Free Dawn's Light by Terri Blackstock

from his tone, and he leaned down to her ear. “Hey, you know if you need to talk, I'm here, right? If something were wrong, you could come to me.”
    Beth looked up at him with those doleful eyes. Her lips parted, and she started to speak. But as Jeff stood up at the front with his guitar and began leading them in a praise song, that vacant, distracted look returned to her eyes.
    “You know that, don't you?” he asked her again.
    Her voice was softer now. “Yeah, I know.” She swallowed hard.
    He started to sing the praise chorus, but Beth remained quiet.
    Deni slipped down the row and sat beside him. Craig plopped down on the other side of her, and Chris followed him.
    Deni slid her hand into Mark's, drawing his attention back to her. Relief and pride warmed his tense muscles, reminding him that she was still his girl.
    F OR THE LAST SEVERAL WEEKS , D OUG HAD BEEN PREACHING through the convicting book of 1 John. But Mark was too preoccupied to be convicted.
    We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
    Mark wondered if Craig could even follow the theology. Could the pompous narcissist grasp such concepts? The man who had refused to work to help the poverty-stricken apartment dwellers a year ago didn't strike Mark as someone with a great capacity for love.
    Yes, Christ could have changed Craig, if he'd really given his life to him. But Mark doubted seriously that Craig's Christianity was real. Surely he was donning the robes of belief for the sake of winning Deni back. His desire for baptism was all an act.
    Mark prayed it wouldn't work.
    Mark brooded through the sermon, arguing with the voice in his heart that said he should welcome Craig into the family of God. As the service ended and the congregation crowded around the water's edge to watch Craig's baptism, Mark stood at the outskirts. Doug waded into the water, and Craig followed, all arrogance gone from his face. Deni stood back with Mark, her arm through his. “Be nice,” she whispered.
    Anger pulsed through him. Be nice?
    He wondered if Doug had any compulsion to drown him. If Mark were in Doug's place, he might.
    With that thought came a rush of guilt, but he quickly shoved it down.
    He listened to Doug's prayer over Craig, watched him go down into the water …
    “Baptized with Christ in death …”
    And come up wet …
    “Raised to walk in newness of life.”
    He saw Craig wipe the water from his eyes, saw the trembling of his lips, the sincere look of submission …
    Doug hugged him, and as Craig slogged out of the water, shame began to burn in the pit of Mark's stomach. What if Craig wasn't acting? What if he really had come to Christ after his breakup with Deni?
    Was Mark judging Craig or simply discerning? There was little Craig could do to convince him it was real … even if it was.
    Dripping wet, Craig took the towel Kay had brought for him. Wiping his face and wrapping it around his shoulders, he walked into the crowd of well-wishers.
    Mark swallowed the bitterness in his throat. He could at least act happy about the supposed conversion. He planted his feet as Craig worked his way through the crowd. When his rival came close, Mark extended his own hand.
    “Welcome to the family,” he forced himself to say.
    Craig wiped his wet eyes. “Family?”
    Deni smiled. “He means you're brothers now. Brothers in Christ.”
    Craig studied him, as if he didn't know whether they were James and John …
    Or Cain and Abel.
    And Mark wasn't so sure himself.

 

    twenty
    T HE KILLER HADN'T SHOWN UP FOR CHURCH . W HILE THE baptism went on, Beth wandered to the message board at the edge of the lake and read every scrap of paper that had been stapled, taped, or pinned