray and stuff, your chances are pretty good. I know Catholics say you have to be baptized, too.”
Hope could see that she had her work cut out for her, but she wasn’t exactly sure how to proceed. She said, “Some of what you’ve said is flat-out wrong, and much of the rest is woefully incomplete. God has laid it on my heart to make sure you know the whole truth about how to get to heaven. Would you please allow me to do that? What you do with it is then between you and him.”
Jazmyn didn’t know how to respond to that. She still didn’t see any reason to become religious, and didn’t particularly want to be preached to. On the other hand, she had enough respect for God to go with the flow when she sensed he wanted her to do something, so she figured that she should probably do the same if Hope felt that he wanted her to do something. She concluded that it wouldn’t hurt any to have more information – it didn’t obligate her to act on it. “I suppose so,” she said in response to Hope’s last question.
Hope was very relieved that Jazmyn agreed, even if it was obviously half-hearted. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do if Jazmyn had refused to let her do what she knew God had called her to do. But that’s not how God operates. If he gives someone a job to do, he also provides a way for them to get it done.
“Do you have a Bible, Jazmyn?” Hope asked. She replied that she did not. “I’ll get one for you then, so you can see for yourself that what I’m telling you is not just my opinion, but is straight from the word of God. In the meantime, you can just trust me, or I can show you in my Bible.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a compact Bible along with what looked like a cheat sheet or something.
“There’s a lot I need to tell you, more than we’ll have time for this evening, but we can at least get started,” Hope said. “Let’s begin with who’s qualified to get into heaven and have eternal life when they die. The short answer is, absolutely no one.”
“How can that be?” asked Jazmyn. “What’s the point of heaven if no one can get into it? And where would we all go instead? Hell?”
“All great questions that I’ll answer in due time,” replied Hope. “What I meant is that none of us can earn our way into heaven. It’s impossible for anyone to be good enough, because God’s standard is perfection. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to get in. God provides a way when there is no way. “Let me read to you what the Bible actually says about this. You know what sin is, right?” Hope asked.
“Yeah, it’s doing something bad like having an affair or killing someone,” replied Jazmyn.
“Well, yes, but it doesn’t have to be as big as those kinds of things. All wrongdoing is sin, no matter how small, no matter if anyone else knows about it. Gossip, lying, cussing, getting angry at someone, shoplifting, goofing off at work, cheating on your taxes, watching porn, you name it.
“Anyway, Romans 3:16 says, ‘there is no one righteous, not even one’ and Romans 3:23 says, ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.’ We’re all habitual sinners. We can’t help ourselves. Even toddlers like Valeria sin. I’m sure you’d readily admit she intentionally does things that she knows are wrong. Like when she said boys were stupid this evening. Nobody had to teach her to do that; it’s instinctive.
“Romans 3:20 says, ‘therefore, no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by observing the law’. Romans 8:8 says, ‘those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.’ It doesn’t matter how much good we do; it can’t cancel out the bad, because the standard is perfection, and we can’t meet that.”
“You’re making it sound hopeless,” observed Jazmyn.
Hope replied, “It would be, except that God loves us and wants to be reconciled to us, so he provided us a way out of this. Romans 6:23 says, ‘the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life’.”
“So God gives us a get-out-of-jail-free card?” Jazmyn asked.
“Well, yes and no,” Hope replied. “He makes a get-out-of-jail-free card available to everyone. But most people don’t get one, either out of ignorance or by conscious decision. Unfortunately, a lot of people are fooled by a counterfeit and don’t even realize it.”
“How sad,” thought Jazmyn out loud.
“I agree,” replied Hope. “That’s why I’m telling you all this, so you won’t be ignorant any longer, because I care about you, and so does God. But it’s getting late; we’ll have to pick this up another time. That is, if you want to hear more.” Hope intentionally stopped on a cliffhanger, leaving Jazmyn hungry for more.
