Though None Go with Me

Though None Go with Me Copyright © 2000 by Jerry B. Jenkins Requests for information should be addressed to: Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530 ISBN-10: 0-310-24305-X ISBN-13: 978-0-310-24305-2 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other-except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920. Interior design by Michelle Espinoza Printed in the United States of America 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 - 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 PART ONE Apart from a healthy birth," Elisabeth's father had told her, "no good news comes after dark." He should have known. Tall and portly, Dr. James LeRoy was Three Rivers's most popular general practitioner. Her own birth, on the first day of the new century, had come after dark. Her father had told her the story so many times it was as if she remembered being there. "Your mother went into labor so quickly that I had to deliver you myself. I hadn't planned to. I didn't trust my instincts over my emotions. Your mother was-" "Vera!" Elisabeth blurted. "Yes. She was young and frail and worked hard to produce you, a healthy child. But her own vital signs-" "She was sick." "Yes." "And what did you do, Daddy?" "Hmm. I'm not sure I recall." "Yes, you do! The bundling part." "Oh, yes. I bundled you in a blanket and allowed you to exercise your lungs in the parlor while I tried to save your mother." "Your wife." chapter one He nodded. "I begged her not to leave me, not to leave us. All she wanted was to talk about your middle name and her own epitaph. I pleaded with her to save her strength." "And what did she want you to call me, Daddy?" "We had settled on Elisabeth, after her own mother," he said. "It had seemed too soon to worry about a middle name." "But she thought of one." "Yes, sweetheart. 'Call her Elisabeth Grace,' she said, 'after the grace that is greater than all our sin.' And on her tombstone-" "I know, Daddy. It says, 'My hope is in the cross.'" "If I hear that story one more time, I'm going to vomit!" first-grade classmate Frances Crawford hissed, shaking her ringlets. "All you talk about is your dead mother." Breath rushed from Elisabeth, and her eyes stung. "Little girls oughtn't say 'vomit,'" she managed. "Daddy says the proper word is 'regurgitate,' but at least say 'throw up.'" "'Daddy says regurgicate,'" Frances mocked. "Regurgitate," Elisabeth corrected, but Frances skipped away. Elisabeth pursued her. "You're lucky you've got a mother!" Frances stopped to face her. "Just quit bragging about your father and quit bein' so-so-churchy!" This time when Frances ran off, Elisabeth let her go. Churchy? They were in the same Sunday school class! But Elisabeth was churchy? Three blocks from Dr. LeRoy's rambling mansion on Hoffman Street-not far from Bonnie Castle-the slender steeple of Three Rivers Christ Church rose above the first ward. That pristine monolith, old as the church itself, came to serve as a reminder of God's presence in Elisabeth's life. Her father had often recounted how she talked every day about going to Christ Church. She toddled along to play in the nursery when he attended Wednesday night prayer meetings, Sunday school, and morning and evening services. "You skipped on the way to church and tried to pull me along faster," he said. "And once there, your eyes shone at the little sanctuary, the pictures on the wall, and every nook and cranny that seemed to offer something of GJenkins, Jerry B. is the author of 'Though None Go with Me', published 2006 under ISBN 9780310243052 and ISBN 031024305X.