Chapter thirteen, page one

Quinn had one eye watching me and the other eye watching his own movements.  Finally his hands stilled and his arms slowly fell to his side.

“Tell me something, Cherie.”

I nodded.

“What sort of images are you entertaining at this moment?”

The mirror in front of me would not conceal my blush.  I stammered for the right words.

He turned around and smiled deeply.  “Are those sins too?”

Perhaps he intended his words to be humorous.  However they slowly changed his smile.  His face transformed to solemn and then he turned back to the mirror.

“If you are not careful Cathie, you will join the ranks of those whom God does not want.”  He shook his head.  “Although I am sure that is not possible.”

All my thoughts of Quinn took a back seat as his words brought revelation to me.  “Do you think that I don’t sin, Quinn?”

“Not like me.”  He tried to chuckle but there was no sign of humour on my face to encourage him.

I stepped towards him, standing right behind his shoulder.  I felt the warmth of his body and the scent of his shaving cream tingling my senses.  “For all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.”

“Excuse me?”

“Not one single person lives on this earth without sinning.”

“There is a difference between your sorts of sins and mine, I think.”

I watched his confidence.  It rested on his smiling face as he resumed the razor. 

“Quinn, even Anna has sinned.”

His face changed abruptly.  He faintly shook it.

“She has sinned to the point that she should die for her sins.”

Quinn tossed his razor in the sink and whirled around.  His foamed hand grabbed my shoulder.  “How can you say that?  You don’t know her like I do.”

“I don’t need to.  I know that every person is selfish and sinful.  Everyone includes you and me.   It includes Anna.  It includes your mother and father, too.”

He shook his head harder and faster this time.  “You’re wrong.”  He released me and returned to his sink.  Slowly he washed his hands off and then rested them against the sink supporting his weary frame.

I touched his shoulder.  “Quinn, God does not grade our sins.  We either sin or we don’t.  However we all do.  It is human nature.  We are born that way.”

Through his shoulder I could feel his deep heavy breathes.  Lord, I need the words that his heart is aching to hear. 

“God knew that we would all sin so he put into place a plan to save us from ourselves.  That plan is the gruesome death of His Son on a cross.  It allows every person a chance to be redeemed.”

He remained silent.

“He did that so we would all have equal chance and that no one could boast of his or her own efforts.  Think of it like this – pretend God’s bar of measurement for goodness is the moon.  We are all down here trying our hardest to reach the moon from Earth.  All you have is the strength in your legs and the height of your own jumping efforts.  Let’s say for explanation sake that strength is made stronger by our goodness and weaker by our sins.

“Add up your life in all the things you’ve ever done right making you stronger so you can jump higher.  Then take away any thing you’ve ever done that was bad or wrong.  Count every lie and every selfish thought.  Add in there the times you were jealous of someone else and the times that you were angry or unloving.  Now tell me how high can you jump?”

I waited for him to process my line of thinking.  He slowly straightened and stared at me through the mirror.  But he said nothing.

“Give me a number Quinn.  How high could you jump?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Give me a number.  It doesn’t need to be realistic for my purposes.  How about we say 1000 feet?”

He snickered.  “Not a chance.”

“Then you tell me.”

“A hundred feet.”

“Okay.  Use the same scale for Anna.  How high could she jump?”

His head rolled back with a large smile.  “Two thousand feet!”  His love for his sister was endearing.  

“Good.  Now how about your dad?  How high could he jump?”

“He couldn’t.”  Quinn’s scowl revealed more about his heart towards his father.

“I understand how you feel, but we need to give him a number.  Let’s assume he loved your mother, so we will give him one foot for that.  Okay?”

It took a moment for Quinn to agree.

“So if God’s standard is for us to jump to the moon.  Roughly, that is some ridiculous number more than two hundred thousand miles; which is more than one million feet.  So which of you have managed to impress the Lord Almighty with your efforts?  Have you?  Has Anna?”

Quinn’s eyes were now red and fixed hard on my mirrored image.  “So what now?”  His biting comment said through gritted teeth told me he understood my point.

“Now, you can see that God in His great mercy loves everyone because no one can impress him.  Instead, he has provided a way for you to go to the moon Quinn.  Anna knows it.  Your mother knew it.”  Using his shoulders, I pivoted him towards me.  “I know it.  Without accepting Jesus as our free ride to the Moon we are left here endlessly trying to jump but never getting anywhere.”

Quinn stood there stoically, trying to be unmoved by my words.  “I need to shower and meet the detective.  He is waiting on me.”

“Okay.”  I released him and dourly walked out.  The door closed behind me.  I heard the dismal click of the lock fall into place. I felt completely dismissed.

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