The Kingdom Land Read Online Free PDF

had put
all his hopes in a girl he had never even spoken with before
tonight.
    What an idiot. If my only hope was
a barmaid that I haven’t even the courage to ask for a date, I
really am pathetic. He had lived in a
bunkhouse and thought his daydreams were enough. They were nothing.
He had nothing. No parents, no girlfriend, no plans on how to get
out of Fairfield. He was a dreamer and a bad one at that. The land
around him was reality, not his dreams. The fact that Laura was a
disappointment was no surprise.
    â€œ I should have known this was
coming. What’s new? It’s happened before and it’ll happen
again.”
    Without a purpose in mind, Erik turned off the gravel
road to an even less traveled dirt road. The road went left into
the pastureland. This was land that was not fertile enough to be
tilled for crops, but instead it was left for a few head of cattle
to feed upon. At this point his mind wasn’t registering landmarks
or location, he simply drove the pickup to nowhere. This road,
probably only used to move farm equipment and for land owners to
survey their fences, became even smaller. Soon it was not a road at
all, but mere traces of ruts that were not maintained by anyone but
the occasional passing vehicle.
    The big sky of this land was without a moon or star
that evening. Erik kept driving. He had no idea where he was, but
he kept going. Finally the ruts turned into merely prairie grass
and Erik cut the motor of the pickup without disengaging the gears.
The pickup jerked forward with a few last gasps of the motor, and
then it came to a halt. As he turned off the headlights, there was
no hint of light or sound in the land. Erik was alone. This was not
a new feeling for him. At times it was a place he sought. Not this
evening. This evening the loneliness was not a feeling, but an
entity. It was something Erik could physically feel in the pit of
his stomach. He ached not from the blows of the fight, but the
presence of loneliness.
    In the past he would have escaped into his dreams.
There were no dreams this night. There was Erik, in a pickup in the
middle of nowhere, not knowing where he was going and not knowing
how he let himself get to this place.
    Since he couldn’t dream, he thought of what was. He
remembered the conversation with Aunt Mary and her hopes for him.
He thought of that sunset and how it had made the land so
different. It was the same land he had worked each day, but the
sunset had changed the view to beauty. He thought of Aaron Hanson
and the talks he had with Erik. Aaron had talked about turning to
God and committing your life to Him. They were all conversations
that Erik took as religious pat answers. “Turn your life to God and
commit yourself to Him and He will give you new life,” had always
seemed too easy to Erik. Before, it seemed like just another way to
escape from what was real. Erik had his dreams. He didn’t need
another escape. He didn’t need another illusion, he needed answers.
There was no person to direct his question or provide the answers.
There was only him. This evening he had no one to turn to, no
dreams to escape to. He didn’t bow his head as others did when they
prayed, but rather looked up through the dusty windshield at the
night’s sky.
    â€œ God, people tell me I need to
commit my life to you. I can’t really say I know what that means,
but I know I haven’t done it. I know You’re real, but I haven’t
ever really acknowledged You’re real in my life. I want You. Maybe
I should say I need You. I realize I’ve been living a lie. I can’t
get along by myself. Please forgive me for ignoring You for so
long. I do need You. I need to meet You here and to be held by You.
I need to be held by someone who loves me. I haven’t done much with
my life but mess it up and turn my back on people who cared about
me. I don’t want to turn my back on You anymore. Please, Lord, hold
me and touch me