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Heaven Help Helen Sloane

Zondervan

Chapter One

Great. I've begun. Here goes.

I, Helen Sloane, have now joined the ranks of the thoughtful literati who keep a journal. In the pages that follow I shall chronicle (hopefully with winsome wit and flair) the hopes, dreams, fears, successes, and failures that unfold in the coming year. Who knows what stunning riches of wisdom might flow from my two-fingered typing as I reflect here upon my journey? Great trees grow out of tiny acorns ...

Tonight I'm totally exhausted from my first day back at work after the Christmas break, so the odds are against me writing anything that might win a Nobel Prize for literature. Perhaps tomorrow.

Life as a newly qualified social worker (two months in the job, working on the Children's Ser vices Team) is demanding. The holiday break already seems like ancient history. Tonight my head's buzzing with client updates, court papers, chatter from today's team strategy meeting, and what seems like an entire filing cabinet of case notes.

Add to this my role as a small-group leader in Frenton-on-Sea's New Wave Christian Fellowship (someone obviously thought that the "new wave" maritime play on words was a bright idea), plus the demands of my busy social calendar, and the result is a frantic life navigated at high speed. I hardly have time to breathe, never mind think, pray, or reflect.

Hence this diary. I've thought about keeping a diary/ journal before, but the notion seemed vaguely antique, the kind of activity that Edwardian English women would engage in (alongside needlepoint and yelling at servants). I am an Englishwoman living in England; I tried needle-point once and nearly bled to death, and it goes without saying that I am somewhat short of servants. Nevertheless, a diary I shall keep.

The diary idea came from my mildly kooky best friend Vanessa, who came up with the idea last Saturday during our New Year's Day lunch together. Vanessa.

Vee is beautiful. The quintessential Californian girl, Vee is blessed with bouncy long blond hair, soaring cheekbones, and impossibly aqua-blue eyes. She is utterly gorgeous, and quite unaware of it, which makes her even lovelier. Her skin seems to tan at the slightest hint of sun, which is helpful for an American like her living in England, where sunshine is usually just that—a hint. She has perfect legs that seem to stretch into eternity. And speaking of the eternal, she is one of the few females on earth who makes a black T-shirt (with the words Rapture Ready emblazoned across it in silver lettering) actually look good.

Vanessa also is blessed with teeth to die for. They are brilliant white, and perfectly straight, like piano keys.

I'm glad that Vanessa's beauty doesn't intimidate me. Despite my being two sizes larger than she is, and even though she is stunning in her tight black jeans and scarlet leather jacket over that black T-shirt (charity store treasures that look a million dollars on Vee), I always feel comfortable about how I look when we're together.

Vee came to Frenton five years ago as part of a short-term youth mission team that was sent over from California. She decided to stay. Or, as she so simply put it, "God commanded her to put down firm roots in this ancient nation and help re-dig the wells of the Spirit that have been blocked by unbelief since the Saxons." She works in Frenton's trendiest fashion store, Cats, and says that her getting a British employment visa was nothing short of a miracle and is "confirmation that she is surely experiencing the favor and anointing of God." (Am not sure how she's doing at unblocking the unbelieving wells, but her beauty and trendy Californian accent certainly help her to consistently be salesperson of the month at Cats.)

I'm really not sure what those naughty Saxons did to constipate the spiritual wells of the land, but I'm really glad that Vee stayed. And it would surely have taken a direct order from God to inspire anyone to exchange the golden beaches and shimmering blue skies of San Diego for the bleak promenade of oh-so-English Frenton. Anyway, we've become very close, Vee and me. Her kindness eclipses her weirdness, which means she is very kind indeed. And she does make me laugh a lot—sometimes with her, sometimes at her.

Vanessa goes to the big happening church in town, Infusion, which has a high-energy worship team and an age demographic of about twelve. I have been tempted to go there myself, but the band seems to be on Duracells, and I don't think I could maintain that level of consistent ecstasy. I love to worship, and the calorie burn that would result from all the flag waving and worship dancing would be beneficial, but right now I don't have any spare energy.

So, on Saturday we were having lunch in Marinabean, our coffee shop of choice—mainly because it's Frenton-on-Sea's only decent coffee shop, Frenton being a tad behind in the designer-caffeine craze. We have a few rather homely seafront cafés that serve lots of steaming cups of tea to pensioners, but they also turn out horrid instant coffee that tastes like Brazilian mud. Hence our patronage of Marinabean.

