Free Rapture Practice by Aaron Hartzler Page A

tell Mom and Dad we’re “going to the mall” or “hanging out at the college” and then we go to the theater. Each time I sneakaround to see a movie, I feel less guilty about it. Mom would say this is because I’ve seared my conscience.
    “Aaron, once you quench God’s Holy Spirit by ignoring his still, small voice in your heart, it becomes easier and easier to ignore him and to sin in the future,” she told me once. “It’s like the scar tissue from a burn forms around your heart. Once you build up that layer of dead skin with no nerve endings, you can’t feel the heat, and you’ll hurt yourself again and again and not feel a thing.”
    As we drive to the theater, I know there’s no way we’ll get caught tonight, but I’m still a little scared. It makes me think about a sermon Dad preaches called “Teaching Children the Fear of the Lord,” where he quotes Proverbs 9:10: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Dad says the word
fear
in the original Hebrew doesn’t mean “respect.” It means a healthy terror before an all-powerful God.
    As we park at the theater, I look down at my gold ring. Do I have a healthy terror of an all-powerful God? Not so much. I think I have a healthy terror of what my parents will do if they find out I’ve been sneaking around. I’ve decided God doesn’t care about my going to see a movie, but I know my parents do. I’m still nervous they’ll find out somehow, but the pull of Julia Roberts is no match for the knot of nerves in my stomach. She’s been my favorite actress since I saw her in
Pretty Woman
last summer. The movie tonight is a thriller, and she plays the wife of an abusive husband and fakes her own death to escape him.
    Jason and I speed back to the Bible college dorm and make it right on time for curfew. He does push-ups every night before he gets into bed, and tonight he insists that I join him.
    “Drop and give me fifty, Hartzler,” he barks with a grin. He’s wearing only his boxers, and his chest and arms are flushed from the set he’s just done.
    “Fifty? I’ll be lucky if I can do ten.”
    “Well, you gotta start somewhere,” he says. “C’mon.” He shoves a pile of laundry out of the way and watches my form. I surprise us both and crank out twenty before I collapse.
    “Nice job, man! Let’s see.” Jason jerks his head toward the mirror where he’s flexing. I hesitate, then pull my shirt over my head. The very faintest of lines has appeared down the middle of my chest between my pecs. I’m still pretty skinny, but I can see the promise of some definition there, and smile.
    “Attaboy,” says Jason. “We’ll have you all ripped up in no time. The ladies won’t be able to keep their hands off you.”
    “That’s exactly what my dad is afraid of.”
    Jason laughs and starts taking out his contacts. I stand at the mirror and try to imagine a girl sliding her hands across my chest and gripping my arms. What would that feel like? Would girls really want to touch me? I glance at Jason’s back reflected in the mirror. He’s bent over the sink brushing his teeth. I can see why girls would want to touch Jason’s muscles. I steal one more glance at myself. I’m no He-Man, but I look okay, I decide. I should do push-ups more often.
    I slip my T-shirt back on and climb up on the top bunk while Jason settles onto the bottom. We talk for a long timeabout this girl Jason is going to ask out, and my parents, and how they’d freak if they knew we’d gone to a movie tonight.
    “Don’t worry, man. There’s no way they’ll find out,” he says. “Besides, what they don’t know won’t hurt ’em.”
    The trouble is, they believe it
will
hurt
me
. Jason drifts off to sleep, but I’m wide awake thinking about how a Julia Roberts movie could be bad for me. It isn’t that Mom and Dad are being strict for the sake of being strict. They’re afraid I’ll see people do things in movies and I’ll decide it’s okay for me to do