I wrote this short story a few weeks ago, simply trying to extend my writing style. I haven't revised it, but I thought I'd post it on here anyways.
Leah smacked bright lipstick on her lips and walked over to the kitchen. Opening the fridge door, she scanned the few remaining items in it, hoping to scrape up enough food for a small sandwich. She took out a jar of cherry jam and spread it on bread. She opened the container of peanut butter, but it took a couple tries to open, she figured the peanut butter must have been just as tired as she felt. She slipped her finished product--a peanut butter and jelly sandwich--into a paper bag and headed for the door. As she reached for the door, she started wondering how her life had gone this way. Leah remembered when she was a little child and attending church. God had felt so real to her there--what happened to Him? Or, maybe a better question was--what happened to her?
She started her car engine and pulled out of her driveway. It wasn’t far to her work, and, even though she didn’t enjoy her job, it paid. She needed that pay desperately. After a few minutes she pulled into a parking spot, got out of her car, and started walking towards a massive building. A casino.
Her coworkers greeted her as she approached, though they, too, looked worn at the thought of another day of work. Working at the casino took a lot out of a person. Most were grateful for a job in the tough economical times they were going through, but even so there were those who were lazy at their job, sitting around all day long. Leah certainly wasn’t one of those.
She grabbed a silver tray of refreshments and mingled through the crowd, peeling a fake smile on her red lips as she chatted with customers. Yet throughout the day, her mind wandered a different direction from usual. She earnestly tried to think of something else, anything else, but no matter what she did, she couldn’t help thinking of her Bible. She knew it lay in a drawer on her dresser, collecting dust after years of abandonment. How long had it been since she had last flipped open the worn pages of the book? Her Bible was the very same one she had as a child, when her faith was strong and seemingly unbreakable. Her life had been good back then. She attended church regularly, read her Bible on her own, with vivid interest in it, and she had a loving family. Some of her friends had parents who had divorced, but not her parents. Her parents had always loved each other, and, most importantly, each had a deep love for God. Her life had been good, until one ugly, deadly word shook her world forever. Cancer.
“Hey, did you hear me?” Leah jerked back into the present, remembering that she was supposed to be serving customers refreshments. “Sorry,” Leah spoke up, “Can you please repeat that?” A customer standing in front of her sighed loudly and spoke up again. “I asked if you had any more of the jelly crescents.” Leah glanced down at her silver platter of refreshments, silently reminding herself that the platter was almost empty and she needed to go in the back and get some more. “Sure thing, I’ll be right back,” Leah promised her customer.
She walked slowly into the back room, carefully picking up an assortment of refreshments with prongs. After delivering the crescent, she talked with the customers, keeping them happy, finally able to erase the thoughts of the past from her mind.
Leah stood in front of a small mirror, unwinding from a long day of work at the casino. She took her ponytail out of her long blonde hair and and combed her hair. Leah flipped her shoes off her feet and, not bothering to untie them, tossed them in a small corner of the apartment. She sat on the side of her twin sized bed, staring into space. Her eyes wandered automatically to a picture on her desk. In it, Leah stood, grinning, arms around her mother. A green field surrounded them, filled with red and yellow flowers. She was 11 years old in the picture, but she could still clearly remember when the picture was taken. It was a year and 8 days later that she found out the news that changed her life forever.
She had just come back from soccer practice and came into the living room, sweating yet delighted to tell her mother that she had scored two goals in the game. Her mother was sitting on the couch, obviously waiting for Leah to get home from soccer. Before Leah could tell her mother about her soccer goals, she noticed tear stains on her mother’s face. Her mother silently motioned for her to sit on the couch, attempting a feeble smile. Her mother told her she had lung cancer and the doctor said she had eight months to live. She only survived for four months.
Leah sighed, wondering how it was possible that her life had been a wreck from that day on to now, 16 years ago. Leah was sure that she’d have her life together by the time she was 20, but now that she was 28, she knew her life would never be the same again.
Her black and white cat, Lucy, jumped on her lap, kneading and purring. She smiled--Lucy could always cheer her up on a rainy day. Leah’s eyes fell on her desk, knowing what the drawer held. She slowly shuffled off the bed and over by the drawer and, ever so slowly, opened it. Inside was her navy blue Bible. Some pages were torn, the cover was nearly falling off, the pages ruffled, yet the top was covered in dust. Picking it up, she blew gently on it, getting rid of some of the dust that had collected over the years. “It’s such a big book...I wonder where I should start, or even if I should start at all...” Leah pondered, staring at the book. Her slim finger smoothly ran across the worn outline of the book, stopping suddenly at the feeling of silk. She glanced where her fingers had touched and realized there was a bookmark slipped inside one of the pages. She figured this was the best place to start as any--it must have been one of her favorite Bible verses as a child. Too bad she couldn’t remember any of the many she’d memorized back when she was young--when she still believed.
She carefully flipped the Bible open to the bookmarked page, and her eyes jumped to the verses highlighted with a faded yellow color. Romans 8:37-39. She read, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
She drew and exhaled a long breath as she finished reading the verse. She quickly reread the last bit, in case she’d read it wrong the first time, “nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Scoffing, she set the book down, almost regretting she’d read it in the first place at all. She thought back to the days before her mother’s death...she had prayed every night since she’d heard the news for God to spare her mother’s life. She knew He was capable of it. But He didn’t. “I guess He didn’t care enough to, doesn’t care about me anymore. Maybe He once did but...definitely not anymore.” She had always convinced herself. So why trust in God again? He had let her down once already. What was the point in it? It only made her life worse--it had bought her here, hadn’t it? In a lonely secluded part of Colorado.
So why had her mother trusted in God, even to her dying breath? Her mother had always taught her that God was the One who gave life--she’d even sang in church lyrics that said, “You give and take away, oh You give and take away, Lord blessed be Your name,” but could she really bless His name when He took something like that away? Wasn’t that too much? She sat on her bed once more, uncomfortably struggling with the idea that maybe she was the one who had made her life how it was by not trusting in God. She tossed the thought around in her head for hours, finally coming to the conclusion that she could at least give God a chance. Leah was done with trying to do things her own way--it failed too many times in the past to count.
She got down on her knees and prayed to God, asking for His forgiveness. She knew she strayed far from Him. She knew she blamed Him. But she also knew that she was going to change that. She faintly remembered a verse in the Bible saying that God would forgive sins. She was in an ocean of her own sins, drowning, needing an anchor to hang tightly on to.
After her prayer, she picked up her Bible once more, this time with a different attitude. Instead of scoffing, she smiled, realizing the pages inside it might contain something she’d been missing for most of her life. After she read for an hour, she got up refreshed, finding more meaning to her life than ever before. She still missed her mother, she doubted the pain from losing her mother would ever fully fade. But this time she didn’t feel so lonely when she felt the pang of missing her mother, because she knew God was there for her. She was at peace with herself, and she was at peace with God.