Marinabean is comfortable, but not plush. An exhausted leather sofa languishes in the corner, torn and tarnished by too many bored, smoothie-sipping teenagers. Colorful posters of coffee beans caught spilling out of branded sacks adorn the vanilla walls. A huge Italian espresso machine, which looks like a shiny brass steam engine, dominates a marble countertop. Moist pastries and muffins line up in a glass display, manna from heaven, temptation from hell. It's homey, and a little incongruous; Seattle comes to Frenton, but not quite.

The place was hopping, but we bagged the round smoked-glass table we call "ours" in the window bay, ideal for the delicious sport of people watching. Elderly Elton John droned on, too loudly, insisting that Saturday night is all right for fighting. As usual, we asked the rather overweight, pimply teenager who sports a Barry the Barista badge to turn the music down. As usual, he agreed, and then didn't. We didn't mind too much.

We chattered on about nothing much for a while, and then Vee flashed her "I wanna get spiritual" expression that warned me that we were now moving on to more profound issues.

"So, Helen, mate, what are your hopes for the coming year?"

I always wince just a little when she says "mate." It's a habit she's picked up over the years that she's been in England, in a kind of I-can-talk-like-a-native way, but it sounds odd, forced. It's like the English saying "Have a nice day" when they return from a vacation in Florida; it sounds wrong somehow.

I glanced out the window, and as is usual for Frenton, it was raining hard. Beads of water clung to the cloudy glass, and reluctant shoppers hurried by, hunched against the cold, eager to get their stuff and get home. I looked down into my coffee cup for inspiration, desperate to say something weighty and profound.

Vanessa didn't wait for me to answer. "I just know we're going to see great things. I'm determined to do something that makes a difference—something with a clear impact. I want demons to tremble and angels to dance." Just the thought of such exciting happenings made her grin and wiggle. "What about you?"

"Hmmm ... I guess I do want to try to get fit. Lose a few pounds—say fifteen. Just enough to get fit and thin. Not waiflike à la Keira Knightley—she probably only eats once a month - but just enough to enable me to be rescued from a blazing inferno by a gorgeous fireman without giving him a double hernia." I waggled my eyebrows in appreciation of the thought.

Vee rolled her eyes. "Jesus never owned a treadmill, and John the Baptist—he who prepared the way of the Lord—didn't do Atkins."

Vital information, although I was tempted to comment about all that low-carb snacking on locusts and wild honey. Instead I stirred my cappuccino, as if some clever words about the year to come might suddenly appear in the froth. For some reason, I remembered Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty parting his soup, Red Sea style, and fantasized for a moment about performing a miracle with the froth. And then, for a weird nanosecond, I fantasized about Jim Carrey. Vanessa nudged me.

"It's good to want to lose a little weight, Helen, but God wants you to grow spiritually this year. And spiritual growth comes from considered reflection. Saint Simeon Stylites, the ancient ascetic, sat on top of a pole for many years in complete solitude, covered in sores and crusted in his own filth. His only contact with the rest of the world was a bucket used for receiving food and disposing of his ... well, you know. But I bet that man knew himself and knew his God."

I thought that rancid old Simeon probably didn't know anyone else apart from himself and God, what with those hygiene habits, but I said nothing. I quietly decided that poop buckets and parking on poles would not play any part in my life this year and then realized with a pang of yet more guilt that I'm useless at discipline of any kind.

Vanessa started talking about a book on spiritual discipline that she's been reading. "It's completely fantastic, Helen. It's really fueled my prayer life. And I can't wait to get into a more regular habit of fasting."

I've read the same book, and it just made me feel like an utter failure, worthy of wearing a sackcloth miniskirt and a pile of ashes on my head. Like many Christians, I'm really, really good at feeling really, really guilty, which means that something is amiss, seeing as the gospel is supposed to be good news. Sometimes my knees buckle under the tyranny of Christian oughts. I ought to pray more, ought to give more, care more, love more ...

Life without so many oughts occasionally sounds rather delicious.

And abstaining from food is never going to be something that I look forward to. I stifled the uncomfortable thought that there are moments when I wish I had never become a Christian in the first place. Life without faith might be pointless, but it would, perhaps, be less complicated. Pointlessness can sound quite attractive, at least as a temporary condition. This thought lands in my brain every now and again, more a feeling than a stream of logic, and I mentally swat it like a pesky mosquito. I feel guilty for even writing it down now.

Anyway, I instinctively bristle at the use of the word spiritual, as in spiritual disciplines. I don't think that we should chop our lives up into sacred and secular slices. Surely God is interested in all of our lives—our bodies, fun, leisure, work, and relationships—not just the bit that we mistakenly designate as holy or spiritual. But I didn't say any of this. I listened as Vee put her hand on my arm and urged me towards austerity.

