Read Online Brian's Choice by Vannetta Chapman - Free Book Online

chairs.
    â€œHave you been to the memorial in Oklahoma City?”
    â€œFor the Murrah Building? I have, in fact. A friend of mine died in that blast.”
    Brian thought of offering his condolences, but it was plain Bynum was only interested in the case. And yet he had asked about the route that brought Brian to Cody’s Creek. That route went directly through the grounds of the museum.
    â€œI was a teenager when the bombing occurred. I remember watching it on the news and then later writing about it for a school assignment.” He stared down into his coffee. “Seeing the memorial in person was a completely different experience from studying it through Internet sources. I walked through the twin gates, and it was as if I were walking into a holy place. Do you believe that, Officer Bynum? That any place can be made holy, but that those places bathed with the blood of the innocent…well, it seems God bestows a special blessing on those spots.”
    Bynum didn’t answer. He just continued staring at Brian and waiting.
    â€œThen I reached the field of empty chairs—”
    â€œOne hundred sixty-eight.”
    â€œYes, one for each victim. I suddenly understood how precious agift life is, and what a fool I’d been wasting mine and those of the people around me. I saw my past like a thing belonging to someone else. I felt…I fully felt the presence of God in a way I can’t explain.”
    Brian sat back and considered Officer Bynum. Was he a religious man? It didn’t really matter. He himself had not been religious before he walked into the memorial, but he’d left a changed person. It suddenly occurred to Brian that he might be enduring this scrutiny so that he could share the grace he had received that day. The thought gave him the courage to press forward with his story.
    â€œMaybe you don’t believe in such a thing—a spiritual experience, an encounter with the Holy of holies. I didn’t either, but it happened. I suddenly remembered scraps of a song my grandmother used to sing. “Amazing Grace.” What I felt, more than anything else, was God’s love and forgiveness.”
    â€œConvenient.”
    â€œI stood staring at those chairs for…for I don’t know how long. Finally, I moved on to the reflecting pool. I stayed there until darkness fell, amazed at how much had happened in a few hours, amazed that God could love a wretch like me.”
    Bynum sat up straight and pierced Brian with a skeptical gaze. “You nearly kill a girl, joyride across the country, end up at a memorial, and then experience a conversion. Is that your story?”
    Brian pushed the coffee away. He didn’t want it. He didn’t need it. He was nearly finished with his testimony and the interview. “I had in my mind to head northeast, maybe go to the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania. I didn’t have a particular reason, but I wasn’t sure what else to do. Yes, I’d had a conversion, a holy experience, but what was I to do with it? How was I to live and honor what had happened? I headed northeast, and the route took me through Tulsa. From there I caught a ride with an old farmer headed east.”
    Brian stared at his reflection in the long, one-way mirror. Had hisfuture turned on a happenchance ride from a stranger? Or was it one more way that God had directed his path? “The farmer’s vehicle broke down in Cody’s Creek. Imagine that, Officer Bynum. What are the odds that the truck I’m riding in would break down in one of the few places in Oklahoma with an Amish community?”
    Bynum shrugged, but he was watching Brian closely, interested in the rest of the story.
    â€œSuddenly I was tired. Tired of running, tired of the guilt and pain. I just wanted to be still, be in one place, and appreciate the life God had given me.” He waved his hand. “I found a few odd jobs and in the process met Levi Troyer.