Refined by Fire Page 5

  Meredith rolled her eyes. Had it been so long since Connor moved East that he forgot how efficient Michiganders were at weathering a storm?

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Should she be touched that he was concerned for her or annoyed that even now a member of the board of directors was trying to give her orders? Telling her what to do? Meredith hadn’t realized until now how many years she’d spent afraid to make any major decision. She’d gotten into the habit of calculating each step with how much mental energy it would take to get the directors to agree. How many ideas had she conceived in prayer times that she immediately discarded because she knew the board would never approve?

  She was free from all that now. Connor and the others made that very clear at yesterday’s meeting. She didn’t have to submit to them anymore. Didn’t have to weigh every decision she made against the group’s opinion.

  The gate attendant made an announcement.

  “Listen,” Meredith said, ready to wrap up this call, “I’ve got to go. We’re just about ready to board.”

  “I still don’t think you should get on that flight. It doesn’t seem safe…”

  Another announcement. Couldn’t Connor hear that on his end of the line? “They’re calling us now,” Meredith told him. “Thanks for checking in, but I’ve got to go.”

  “Meredith, wait …”

  She ended the call but continued to stare at Connor’s name on her screen. What had that been all about?

  “Flight 219 to Detroit, now boarding.”

  Meredith took in a deep breath. Finally decided that Connor’s concern for her safety was probably remnant guilt for what happened at the Living Grace board meeting yesterday. It was kind of him to be concerned, but a classic case of too little too late.

  Meredith gripped the handle of her carry-on.

  She had a plane to catch.

  CHAPTER 18

  Flight 219

  Silence.

  Meredith’s ears strained for the deafening burst of Bradley’s bullet, for the sound of Grandma Lucy’s body hitting the cabin floor with a thud.

  Instead, nothing.

  “His gun doesn’t work,” someone shouted.

  Screams. Chaos. A young man with broad shoulders leaped up. Two others joined him, tackling Bradley to the ground.

  The mother in the seat beside her screamed. Meredith focused her attention on West, wrapping him and his mother up in a bear hug so tight it was impossible to know if it was simply Meredith’s body quivering or if they were all trembling in unison.

  “Dear Jesus,” she prayed, “please keep us safe. Please keep us safe. Please keep us safe.” There was nothing more she could say. Nothing more she could hope for.

  Keep us safe. Keep us safe. Keep us safe.

  Her whole body tensed. Each second, she expected to hear the sound of gunfire. The dying screams of Bradley’s next victim. Each second, she wondered if the hijacker was making his way up the aisle closer to her. Closer to the young family Meredith promised herself to protect.

  Keep us safe. Keep us safe. Keep us safe.

  There was no other prayer appropriate for a time like this. Meredith might have led one of the country’s most popular series of Bible studies for Christian women, but right now her prayer was the same as everyone else’s on this flight.

  Keep us safe. Keep us safe. Keep us safe.

  West was crying, whimpering softly into his mother’s chest. Meredith grabbed his hand and wrapped her arms around them both.

  Keep us safe. Keep us safe. Keep us safe.

  Screams behind her. Terror in the cabin. It was impossible to tell who was yelling out of fear and who was hurt.

  Don’t turn around, Meredith told herself. All her energy was focused on the young mother beside her and the crying small child on her lap. Protecting them. Shielding them.

  Someone cursing. Bradley’s angry yell.

  Don’t turn around. Meredith’s heart pounded in her throat and she in turn could feel the hummingbird wings fluttering in the little boy’s chest pressed up against her.

  Keep us safe. Keep us safe. Keep us safe, she continued to pray.

  And Meredith kept her eyes squeezed shut.

  CHAPTER 19

  Two hours earlier

  Meredith enjoyed having the aisle to herself, at least for now. Time to think. Time to breathe.

  She wanted to get her mind back to the place where it had been before she encountered Grandma Lucy at the gate. Before Connor called and things got weird.

  A ministry for victims of sexual abuse. Homes set up around the country. Compassionate Christian staff trained to offer support and counsel. The ideas had been flowing so quickly at the gate that Meredith could hardly keep her pen moving fast enough, but now she sat motionless and stared at the half-filled page in her journal.

  A visionary at heart, Meredith had never been short on ideas. Never been short on dreams. She’d built up Living Grace from a monthly women’s newsletter for Michigan believers to an international ministry known for its solid, Bible-based resources. Always looking to stretch herself out of her comfort zone, Meredith started blogging before half of Americans had signed up for a personal email account. Hers had been the very first podcast targeted specifically to Christian women, and her books had landed on several major bestseller lists. Even though Meredith recognized it was God’s blessings and his grace that allowed her to achieve each of these accomplishments, she also knew her personality was simply wired that way — to keep on growing, stretching, changing.

  To never stop dreaming.

