Valley of the Shadow by Tom Pawlik Page A

guess I was afraid she’d think I was…”
        “Crazy?”
        Conner peered at the pastor with a raised eyebrow.
        Lewis gave a sheepish smile. “Yeah, she called this morning to ask for prayer. She didn’t share any details. But she said you had told her an incredible story.”
        “She did, eh?”
        Lewis held up a hand. “Now she loves you very much and has a great deal of respect for you. She didn’t seem to think you were crazy. She’s been praying desperately for you, over four years now. You may not know it, but we all have.”
        “Praying?”
        “For your soul. Your salvation.”
        This was a new thought for Conner. He knew Marta loved him, but it never dawned on him that she had actually been praying for him. And what was more, had even gotten her whole church involved. He felt a brief flash of annoyance at the idea of all these strangers imposing on his private life this whole time. Knowing personal details about him. Praying for him without his permission.
        But then another thought struck him. The story of the Prodigal Son that he’d read recently. How the father had longed for his child and yearned for him all the while he was gone. Watching for him, praying for him, even while he was off living the high life. Before he’d even repented. That wasn’t imposition. It was just… love.
        Lewis cleared his throat. “You know, Conner, I was once an agnostic myself.”
        “You were?”
        Lewis nodded. “I taught philosophy at Notre Dame. Like you, I didn’t become a Christian until later in life. I was thirty-six.”
        “So what happened?”
        “My conversion wasn’t nearly as dramatic as yours—although I did nearly die in a car accident. That’s what helped me turn the corner, so to speak. But really, my conversion was the product of pure grace.” His smile broadened. “And thirty-six years of a faithful mother’s prayers.”
        “That’s perseverance.”
        “You have no idea.” Lewis chuckled. “So you and I are pretty similar. Both former agnostics. Both of us prayed into heaven by the women who loved us.”
        Conner’s lips curled up slightly. Then he grew serious again. “So when you had your accident… did you… experience anything? see or hear anything?”
        “No. My heart never stopped. I never lost consciousness. But as I was pinned inside that car waiting for someone to come along and find me, I felt a sense of fear. I mean an overwhelming feeling of pure dread. Like someone had dropped a huge blanket over me. Just covering me in complete darkness. Smothering darkness.”
        Conner swallowed. A chill skittered down his back for a moment as he recalled standing at the edge of the abyss, gazing into that vast, unending darkness. A darkness that could almost be felt. More than just an absence of light, as though it were a physical thing. He shuddered.
        Lewis went on. “It was like getting a peek into a place where you were completely alone. A place void of even the presence of God.” He breathed a deep sigh. “I knew then and there that I needed to get serious about my agnosticism.”
        Conner looked up. “What do you mean?”
        “I realized I’d been a lazy agnostic. I had convinced myself it was impossible to know God without making sure it really was impossible.”
        Conner nodded. “You can never be sure you can’t know something.”
        Lewis chuckled. “Exactly. I came to the realization that all my arguments against God’s existence were purely…” He seemed to search for a word. “Purely operational. I saw all the evil and tragedy going on around me and thought that if God existed, He wouldn’t allow any of this to occur. And since it was occurring, He couldn’t be real.”
        “That was me, too,” Conner said. “That’s exactly where I was.”
        “My entire argument was based