Free Flickering Hope by Naomi Kinsman Page A

between Ruth and me. Tension stretched tight between the three of us. We avoided the touchy subjects, not mentioning the family in the woods, Frankie, or Patch.
    Doug continued, “So now I think we’re ready to push our conversation deeper. To challenge ourselves. It’s perfect timing really, in this season when gift giving is so important. What does God want to give us? What ought we give to God?”
    Claudia’s hand shot up. “Pure hearts. God wants us to not sin.”
    I folded my fingers together in my lap and stared down at my hands. Perfect. On the first night Andrew shows up, Claudia brings up sin. The word sounded so simple and clean-edged slipping from Claudia’s mouth, like a perfectly packed moving box taped tightly shut. Sin, a category completely defined by this word. Either something fit inside the sin box or it didn’t.
    No one spoke for a long moment. Ruth squirmed next to me. I knew she wanted to say something, and also that she would choose walking barefoot in the snow on a minus ten degree day over saying something. No one liked to take Claudia on, because Claudia felt comfortable with thick brush stroke answers. Grey areas confused her, made her lash out. Claudia wanted clear definition. What was right? What was wrong? I didn’t blame her, really. Life would be a lot simpler if there were some easy formula. I had no idea what would be in a sin box if I tried to categorize, and I preferred Claudia’s tightly taped box to my own, with odd-shaped items sticking out every which way so the box was impossible to close.
    I could almost hear Ruth’s inward sigh as she finally cleared her throat. “But we do sin. Everyone sins. If we go around trying not to do something, knowing we’ll fail over and over again, thinking God wants us to be this person we can never be, how is that helpful?”
    “So we shouldn’t even try to be good?” Claudia snapped, predictably.
    Doug nodded his head slowly. “This is a good conversation. Claudia, you point out thatGod desires our pure hearts. Ruth, you remind us that God knows our hearts aren’t completely pure, can never be completely pure. If we return to what we know — God shows up in the tiniest of moments, God is with us in joy and sadness, God loves us — we find traces of an answer. God doesn’t want us to torture ourselves over our imperfection. Yet, he wants us to do our best too.”
    “Like football,” Ted chimed in, causing everyone to groan. “No really. Even though we know we’ll never run the perfect play—the other guys will always be in the way—we practice for perfection. Otherwise, we’d be a team of losers.”
    Doug laughed. “I never thought of it that way, Ted, but I agree with you. This is why I love talking with you guys. I learn so much. We’ll discuss these questions in the upcoming weeks. What does God want to give us? What ought we to give him? Millions of sermons have been written on the subject, and I’m sure tons of answers leap to your minds. But I want you to watch. Notice God in your own lives. Maybe by finding answers in our own lives, we’ll be able to make the less tangible answers, such as giving God a pure heart, more real for ourselves.”
    We broke into our groups, and I finally dared looking up at Andrew. He didn’t look too freaked out. I remembered Thanksgiving, how Helen had suggested we pray. I had never talked to Andrew about God, and I had no idea if he believed in anything or not. I always assumed people didn’t, maybe because my family didn’t, but the more I hung out at youth group the more I wondered. People thought about God a lot more than I realized. And not just people who went to church. Normal people, even Mom, thought about God, especially when people needed help. If people believed in God when they needed help, then they must believein him all the time. Maybe they just needed to pay more attention. My mind felt over full. I hugged my legs to my chest.
    “Andrew looked up fused glass online