  Which is what she’d been doing before Grandma Lucy interrupted her earlier. Dreaming about another ministry she could build from the ground up. Meredith would have never willingly stepped away from Living Grace, but maybe her resignation was God’s way of forcing her down a new path. A path she would have never chosen for herself but was now looking forward to with a zeal and excitement she hadn’t experienced in quite a long time. In a way the ministry she started had grown so large that the majority of her energy was focused on administrative duties instead of the real work she felt called to. God had stripped all that away from her, which certainly wasn’t easy, but maybe this was a pruning experience so she could be even more fruitful for the kingdom in the years to come. Meredith had always assumed she’d stay on with Living Grace until she died, but the truth was she’d grown complacent.

  Maybe a change, a new project, a new calling was exactly what she needed.

  So why had her ideas stopped flowing all of a sudden? Had her strange encounter with Grandma Lucy left her that thrown off?

  “Excuse me. Can we get to our seats please?”

  Meredith glanced up at the young mother who was holding onto her son’s hand and smiling apologetically in the aisle.

  “Excuse me,” the woman repeated, stepping aside so Meredith could slip out of her seat to let the two pass. “Do you want the window seat, West?” the mother asked.

  The boy nodded, wide-eyed.

  Meredith and the mother exchanged pleasant smiles. “I’m Meredith.”

  The woman nodded. “I’m Justine.”

  Meredith smiled at the little boy. “And how old are you?”

  He was too busy staring out the window to answer, watching the luggage as it got loaded into the belly of the plane.

  Justine sat in the middle seat and gave Meredith one more smile as they reached for their safety belts at the same time.

  Justine helped her son buckle his belt, and Meredith stared at her journal once more. Where had all her ideas gone?

  “Do you want a drink from your water bottle?” While the young mother attended to her little boy, Meredith reached into her purse to pull out her phone. May as well check her emails one more time before she had to switch to airplane mode.

  I’m worried about you.

  She stared at the message. When had Connor texted her, and why hadn’t she heard her phone beep?


  Maybe you should stay the night here and fly home tomorrow when the weather clears.

  Meredith wasn’t sure if she should be grateful or annoyed. What business was it of Connor’s to begin with?

  Just boarded, she typed back. Then to ease his concerns she added, If the roads are really bad, I’ll get a hotel in Detroit.

  There. That should calm his nerves. When had he gotten so concerned for her well-being, and where was all that protective zeal yesterday when she could have used it in the board room?

  She picked up her pen and decided to add to her list of recruits to help her begin her new phase of ministry. For the past fifteen years, Meredith was convinced that she was one of the few blessed believers fortunate enough to be working in a job that matched her passions and callings perfectly. Was it possible that Living Grace wasn’t her final goal in life but merely practice for this new ministry God was laying out before her?

  She couldn’t remember the last time she felt so excited. So energized. Who knew that getting fired could end up so freeing?

  I want you to call me as soon as you land. Let me know you arrived safely.

  Connor again. Meredith knew that every person handled personal guilt in different ways, but this exaggerated display of concern was starting to annoy her.

  She typed a quick thanks then switched her phone to airplane mode. Beside her, Justine was pulling out a snack of Cheerios for her son, and Meredith turned back toward her journal.

  Time for some more dreaming.

  CHAPTER 20

  Flight 219

  The cabin seemed to let out one collective sigh of relief when the captain announced their landing in Detroit. After a short scuffle following his gun malfunction, Bradley was subdued, bound with zip cords, stashed away somewhere in the back of the plane.

  Meredith was safe.

  She was going home.

  Justine still gripped her son.

  “You should probably make sure he’s buckled in,” Meredith told her gently.

  Justine nodded, wiping tears from her eyes before tightening West’s safety belt. “I just can’t believe it,” she breathed. “Just can’t believe it.”

  “Mommy?” West’s voice was squeaky.

  “Yeah, buddy?”

  “That was a bad guy, right?”

  Justine let out her breath in what sounded like a half-laugh, half-sob. “Yeah. He was a very bad man.”

  “Will the police rest him?” he asked.

  Justine nodded. “Yeah. They’re gonna arrest him.”

  He leaned his head against his mother’s shoulder and shut his eyes. “I wanna go home.”

  Justine responded by wrapping both arms around him. Meredith couldn’t blame her. She’d only known the little boy for a few hours and felt like doing the same. If this was how she felt toward a small child she’d just met, how much more tender and loving did her heavenly Father feel toward her right now?

  The thought left her feeling protected. Cherished.

  But still far from safe.

  Grandma Lucy’s strange prayer at the gate. Connor’s worried texts. Had God been trying to warn her? If Meredith hadn’t been so busy worrying about her past and planning her future, would she have heard his voice more clearly?

  But what could she have done?

  God had known. The second Meredith sat down in this seat, God had known what terror was waiting for her. He knew when the Grand Rapids airport closed, when she stood in line to demand a different flight. All that time, had he been trying to keep her off this plane? Or was this part of his original plan all along?

  On one of her recent podcast episodes, Meredith had answered a listener’s question about prayer. Does it really change God’s mind? The heart of the question, and one which Meredith had heard multiple times phrased in multiple ways, was does prayer actually make a difference? Or does it just give believers peace and a connection to God during difficult times?

