No Legal Grounds by James Scott Bell Page B

paused, waiting for a feeling that he was being heard.
Silence.
“Protect my family, Lord. I’m asking. I’m seeking. I’m knocking. I don’t know what else to do, but I’m praying with everything I have now.”
He stayed there until his eyes grew heavy. He lay down on the couch, and when he finally fell asleep, he dreamed. In the dream he was dressed in a suit and tie, but he wasn’t in court. He was on a desolate road. Miles away from any courthouse or city, that’s all he knew.
And then, from the shadowy distance, a car. Coming toward him.
A strange voice whispered in his head.
Sammy . . .
9.
    He kept the prayers circulating in his head at church. Sam was exhausted but relieved — Max had been in an ebullient mood as he went off to the junior high worship. The unpleasantness at the ball field was apparently ebbing for Max. Thank the Lord for little things.
    And even though Heather was still in her room at home, her issues unresolved, Sam felt he’d made some sort of faith breakthrough. He felt his early morning prayers were more honest and open than ever before.
    Surely, God heard those kind of prayers and did something about them. That was the deal, wasn’t it?
He was glad to be with Linda at church. It felt like home base, the settled encampment on the treacherous mountain. Here he would regroup and begin to rebuild his family.
It was Linda who had found Solid Rock, the church at the west end of the San Fernando Valley. She’d come with a friend shortly after her conversion to Christ. The night Sam found himself listening to Don Lyle one on one, he was moved. Sam had heard a lot of great courtroom lawyers in his day, but none would have been able to touch this guy. He didn’t speak with the forced emotional tones Sam heard in so many TV preachers, which rang false for him.
No, this older man’s words came out of an obvious and firm conviction. His speaking seemed forged on the hard anvil of life lived and victories won, in the power of God, over and over.
He read to Sam from the Bible, words Sam would never forget. “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
That text grabbed Sam in his trial lawyer’s heart. Demolishing arguments was what he did for a living. Pastor Lyle went on to talk about the power of Christian thought for those who believe, but how it all seemed like foolishness to those who rejected Christ.
This was a reasonable man who could defend his beliefs, the type of Christian Sam could respect.
At the end of the two-hour meeting, Sam had decided — not really knowing when the moment of decision hit — to follow his wife into the Chris tian faith.
This morning Don’s sermon was from Ephesians, chapter 1 . He emphasized that all spiritual blessings in Christ are with Christians now. We don’t have to wait until heaven.
That comforted Sam. Now if he could just keep believing it.
During the final worship song, an usher appeared at Sam’s row and held something up. Sam couldn’t tell what it was. The usher handed it to the person at the end of the row, and it got passed down to Sam.
It was an offering envelope with Sam Trask written in ink on the front. The envelope was unsealed. Sam looked inside and found a folded piece of white paper. He opened it. And his heart spiked.
On the paper was written, I forgive you, Sam. Nicky.
10.
    “You sure you want to do this?” Roz said.
“Let’s just go.” Heather threw her duffel bag in the back of
Roz’s Mustang convertible and got in. “I just need to get away for
a while.”
“What about your dad?”
“He said I couldn’t drive. He didn’t say anything about you.” “You think just like him.”
“Huh?”
“A