"Helen, can you remember the last time God clearly answered one of your prayers?"

"Uh ..." I racked my brains for a second or two. "Nothing comes to mind. I know, maybe I should pray for a better memory, and then, when I get it, I'd remember to be grateful."

It was then that Vanessa said she was convinced that a journal would help my amnesiac tendencies. Her advice was blunt: "Make a commitment, Helen. Write stuff down every day."

Her idea clicked with me immediately because I've got a good feeling about this year and I don't want to miss a moment. Plus a daily appointment with my laptop beats buckets and poles hands down.

It's just the discipline thing that's the challenge.

Vanessa stirred her drink and took a sip. "I've been praying a lot. And I'm positive good things are coming. This will be the year of breakthrough."

"The year of breakthrough." Sounds very nice. I have to be honest, though—call me Thomas if you like (the doubting disciple, not the train)—I'm not sure about the way Vanessa gives each year a spiritual tag. We've been friends for ages, so over the last few years she's made a few predictions, and I'm not convinced that they've been fulfilled. Last year was supposed to be the "year of harvest" and the one before that was the "year of an open heaven," which followed the "year of refreshing." Maybe she's right, but all this sounds a bit Chinese to me ("year of the rat" and all that) and I can't honestly say that we've seen too much spiritual harvest or notable refreshing in Frenton-on-Sea. And the only open heaven we experienced two years ago was a record rainfall in August. The deluge washed half the beach away and left piles of stinking seaweed, which I don't think was much of a blessing, unless you're into do-it-yourself seaweed spa wraps.

Vanessa was on a roll. "The year of breakthrough. God is going to do something in Frenton that will reverberate around the nations and traumatize the very powers of hell."

I do love her, but it's unlikely that our rather grey little town with half a windswept pier is going to become the epicenter of God's purposes for Planet Earth. I feel guilty for questioning Vanessa's enthusiasm. And yet, when does asking questions about this stuff become cynicism? When does not asking questions become sheer stupidity? I can't help thinking that questions help us toward a more realistic, mature faith. So why does asking them make me feel so guilty?

I suddenly realized that two of my very favorite people —Vanessa and my mother—are both quite odd when it comes to spiritual issues, but for totally different reasons. I wondered if this is why I feel confused about faith so much of the time.

Vanessa paused for a breath, and I jumped in. "Okay, then, here's something: this year I am going to follow a 'Read through the entire Bible in one year' course. In fact I've already started—this morning I read Genesis chapters 1 through 4." I looked at her triumphantly and refrained from adding that I'd read it all in thirty-seven seconds. Perhaps I should do a "Read through the entire Bible in forty-five minutes even if you take a five-minute coffee break" course instead.

Vanessa decided to end our lunch with a peppy word of encouragement. "Grab the moment, Helen. Make some good decisions about how your life will be. Carpe diem, and all that. The hour is late. We're surely in the end times."

I do find her Second Coming theories as excruciating as chalk being scraped on a blackboard. Not wanting to get into a lengthy conversation about Israel and temples being rebuilt and the signs of the times, I used one of my proven techniques, and changed the conversation with a shocking statement. It's the verbal equivalent of grabbing the steering wheel and pointing the car down a side street.

"I know what I want this year, Vee. I want a man. And I want sex."

Well I think that's it for today. I am feeling rather happy to have completed my first diary entry. A good start. I'm excited about the unswerving discipline that I'll employ to record my thoughts every day without fail, absolutely. I vow it solemnly to God, mark my words, so be it.

Lord, here's my year. Stay close. Amen.

Wednesday, January 5

Woke up feeling very slightly irritated. I love Vanessa, but our conversation didn't end so well. My moment of brutal honesty about men and sex prompted Vanessa to give me a short, kind, and completely unnecessary little talking to about sex outside of marriage, which was caring and pointless. I've given the same talk to others many times, so I know the script. I wish that Christians would sometimes avoid the temptation to fix everything and everybody; perhaps we'd be a little more honest with each other if we felt that a little raw self-disclosure wouldn't be instantly countered with well-meaning advice.

Besides, I don't want to be immoral, just intimate.

I want to have sex, preferably while I am still young enough to experience it without dying during the process. My confession to Vee makes me feel like Helen "the scarlet woman/brazen hussy" Sloane, fit only to hang out with Rahab the harlot, or even that Jezebel who was snacked on by dogs. But actually that's not the way it is.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Heaven Help Helen Sloane by Jeff Lucas Copyright © 2012 by Jeff Lucas. Excerpted by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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