  Meredith couldn’t believe that prayer was simply for a Christian’s benefit. There were countless examples in the Bible of God acting in direct response to his children’s prayers. King Hezekiah recovering from what should have been a deadly illness. Even the angel of the Lord agreeing to Abraham’s plea to save Sodom and Gomorrah if enough righteous souls could be found.

  And yet God always knew the future. Always knew what prayers his children were going to pray and how he was in turn going to respond to them. In short, it was a mystery but one which left Meredith even more convinced of the need to pray than otherwise.

  What if Grandma Lucy hadn’t been so bold? Would Bradley’s gun have gone off? Could that one prayer have saved Grandma Lucy’s life? Or had Grandma Lucy only been aligning herself with facts that God had already decreed, with events the Lord had already set in motion?

  Meredith would never have all the answers. But she was glad to know that others were praying for her. With Bradley’s demands being streamed live from the cabin, there was no way other believers on the ground didn’t know about the terror the passengers faced on Flight 219. Had Connor been watching the news? Had he been praying for Meredith specifically?

  For a minute, she pictured him logging onto Living Grace’s multiple social media accounts. Please pray for Meredith, who is one of the passengers on Flight 219. She imagined the thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of Christians praying for her.

  Bring Meredith home safely. Help the other passengers. Be with them all, dear Lord.

  But she’d never given Connor her flight information. All he knew was she was leaving Boston and landing in Detroit. Would that be enough? Did he know? Was he one of the Christians on the ground interceding for her right now?

  And in the end, did it really matter if people were praying for her specifically? Of course, hundreds of thousands of people must know about their flight by now. Bradley’s entire stunt had been to raise awareness to the situation at that Detroit school, and he’d forced dozens of people to record his tirades live on their phones. How many Christians were saying prayers for their safe landing at this exact moment? Those prayers couldn’t be any less effective if they didn’t mention the passengers by name, right?

  “I wanna go home.” West was still crying in the seat beside her, and Justine was doing her best to calm him down even though she was still in tears herself.

  It was time for Meredith to focus on others besides herself. She ran her hand on West’s head. “You’ve been such a brave little guy,” she told him.

  Justine looked up at Meredith and smiled gratefully.

  West’s lower lip quivered.

  “Do you want to know a story about some brave, brave men in the Bible?” Meredith asked. He nodded, and Meredith glanced at his mother to judge her reaction. Justine’s expression didn’t change, so Meredith went on. “Once upon a time, there were three men named Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego. They loved God very much, but the king they worked for was a wicked, wicked man.”

  “Like a bad guy?” West asked with wide eyes.

  In spite of the adrenaline still surging through her body, Meredith found herself smiling. “Yes,” she answered. “Like a bad guy.”

  He nodded sagely, and Meredith continued.

  “The wicked king told Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that they should all bow down to a false god, but they knew the Lord didn’t want them to do that. So do you know what the wicked king did?” Meredith hesitated, wondering if after the trauma they’d all just been through she should have picked a different story. She hadn’t realized she was trembling until West’s mom reached out and rubbed her shoulder, Justine now being the one to comfort Meredith.

  Encouraged by the small gesture, Meredith tried to find a way to explain the next part of the story in language that wouldn’t sound too scary.

  “Help!” A terrified shout from the back of the cabin interrupted her thoughts. Meredith twisted herself in her seat to see what was happening. Had Bradley escaped his bonds?

  “Fire
!” The yell rang out at the same time as a piercing alarm deafened the passengers aboard Flight 219.

  CHAPTER 21

  Meredith had never seen a crowd stampede before. There couldn’t have been more than a couple hundred passengers on board, but every single one of them was clamoring to escape the smoke pouring from the back of the cabin. Shouts of fire and smoke and help mingled with pleas for divine intervention and screams of sheer terror. Every so often, someone cried out in pain as men and women trampled each other in a vain attempt to outrun the smoke and flames.

  The problem was clear. There was nowhere to run. And yet Meredith was one with the crowd, throwing off her seat belt, trying to race forward, forward, forward, away from the black smoke.

  “West!” she recognized the panicked sound of a mother screaming. Justine?

  “West! Has anyone seen my baby?”

  Oh, no.

  Where was he? Where was Justine’s little boy? He’d been right beside Meredith just a moment ago.

  “West!” Meredith raised her voice to join the frantic mother’s. She grabbed the shoulder of a man in a business suit. “A little boy,” she panted. “There’s a little boy missing.”

  The man looked at her with pity but then pried himself away from her grip and pushed his way through the frenzied crowd.

  “West!” Justine’s voice was shrill, a terrified screech that made Meredith’s heart race in her chest.

  God, please help us find him.

  Her eyes stung, and the black smoke was surging closer, closer, closer …

  Another scream as the plane lurched forward. This time it was Meredith. Meredith and every single other passenger on board the doomed flight.

  “He’s bombed the bathroom,” someone shouted, and soon murmurs, shouts, and yells of bomb reverberated through every square inch of the smoke-infused cabin. A bomb? What did that mean? Bombs exploded, right? They didn’t just burn. Did that mean the danger was yet to come?