“Yes, I want to hear the rest of this,” Jazmyn said. “Can you come back tomorrow evening? I’ll make dinner for us.”
“Sure, that sounds great,” replied Hope.
Jazmyn laid in bed thinking about what she had heard. She’d always had the impression that your good outweighing your bad got you into heaven, and she figured she was safely on the right side of that equation. Now Hope was saying that was wrong and backed it up with Bible verses. She wondered what other things she thought she knew about religion were also wrong.
Also, Hope had said there was a way to get to heaven, but not many people took advantage of it. She called it a ‘gift of God’. Jazmyn wondered what that involved. Hope made it sound easy – it was a gift, which implied it was free, and it was available to everyone, but on the other hand, not many people had this free gift. She had so many questions.
Chapter 2 – Returning the favor, part 2
The next evening, Jazmyn didn’t want to wait until Valeria went to bed for Hope to continue. She explained to Valeria that the grown-ups wanted to talk and that she should play quietly. That didn’t go as well as she’d hoped; Valeria repeatedly interrupted them, but the women did the best they could to talk anyway.
Hope said, “This evening, I want to change gears and bring you up to speed on Jesus.”
“I’d rather hear more about how to get into heaven, to be honest,” replied Jazmyn.
“I get that, but trust me; it won’t make nearly as much sense if I don’t do this first,” said Hope in reply.
“Okay, then by all means, proceed,” said Jazmyn.
“Everything you said about Jesus last night was correct, but you left out the most important stuff,” Hope explained. Jazmyn was somewhat relieved that she wasn’t completely wrong about everything. “Do you know anything about the Trinity?” Hope asked.
“I’ve heard the word, and I think it has something to do with the number three, like ‘triangle’ means three-sided, but otherwise, no, not a clue,” replied Jazmyn.
“Well, it’s hard to explain and hard to understand. Even the brightest Bible scholars don’t completely understand it. However, it’s not necessary to have it all figured out in order to believe it. That’s what faith is about, believing things that can’t be factually proven. So here goes…
“There is only one God, but God consists of three persons, or ‘beings’, if you will. Each of them is fully God, but yet they have distinct roles, and they talk to each other. Collectively, they’re called the Trinity, or sometimes, the Godhead. The three persons of the Trinity are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who’s sometimes called the Holy Ghost.
“The Father is also called God, so it can be confusing. He’s the one we think of as having a long white beard and sitting on a throne on top of a cloud. The Son is Jesus Christ. God the Father and Jesus get most of the publicity. The Holy Spirit keeps a lower profile, preferring to shine the spotlight on the other two. The Spirit dwells in the hearts of Christians, and acts as kind of a conscience. The Spirit also tugs at the heartstrings of unbelievers, working to lead them into a relationship with Jesus. Are you with me so far?” Hope asked.
“I think so,” replied Jazmyn. “The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each God and together are God.”
“That’s as good of a summary as I think I’ve ever heard,” said Hope in response.
Hope continued. “So Jesus is fully God, but he came to Earth and was conceived in Mary’s womb and born as a baby, so he was also fully human. Because he was both, he was born without a sin nature, meaning that he didn’t instinctively sin like all of us do. He was tempted to sin, but he never actually did. Incidentally, that proves there’s nothing wrong with being tempted to sin, as long as you don’t go through with it. Jesus performed miracles like turning water into wine and healing people and raising people from the dead to demonstrate that he was God in the flesh.
“Despite that, however, the religious leaders of the day refused to accept that Jesus was God and they viewed him as a threat, so they had him executed in probably the most inhumane way ever devised. Then, a couple of days later, Jesus raised himself from the dead, not as a ghost, but again as a human with a body. He was seen by hundreds of people, and some of them actually touched him and witnessed him eating and stuff. This again proved that he was God. He had previously raised others from the dead, but only God could raise himself from the dead.
“Now, let’s circle back to God’s free gift of eternal life,” said Hope.
