Marcus Redding Starts Early

A nurse knocked quietly on the door. Marcus started to get up but she said, “No, you’re okay, just stay right there.” She checked Micah’s vitals. “He’s good. Do you need anything?” Marcus shook his head and the nurse made some notes the chart. She stepped back out and closed the door.

Everything was quiet. Marcus thought about the events of the last 18 hours. Lauren’s water broke at the restaurant, so everyone followed Marcus and Lauren to the hospital, relocating Noah’s graduation party to the waiting room. They called Lauren’s mom and her brother Eddie and they met everybody up there. It was one big family reunion/graduation party/slumber party. But it was no party for Lauren. Ten hours in labor and no progress. The epidural was effective, Lauren was okay—physically—and so was Micah. But he was content to stay right where he was. They waited and waited and looked at the monitor and watched the clock. Finally the doctor came and they wheeled her down to the operating room. They let Marcus come in and snap a picture of the great arrival. Micah swallowed some meconium, creating brief drama, but they took care of it quickly. They monitored his breathing and blood-oxygen levels and he was fine. Everyone from the slumber party took turns walking down to the recovery room to greet Micah and congratulate Marcus and Lauren.

As the afternoon went on they moved to their own room. For a long time Lauren held Micah and looked at him and talked to him. It took a combination of Marcus’ urging and her own exhaustion to persuade her to get her first sleep in 40 hours. While she got some rest, Marcus held Micah—Micah Samuel Redding—in his lap and rocked him in the rocking chair.

Everything was quiet except for the hum of the a/c unit. He watched the Weather Channel for a while but the big “H” was still parked over the South. Their laptop was sitting on the tray that goes over the bed. He held Micah in his left arm and reached out and rolled the tray to him. He arranged things just right and flipped open the computer. They had wireless internet access. Nice. He went to biblegateway.com and did a search for “children” in the Old Testament.

This scripture caught his eye, “He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments” (Psalm 78:5-7).

He thought about his grandfather. He just missed his great-grandson by a few months! Grandpa Sam passed his faith on to Marcus’s dad who passed it on to Marcus. Now it was Marcus’s turn to pass his faith on to Micah.

So he brought up the gospel of John and started reading to his son, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…”

More about Marcus Redding’s journey of faith next week.

Marcus Redding's Friday Night

Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way (1 Peter 3:7)

Mr. Johnson let Marcus take off the rest of the afternoons this week so he could unpack. The baby was due soon, within two weeks, so they wanted to get settled before Micah came home. Marcus was making progress, but Lauren would get home from work, exhausted, ready to relax, and see that Marcus had insane ideas about interior design. Hanging pictures for example. Marcus thought their wedding portrait would go nicely in the kitchen. But when Lauren got home and saw this special memory right above the spice rack she asked Marcus what in the world he was thinking. She grabbed a chair and was about to step up on it to take down the picture when Marcus intervened. “Lauren, Lauren, relax. Here’s what we’ll do. You get off your feet and sit down and rest. I get things out of the boxes and hold them up. We’ll talk about the best place for them and I’ll do the lifting and stepping.” This worked out well. And they had most everything done by Friday. Just in time to go to Noah’s graduation.

Rejoice with those who rejoice (Romans 12:15)

Noah was Marcus’s cousin. He was graduating from high school. Everyone in Marcus’s family graduated from high school except Marcus. He dropped out of school after the accident and got his GED when he started to turn his life around. It always brought back bad memories when he heard the word “graduation.” And even worse memories when it was from his old high school. So he had an unusual aversion to graduation. But Noah was his cousin, and Noah was a Christian, and unlike most seniors, he wasn’t going out with his friends afterwards. Noah wanted all his family to get together and go out to Mercado’s and celebrate with him. So Friday night Marcus and Lauren headed into town. It was a perfect evening for an outdoor graduation: sunny day, 72 degrees, slight breeze from the north. Marcus sat next to Lauren in the bleachers and held her hand. He watched the procession, listened to the bland graduation speeches, and clapped for Noah. As soon as the kids all threw their hats into the air. Lauren squeezed his hand. He thought it was like a happy, hooray-for-Noah squeeze, but when he looked at Lauren she was wincing.

