Where Sheep May Safely Graze

Amy stood in the dimly lit narthex. The day was warm for March, and she could hear the faint hum of the air-conditioning. From the sanctuary came the strains of Bach's, Jesu Joy Of Man’s Desiring, that beautiful tribute to the ultimate love that is God. She had played it many times for others who had stood where she stood now, but not until she had met Jim had she understood just what this moment of joy could mean.
In a matter of minutes Amy Brandt would be gone, and Amy Miller would take her place. No longer would she be Amy, the lonely child raised in the quiet of her grandmother's home, following the sudden death of her parents.
"I'll do my best by you, child," Grandma had told her the day of her parents' funeral, "but I'm an old woman. Your mama came along when I'd lost all hope of a child. Your grandpa and I could hardly believe it. She was the apple of his eye, as they say. He only had a few years to be with her, though, before God called him home. Now, here you are."
Amy had to fight the desire to tell her that she hadn't chosen to be there.
Grandma went on, winding a ball of blue yarn as she talked.
"Who would believe that both your mama and daddy would be taken at once like that, in an accident that wasn't their fault?"
"Whose fault was it, Grandma?" Amy had asked, struggling to push away the tears that kept trying to fall. She wanted to understand why those bright, loving presences had suddenly become the cold, lifeless things she had seen at the funeral home.
"It wasn't anybody's fault," Grandma had almost whispered, and Amy had seen tears in her large brown eyes, so like her own. "There was ice on the road. It just looked like the road was wet. Black ice, they call it. A lot of people are fooled, just like your daddy was."
It wasn't the answer the ten-year-old Amy had wanted, but she had been unable to express what she wanted to know. Why was she left alone? Deep in her heart she knew Grandma loved her, yet she never seemed able to show it.
In years to come, Amy sometimes marveled that she had never blamed God for taking her parents. She could only suppose that it had been the early training, the prayer, the Bible reading that had been such an important part of that life with her parents.
"Always remember," her father, a pastor, had told her, "that God has a plan for our lives. Sometimes, like when your kitten died, it is hard for us to understand His purpose, and often we never see it. Amy, never forget that, no matter what, He is in control."
Although she had cried quietly in the night, the little girl had accepted her loss. She had missed her parents, and had wanted it to be a bad dream, still, she couldn't remember ever blaming God.
She had tried to be grateful for Grandma, but sometimes it had been hard.
"Why can't I go to Karen's party?" the thirteen-year-old Amy had asked.
"Because I said so." With Grandma, that was the only necessary answer.
It was much later before Amy realized that Karen's parents didn't live the way the parents of most of her friends lived. They sometimes had violent arguments, and took drugs, in front of Karen and her friends.
She would have understood if Grandma had explained, but she had gone on, frowning at the potato she was scrubbing, without a word of explanation. On the night of the party, Amy was not at all grateful to God for Grandma.
Even now, standing in the quiet church, Amy wondered what her life would have been like without her music. She had started lessons when she was five, and by the time she was eight, she had been ready to play for a church service, even the intricate service music. Grandma had never understood how the music spoke to her very soul. Amy knew, though, that Grandma was proud of her ability when she used some of the insurance money from her parents for the best teachers she could find. She had stubbornly refused to touch the money for anything else, no matter how hard Amy had begged.
"Only God knows what he's got down the road for you, Amy," she had said to Amy's plea for the latest model of computer. “I'm saving your money. A body needs money in this world."
Amy had buried herself in her music, never doubting where it would take her. She would use it to the glory of God. After graduating from Murray Conservatory of Music, she had gone to the seminary.
"You surely don't mean to be a pastor!" Grandma had seemed almost scandalized when she told her she wanted to go to the seminary.
"No, Grandma," Amy had said, smiling, "I want to be a minister of music. Pity the poor congregation that would have to listen to me preach every Sunday."
"But blessed is the one that will hear you play," Grandma had surprised her by saying.