All Things New

by Lynn Austin

For all of her twenty-two years, Jo had tried to be good and to do what the Bible said, but God hadn’t paid her any notice. Nor had He answered a single one of her prayers during these unending years of war. She had asked Him to protect her two brothers as they’d marched off to battle, but Samuel had been killed, and no one had heard from Daniel in weeks. She had begged God to watch over Daddy after the Home Guard drafted him for duty, but he’d died of pneumonia last winter. Josephine had pleaded with the Almighty to watch over her and Mary and their mother, three women left all alone on their sprawling plantation, outnumbered by slaves. In reply, He’d sent a flood of Yankees into the countryside, forcing her family to flee here to Richmond for safety. She didn’t know if she would ever see White Oak Plantation again. In the months since they’d lived here with Aunt Olivia, crowded in with other refugee relatives, Josephine had fervently prayed for their daily bread and deliverance from evil, but famine and fear had moved into this house on Church Hill along with them. Dawn never arrived; the long nightmare refused to end. And so Josephine had decided in church yesterday morning that prayer was a waste of time. The Almighty would do whatever He wanted, heedless of her pleas. She wouldn’t ask for protection from the fire or the spreading chaos or the Yankee invasion. A person who had the chair yanked out from beneath her countless times no longer tried to sit down.

“Think of how dark it must have seemed to Jesus’s disciples after Calvary,” Hattie said. “Their Messiah was dead. All hope was gone. But then resurrection came on Easter Sunday, not just for Christ but for all of us. The Almighty has kept us safe throughout this day, and we can trust Him for tomorrow.”

Jo still believed in God; only a fool could deny the existence of a Creator. But she no longer believed in prayer or in a God who cared about her suffering. It was time to bury her childish faith in a God who was her loving Father, watching over her, doing what was best for her. As far as she was concerned, He was as distant and unreachable as her own beloved father.

“Hard work and suffering’s bad enough, but losing people you love is the heaviest load you’ll ever carry.”

“Everything is different now, Lizzie. I think I should learn how to grow our own food in case you decide to leave us, too.” As the idea took shape, Josephine realized how much she liked the thought of making something happen for once, instead of waiting for things to happen to her. She could decide her own fate and work to grow food herself instead of slowly starving.

It occurred to Josephine that all these changes must be hard for her, too. Their circumstances had reversed: Lizzie had been set free, and now Josephine was the one enslaved in a world of poverty and uncertainty. Since neither God nor her daddy was taking care of her anymore, Jo would have to take care of herself—beginning with growing her own food.

Maybe there had been holes and empty places in her old life, too, and she had just never noticed. Holes in her practical knowledge of how her food was grown and gaps in her usefulness, as well. How had knowing how to play the piano or paint with watercolors or engage in polite conversation helped her or her family through the bitter years of war? And how would those skills help anyone now?