you do not know what a day may bring (Proverbs 27:1)

“Lauren, is it time?” She kind of caught her breath. “Um, I don’t know. It might have been a Braxton-Hicks contraction.” She’d been having those on a regular basis, just like the doctor said she should. But she didn’t want to draw attention to herself and away from Noah, especially if she was jumping the gun and this turned out to be a false alarm. “It’s okay, let’s go.” So with concern and excitement Marcus helped her stand up and walk down the steps and back to the car. They met all the family at Mercado’s and Lauren didn’t have anymore contractions. Everyone brought in graduation presents for Noah and they piled these on one end of the table. Chips and salsa and enchiladas and burritos were consumed and everyone was smiling. It was a happy time. After dinner Noah opened his presents one by one and thanked everyone. He asked his uncle, Marcus’s dad, to lead a prayer for him. As soon as he said “Amen” Lauren looked up at Marcus and said, “My water broke.”

More about Marcus Redding’s Journey of faith next week.

Marcus Redding Works Security

Mr. Johnson said good night and walked out the door. Marcus slowly closed it behind him. He stood at the door for a moment, looking at the doorknob, thinking. He heard junebugs buzzing outside. He turned off the porch light. He thought, “What have I gotten us into?” He took a deep breath and turned around and walked back to the kitchen table.

Lauren was leaning back, eyes closed, feet propped up on a chair. Marcus took hold of her right foot and gently pressed around her ankle. A little swollen. He sat down and said, “Well, that was interesting.” Keeping her eyes closed, Lauren said knowingly, “You’re not talking about my ankles, are you?”

She opened her eyes. She sat up and looked at Marcus. “What do you think about what he said about giving us the ranch?” Her tone sounded desperate. “I’m thinking about it.” Marcus saw a difficult conversation coming. Lauren went on, “This is a problem Marcus. He told us this ranch could be ours. I mean, that’s nice and I understand about Grandpa Sam and all that, but he doesn’t know us! We don’t know him! We don’t know if this is even going to work out for even a little while! I thought this was going to be a job, a place for us to get started, but he wants us to be the heirs to his kingdom. I don’t know about raising a family out here. There are no neighbors, the church is small, I might be able to handle the books and all that, but you’ve got the hard job working outside all the time. I don’t know about this.”

By now tears welled up in her eyes. She went on, “Look at my ankles. Look at my belly. Look at these boxes. I am due in less than two weeks, we haven’t hardly got settled, and now Mr. Johnson wants us to be 21^st century Jolly Ranchers...I don’t want to be trapped out here.” Now she started sobbing. “Oh boy,” thought Marcus, “now what do I say?” He looked at Lauren: red eyes, round belly, swollen ankles, TJC employee identification card still hung around her neck, shaking with her sobs.

Security. That one word came to his mind. That’s what she needs. Then he thought of Ephesians 5:25, “Husbands, love your wives.” So he stood up and walked to the couch and removed the six boxes that had been stacked there. He found a pillow. He walked back to the kitchen table and took Lauren’s hand. “What are you doing?” she said between sobs. “Come here,” he said, and he pulled her up and led her to the couch. He sat down at one end and put the pillow in his lap. “Lay down,” he said. “What are you doing?” she said, wiping her eyes. “Just lay down.” She sat on the edge of the couch and slowly swung her legs around and laid her head down on the pillow on his lap. He kissed her forehead and ran his finger through her long black hair and they stayed like that for several minutes. Just quiet. No sound except for junebugs and a sniffle or two.

