The Chaplain's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page A

left the high octane world of pharmaceuticals moments like this had come to pass more times than John could count…and every time felt like the first time to the chaplain.  As he watched the tears pour like an ever-flowing stream down the face of Toby Jacks, John uttered a silent prayer of thanks to God.  Thanks for being given the chance to do God’s work, thanks for being led to lost boys (and girls) like the one before him, and thanks for the Good News of God’s love for all of His creation.
     
    John looked at Toby with the tenderness of a newborn father laying eyes on his own child for the first time.  He spoke softly as he answered Toby’s plaintive question.
     
    “Ask him, son.  He will tell you.  He will tell you in quiet ways when you talk to Him at night.  He will tell you through the circumstances of your life as you move on from where you are now.  But tell you He will.  I promise…because He promises.”
     
    John’s allotted visiting hour was almost up.  He could have scheduled more time with Toby but, as good as John was at his job, he wasn’t prescient enough to know when breakthroughs like this were going to happen.  He had another appointment in another tank.  He took Toby’s hands in both of his and said, “Would you like to close with a prayer?  Why don’t you offer the prayer?”
     
    Toby looked a little shocked.  Wasn’t that only for people like John?  Toby had no idea how to pray out loud, or what he was supposed to say.  Toby had heard an expression one time, from his high school basketball coach, and it seemed to apply in this instance.  The coach had said, “There are two kinds of boys.  Trier boys and quitter boys.”  Toby decided to try.  He closed his eyes.
     
    “God, it’s me, Toby.  I’ve been bad. I haven’t tried hard enough to be good.  Will you help me be better?  Thanks.”
     
    John and Toby opened their eyes after Toby’s prayer and beamed at each other.  Toby’s simple words had landed on John’s ears more powerfully than if they had been prophetic utterances from the mouth of Billy Graham.  As for Toby, he was pretty glad that the prayer was over.  The important thing was that he knew that it wouldn’t be the last time, even that day that he talked to God.
     
    The guard let Toby back into the main floor of Tank 2D with an electronic key.  As Toby walked back to his bunk, one of the other inmates stopped him.
     
    “Are you okay, Jacks?”
     
    “Yeah, why?”
     
    “I don’t know.  Your face just looked funny when you came back in.”
     
    Toby smiled to himself as he continued through the dayroom of 2D.  What had happened in the visiting room was something that he needed to keep between himself and John for right now.  He didn’t know how to talk about it, or even if he wanted to talk about it.  As he got back to his bunk and lay down on the thin unforgiving mattress he revised his last thought in a slight, but important way.  He needed to keep what had happened between himself, John…and God.
     

 
     
    3
     
    The following months went by a little faster for Toby than the months prior to his conversion moment.  He read through the packet that John had given him when they first met, only this time more carefully.  Now he saw the point of the maze.  No matter what path you took you always, eventually, found your way to the middle.  Before he had just thought that he was lucky with the maze.  Toby read some of the musings of Richard Rohr, who John had said was his favorite author.  There were a few Bibles on the bookshelf on the right side of the tank.  Toby looked through it as well.
     
    Toby’s path to a greater understanding of God and spirituality wasn’t always a walk in the park.  Toby was still bored, and still flashed to anger too quickly.  The Bible was pretty confusing to him.  He had started at the beginning and soon got bogged down in the Jazab begat Hildak who begat Yorbish parts.  But he never