“Uh, before we do that, I need to put Valeria to bed, if you don’t mind,” said Jazmyn.
“Of course,” replied Hope.
Jazmyn took care of that and returned. She again poured a couple of glasses of wine, and again she put the glasses on the cart and pushed it into the living room. The two legless women climbed up on the sofa and got their respective glasses of wine. “Okay, God’s free gift of eternal life,” Jazmyn said. “Go!”
“Okay,” said Hope. “As I said yesterday, ‘the wages of sin is death’. In Hebrews 9:22 it says, ‘without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.’ But Jesus, who was without sin, was put to death. Actually, he willingly allowed himself to be put to death, because this enabled him pay the penalty for our sins. I can’t pay the penalty for your sins because I have my own to pay for, and vice-versa. But Jesus can pay the penalty for your sins because he doesn’t have any of his own. Is this making sense?”
Jazmyn nodded her head. “Jesus paid the penalty for my sins so I don’t have to.”
“Exactly right. That’s God’s free gift of eternal life. And so when Jesus paid the penalty, all of your sins, past, present, and future, are forgiven. Then, when God the Father looks at you, he sees no sin. That’s called being saved. Jesus saves you from having to pay the penalty for your own sins,” Hope said.
“Now if you recall, I said that most people don’t get the free gift, even though it’s available to everyone. Some don’t know about it, or they don’t understand how to obtain it. Some people settle for a counterfeit. A few consciously refuse it.”
“So, you’re going to tell me how to obtain it, right?” said Jazmyn, kind of feeling like she was being strung along.
“I practically have already. Remember, there’s nothing you can do to earn it. God has done all the work. All you have to do is just believe.”
Jazmyn thought this sounded a lot like the end of The Wizard of Oz, where Glinda the Good Witch tells Dorothy how to get home to Kansas. “Believe what, exactly?” she asked.
“Believe what we’ve been talking about. That God’s standard is perfection, we all fall short and are under a death sentence, and there’s nothing you can do to save yourself or earn God’s favor. That Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, came to earth both fully God and fully human, was completely without sin and allowed himself to be put to death but rose from the dead a few days later. That God loves you so much that he sent Jesus to die in order to pay the penalty for your sins so that you don’t have to. John 3:16 sums this up: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’”
Jazmyn was skeptical it was that easy. “I believe all of that,” she said dispassionately, waiting to hear what other requirements there might be.
“I don’t doubt it,” said Hope in response, “but you don’t believe believe. This is where we’re at a disadvantage, not understanding the original Greek that most of the New Testament was written in. Not everything translates well.
“The English word ‘believe’ doesn’t exactly have the same meaning as the corresponding Greek word. ‘Believe’ in English is actually pretty week. We say that we believe it’s going to rain, or that we believe our favorite team is going to win. We mean it to state that we wish something were true, or we hope something is true, or it’s our opinion that something is true.
“The Greek word is much stronger, however. It implies a very deep level of complete trust and confidence and commitment. It means you’re so certain that something is true that you’re willing to bet your life on it. You may believe in your head that you can jump out of an airplane wearing a parachute and land safely. But you have to believe in your heart according to the Greek meaning of the word before you’d be willing to actually do it.
“When you say you believe the Gospel, I think you’re telling me that you understand and accept the facts, but I don’t think you yet have that level of complete trust. When you get there, it’ll be deeply emotional. You’ll know that your sins are taken away and that you’re forgiven; that you’re saved.
It occurred to Jazmyn that the degree of belief that Hope was talking about was very much like fully and completely submitting herself to Victor. “I think I understand what you’re saying,” Jazmyn said to Hope, not wanting to verbalize the comparison she’d just made in her head. “I need to completely submit myself to Jesus and fully trust him from the very core of my being, right?”