“Lauren.” He just said her name. “What?” she said. And for a fleeting moment she looked up at him like a little girl who needed reassurance. Lauren, who was always confident, always reassuring others. “We are going to be fine. We are going to be just fine. And as far as Mr. Johnson goes…he’s an old sentimental man. He loves this place and doesn’t want to see it split up and sold off. Don’t worry about that. I don’t think he’ll pressure us into it. If he does, I’ll talk to him. Let’s take it one step at a time and see what happens. And these boxes, I’ll ask Mr. Johnson if I can take some time to unpack so you don’t have to. We’ll work it out. One step at a time. We’ll be okay. The Lord has taken care of us up to now, he won’t let us down.”

Lauren took a deep breath. “Okay, I know. You are right. I just want the best for this baby. And for us.” She was quiet for a while, then she looked back up at Marcus. “You know how we haven’t been able to come up with a name? I found one. It’s in 2 Samuel 9:12. Look it up. See if you like it.”

More about Marcus Redding’s journey of faith next week.

Marcus Redding's Future?

So Mr. Johnson was telling Marcus and Lauren that he was showing them kindness to honor Marcus’s grandfather. Just like David and Mephibosheth. That was how he started their dinner table conversation on this, the first night they would spend in their new home. But Mr. Johnson had more to say.

“Three months ago Carl said he was leaving. He’s worked for me longer than you two have been alive. Wasn’t sure what I’d do without him. He’s like my right arm. He runs this place. He’s as much a part of this ranch as the trees and the trails and this house. See, I’m an old man. I never married. I don’t have kids. My nieces and nephews are not interested in this place. They live in Austin and they have bumper stickers on their hybrid cars that say ‘Keep Austin Weird.’” All three of them laughed. “So Carl leaving forced me to think about the future. I didn’t want to just sell this place to whoever. I wanted to pass this place on to someone. To a family. So I started to pray about it. Wasn’t sure really what to do, I just prayed and prayed for wisdom. James 1:5 you know.”

Then he reached into his back pocket and produced a piece of paper. It had lines where it had been folded. It was wrinkled and worn. But from the way he handled it, it seemed to be important. He put it down on the table and smoothed it out and looked at it carefully. Then he looked up and out the window for a while. He ran his hand through his wavy, silver hair. He gestured for Marcus and Lauren to look at the paper. They scooted their chairs over to his side of the table so they could read it.

At the top Mr. Johnson had written, “Honest and hard working Christian couple. Strong work ethic. Organized. Self-starters. Eye for detail.” Under that were two lists. Written in pencil. Each list had five items.

“He has to: be self-disciplined, work within a budget, handle physical labor, take care of livestock, willing to learn all aspects of ranch management. She has to: be a good organizer, relate and communicate well, be a good administrator, have above average computer skills, be a good housekeeper and cook.”

“I was hoping for a couple like this. So Marcus when I heard about your name, well I already knew a lot about you. And Lauren, I know Mr. Condlefur up at TJC so I called him to find out about you. Then it turns out my niece went to school with your mother Ruth. And she couldn’t say enough good things about her.”

He hesitated and looked at Marcus, “This might be a little much right now, you might not think of it this way, and I’m not putting pressure on you with this, but I just wanted you to know what was on my mind. If this works out. If y’all like it here…I’d like to honor the memory of Sam Redding by doing something for his family. This place can be yours someday.”

Marcus and Lauren were stunned. Was this really happening? Were they really in their little apartment a few weeks ago? Had Marcus hit dead end after dead end looking for work? Was this man really offering them steady work for Marcus, part-time work for Lauren so she could stay at home with the baby, and what seemed like a pretty secure future?

Marcus spoke up, “Mr. Johnson, thank you for all this. Thank you. It’s a lot to think about right now, especially with the baby coming and all. Let Lauren and I talk about it and pray about it and we’ll talk with you again. We appreciate it very much.”

“I understand.” He stood up and shook Marcus’s hand and put his arm around Lauren and gave her a side hug. “We’ll talk about it more later. See you at 6 in the morning at my house Marcus.”

More about Marcus Redding’s journey of faith next week.