Bringer of Light

By Jean Marie Beck

In the tradition of a classic novella, Bringer of Light is the story of one womans journey from darkness into light. Feeling broken, Jacie McCall prays for help from a God whom she had lost faith in long ago. Then one night a mysterious woman named Lily appears in Jacies dream.
As Jacies life turns on a downward spiral, she finds solace in her dreams where night after night Lily appears and imparts to Jacie spiritual truths to help her navigate her way through the darkness of her waking hours. With humor and unconditional love, Lily guides Jacie to the awakening of her true spirit and her souls purpose.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 23, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468563344

Jean Marie Beck

Does not wish to have.

Book preview

Bringer of Light

Jean Marie Beck

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AuthorHouse™

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

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© 2012 Jean Marie Beck. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 4/18/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4685-6334-4 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-6335-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-6336-8 (sc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012904879

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This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two 

Chapter Three 

Chapter Four 

Chapter Five 

Chapter Six 

Chapter Seven 

Chapter Eight 

Chapter Nine 

Chapter Ten 

Chapter Eleven 

Chapter Twelve 

Chapter Thirteen 

Chapter Fourteen 

Chapter Fifteen 

Chapter Sixteen 

Chapter Seventeen 

Chapter Eighteen 

Chapter Nineteen 

Chapter Twenty 

Chapter Twenty-One 

Chapter Twenty-Two 

Epilog

Two Years Later 

Dedicated to

Elaina Carmichael

Thank you for being my Bringer of Light

Henry David Thoreau:

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

Chapter One

Alone in the darkness Jacie listened to the dead leaves of autumn being swept up and tossed around by the wind. She felt a choking despair as she contemplated the unraveling of her marriage and the meaninglessness of her life.

It was two in the morning, and she lay awake on the living room sofa, waiting. Waiting for him to walk through the door but hoping he didn’t. She imagined receiving news that he had been killed in a car accident, then instantly felt guilty for wishing such a horrible thing. But here she was waiting…always waiting. Waiting for him to give recognition to how hard she worked at making their house a home. Waiting for him to come home and share the five-course dinner she had spent hours preparing. She had spent the last ten years of her life waiting and hoping.

Occasionally he flashed a small sign of approval, but only when he wanted something. That something was usually sex. She always gave into his desires, happy that he was paying attention to her.

Weeks of quietness would pass between them until she felt she’d had enough of being ignored, and then she would throw a tantrum. She would yell, scream and rage about how she couldn’t take it anymore. To appease her, he would go out and buy her an expensive gift, something she’d been asking for.

Once he took a trip to Mexico leaving her alone with their one month old daughter, Penelope. Jacie was so infuriated by his leaving that she threatened to leave him. The day before he was to return home from his trip, he surprised her by having a piano delivered to their home. That particular gift held her discontent at bay for a good six months.

The truth, that she didn’t want to admit, was she had become his slave. She was nothing more than a prostitute, giving him favors for financial security. She had no idea how she had gotten to where she was, but she knew that she couldn’t continue living this way. She felt as if she were sinking deeper and deeper into an abyss, with no way out.

If there is a God, he had deserted her long ago. But she held onto one last thread of hope and sliding off the couch, she knelt down in prayer. With tears streaming down her face she asked God for help. She asked for a sign that He existed and to show her how to find a better life.

Exhausted, she pulled herself up from the floor and lay back down on the couch. Closing her tired eyes, she drifted off into a restless sleep.

She was walking down a long, wide-open hallway that was filled with light. She was wearing the same blue nightshirt that she had worn to bed. In an instant the scenery changed, and she was no longer in the hallway but in a meadow where white, yellow and lavender wild flowers grew abundant. The meadow had no beginning and no end. As she twirled around taking it all in, a few feet away she saw a woman adorned in a sheer lavender caftan that flowed out like a kite flying in the wind. She held her hand out to Jacie and said, I’ve been waiting for you.

She was awakened by the noise of his rumbling truck entering the garage. She lay still, listening as he stumbled into the house through the back door, following his movements to the guest bedroom where he had been sleeping for the past three years. Thinking of how Paul had shunned her caused a burning sensation in her gut. As if on autopilot she jumped off the couch and made her way down the hall and into the guest bedroom.

He was already passed out on his back with his arms and legs splayed wide-open. She breathed in and felt a wave of nausea from the smell of alcohol that permeated the room. She moved closer and stood over him, listening to his rattled breathing, wondering how she could love him and hate him all at the same time.

She left him lying there on his back, hoping he would throw up and choke on his own puke, and then immediately felt shame for such a disgraceful thought. She poked her head into Penelope’s bedroom and then tip-toed over to the side of her bed. Standing over her, Jacie watched the gentle rhythm of her daughter’s chest move up and down with each breath. Penelope was five years old and the only thing in her life that gave her the push she needed to keep living.

Examining Penelope’s features up close, especially her nose, she tried to decide for the umpteenth time if it was her nose, or Paul’s. But there was no doubt whose eyes she had. Whenever Jacie looked into Penelope’s dark brown eyes, she saw her own reflection.

She wondered if her mother had ever stood over her bed at night and studied her face, as she did now with Penelope. She doubted it, since her mother had been trapped in a world of madness. She recalled the night her mother had died, while sitting on the side of her bed she had asked her if she would come back and give her a sign that there really was a heaven. A year had passed since her death, and there was still no sign.

Chapter Two 

P enelope, stop running around the house. Sit down and eat your breakfast, Jacie yelled. Penelope Ann, if you don’t get your behind in this kitchen right now I’m going to… Smack! She ran right into his bare chest.

Her stomach turned. At six foot two Paul towered over her. He looked down on her with a scowl on his unshaven face and growled, Do you have to scream? he asked, shaking his head scornfully as he turned his back on her and walked into the bathroom.

While Penelope sat at the kitchen table eating her breakfast, Jacie mindlessly loaded the dishwasher with dirty dishes from last night’s dinner. Paul, clean-shaven and dressed in khaki pants and a red polo shirt, breezed through the kitchen heading toward the back door. Without muttering a word, he left the house.

She was surprised that Penelope didn’t run after him. Instead, she silently ate her cereal and acted as if she hadn’t seen him. After having grown up in a house filled with pain and sorrow, Jacie had always imagined having a happy family of her own. This was not the picture of family bliss that she had longed for.

While Penelope played in her bedroom, Jacie sorted laundry. Her mind drifted back to the dream she had last night. The woman in the lavender caftan reaching out and saying to her, I’ve been waiting for you, strange, she thought.

Later that night while lying in bed, unable to fall asleep, once again the memory of the woman in the meadow flashed through her mind. She recalled a feeling of peace that had washed over her while in the dream. If only she could recapture that same feeling. One thing she was certain of, she didn’t want to live the rest of her life unhappy.

How does one find happiness? Or, is life just meant to be hard? Why do some people have it all, while others suffer unimaginable atrocities? Answers, there had to be answers to these questions that weighed heavily on her mind. And God, where was He in all of this muck, or was He at all?

She fell asleep with all her questions unanswered.

The woman wearing the lavender caftan appeared beside Jacie in an open field of lush green grass. Not far in the distance she could see a lake surrounded by woods. In silence, they walked together to the lake’s shoreline and then stepped onto the pier that stretched out over the calm water. Jacie had an eerie feeling that she was no longer in a dream, for she could actually feel the rough texture of the wooden planks as she walked across the dock in her bare feet. They sat down together at the end of the