Hope was very surprised at Jazmyn’s wording. She really did seem to understand. “Well, yes, that’s exactly right,” she replied. “But I’ve never heard someone who hadn’t been a Christian for many decades describe it quite that profoundly. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that only God could have given you that kind of understanding. ‘You are not far from the Kingdom of God.’ That’s a quote from Jesus in Mark 12:34. He said that to someone who understood in his head, but wasn’t quite there in his heart.”
“This has been very enlightening, and I appreciate you telling me all of this,” said Jazmyn. “I know it couldn’t have been easy for you. I still have a lot of questions, though, and I’m really going to have to think about everything you’ve said.”
“What kind of questions?” Hope asked.
“Okay, well, Victor and I have a relationship where I’m submissive to him,” Jazmyn stated. “He calls the shots, and I comply. That’s because I know he always looks out for my best interests and I completely trust him. It works for us. But, what am I supposed to do if Victor tells me to do something that contradicts what I know God wants me to do?”
Hope replied, “Well, the Bible says that wives are to be submissive to their husbands, so that’s good, I guess. But I see the dilemma. Not being married myself, I haven’t really studied those kinds of passages in the Bible. I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Here’s another one,” Jazmyn said. “I don’t really know what God considers to be a sin. I mean, some of them are pretty obvious, like committing murder, but I’ve never murdered anyone and I don’t plan to. The reason I’m wondering is that Victor and I are into some pretty kinky stuff in the bedroom. Are those things sins that God’s going to want me to stop doing? If they are, I really need to get Victor on board with all of this, too.
“You see where I’m going with these questions, right? If I were single and childless, I could make my own decisions without it being anyone else’s business. But I have to consider how my choices might affect my husband and my marriage and my daughter. I’m free to make my own decisions; Victor doesn’t control me, but I want to fully understand the potential consequences before making them.”
“Yeah, I understand your concerns, but you’re getting out of my league here,” replied Hope. “I think we, or at least you, need to talk to someone else better equipped to address them. Is it okay if I talk to my parents about this and see what they recommend?”
“Sure,” said Jazmyn. “I know you’re going to have to talk to someone; it might as well be them, I guess. In the meantime, Victor comes home tomorrow, so I’m going to discuss some of this with him as well.”
Chapter 3 – Questions
The following evening at dinner, Jazmyn brought Victor up to speed. “Hope was here for dinner the past couple of evenings,” she said.
“Oh, yeah?” replied Victor. “That sounds like fun,” he said in a non-committal tone.
“I’m not sure ‘fun’ is the right word. More like ‘intense’,” said Jazmyn.
“Why, what happened?” he asked, now interested.
“She explained to me how to get saved,” she replied.
“Like going to heaven saved? And did you?” Victor asked, curious.
“No, but I’m thinking about it. I still have questions I need answered.”
“That’s not something Catholics do,” Victor replied. He was a lapsed Catholic. “Maybe you should fill me in.”
“Well, first she explained how everyone is a sinner and that you can’t earn your way into heaven by doing more good than bad. No one is good enough to get in because God requires perfection.”
“That doesn’t sound right,” said Victor, frowning.
Jazmyn said, “She quoted the Bible to support everything she said, so I’m assuming she’s right, but who knows? Then she said that God loves us and provided a way that we can get there; to heaven, I mean. She called it a ‘free gift of God’ and said it was available to everyone, but few receive it. Then she left me hanging. That was it for the first night.
“The next evening, she wanted to talk about Jesus. She explained the Trinity and how Jesus is God, but that he was also human. She said that he never sinned and allowed himself to be executed so that he could pay the penalty for our sins and we could be forgiven.” Victor nodded in agreement. “That was the free gift she had spoken of. But then she said the free gift was there for the taking but few people did. To get the gift, you have to believe, but not superficially; you have to deeply trust God to do what he promised.
“Did she mention baptism or confession or absolution or penance?” Victor asked.
“She didn’t use those words, but I don’t really know what they mean, so I don’t know if she said it a different way,” answered Jazmyn. From this, Victor confirmed in his mind that Hope was Protestant.
“So what questions did you have?” Victor asked.
“I told her I was submissive to you and that we were into kinky stuff, but I didn’t elaborate. She said that the Bible says that wives should be submissive, so I was good there. But I asked her what I was supposed to do if you told me to do something that was contrary to what God said, and whether our kinks were considered sins, again without elaborating what they were. She couldn’t answer those questions, but she was going to try to find someone who could.
“Victor, I don’t want religion, or anything else for that matter, to come between us. If kinky sex is a sin and I didn’t want to do it anymore and you still did, then I would have to choose between you and God. Or if not going to church is a sin and you didn’t want me to go, it would be the same problem. I’d be in an impossible, no-win situation. I just want to know what I’m getting into before I commit to anything.
“I’m thinking unless there’s some loophole, we’re going to have to both get into this together or both stay out. Of course, if you’re opposed to it, then it doesn’t matter if there’s a loophole. I don’t think she’s Catholic, so there’s that. She might be telling me things that Catholics don’t believe. So you see why I held back.”
“That was smart of you to wait,” Victor replied. “Let’s find out more, and we’ll talk about it.”
“Do you want to be there when she or someone else she finds gets back to me?” Jazmyn asked.
“That would probably be best; yeah,” he responded.
Meanwhile, Hope was having dinner with her parents and sister and discussing her last two evenings with Jazmyn. Hope summarized what she had said to Jazmyn, and said that she seemed interested and seemed to really understand what Hope was saying, more than most people. “But then she had questions I couldn’t answer, and she didn’t want to go any further after that,” Hope said, frustrated.
“What questions?” her father asked.
“Well, she was concerned about how becoming a Christian might affect her relationship with her husband. He’s not a Christian, either. She said she was submissive to him, and I told her that was good, that the Bible says wives are to be submissive to their husbands. But then she wanted to know what she should do if her husband told her to do something that was contrary to what God said. Then she said the two of them were into kinky stuff, and wanted to know if those things were sins. I guess the two questions were kind of related.”
“What kind of kinky stuff?” asked Hope’s father.
“She didn’t say, and I didn’t ask,” Hope replied. “I was already out of my comfort zone, and even if she’d told me, I wouldn’t know how to answer. Anyway, I said I would try to find someone who could answer her questions, but I don’t know who I can ask. I can’t very well go to Pastor Jack and say, ‘Is kinky stuff sinful? I’m asking for a friend.’” Hope’s sister Faith laughed out loud at the thought of her doing that.
Hope’s father Bruce was an elder in their non-denominational church, however. That meant he was a spiritual leader of the church, a layman selected for his discernment, wisdom, knowledge of the Bible, understanding of Christian theology, and ability to keep confidential matters confidential.
Bruce said to Hope, “I think it might be best at this point if I talk to Jazmyn and address her questions. She doesn’t need what she told you spread all over town, and you don’t need rumors getting started about you. However, you know I won’t go alone to talk to an unaccompanied woman. Either you or your mother will need to be with me, or Jazmyn will need to have her husband with her. Whatever she’s most comfortable with is fine with me. So, why don’t you contact her and see what you can arrange?”
“Thanks, Dad,” Hope replied. “I think that’s a good idea. I’ll let you know what she says.”
Later that evening, Hope texted Jazmyn and told her that her father offered to meet with her to address her questions. Hope added that her father was an elder in their church and knew his stuff. Jazmyn didn’t know what an elder was, but it sounded important. Jazmyn asked if he would mind if Victor joined them. Hope replied that actually, to keep things proper, her father would only meet with her if a third person were also present anyway.
Jazmyn mentioned that they’d need to find a sitter for Valeria, because they didn’t want her to be a distraction. Hope then suggested that the three of them come to her family’s home to meet with her father, and she or her sister or mother could watch Valeria. Jazmyn was agreeable, and they arranged a date and time.