Sisterchicks Say Ooh La La! (25 page)

W
hen I returned home,
I unfurled all the details for my husband. I told Joel without a hint of shame that I had fallen in love in Paris twice. The first time was with Gerard. The second time I fell in love with God. I told Joel it wasn’t as if I didn’t already know God or trust Christ or believe that I was saved. I told him I’d come out of hiding, and that fear and shame no longer covered me. I was covered with grace.

Joel cried. I’d only seen him cry a few times.

Over the next few years, our marriage flourished as it never had before. My growing love for my heavenly Papa fueled me with an unending supply of love for Joel.

Amy lost another ten pounds and has stayed at that comfortable weight for the past two years. She and Shirleene made up packets of their special verses. Instead of Diet Verses Shirleene renamed them Soul Snacks and
passed them out to all the women at the Lighten Up! aerobics class. The gang liked them so much they started a verse exchange the way some women do a recipe exchange. Each woman has a recipe file box where she keeps her verses and pulls out favorites once a month for the verse exchange.

I even participate. Not in aerobics, but in the verse exchange. I keep my box by the bathroom sink and have a frame by the mirror so I can change the verses once I memorize each one. Last week I told Amy I’d memorized thirty-seven of the Soul Snack verses. She said she had memorized fifty-two. I told her she was an overachiever. She said it took one to know one. I spent a whole day trying to find a verse that said, “Don’t get sassy with me, young lady,” so I could use that one for my next Soul Snack exchange. It turns out that isn’t actually a verse, like my mother always said it was.

The other fun change in Amy since our trip to Paris has been her biannual presentations to the French classes at the high school. I went with her the first time she gave her presentation of Paris, complete with pictures of the two of us. She started off with the account of our luggage riding off with the driver who stole the taxi and ended, not with the story of how she victoriously scaled the Eiffel Tower, but rather with the story of my goof at the local bistro and the sign that said, “Please place your dirty dishes here.” Amy gave the students the punch line in French. The
quick ones, who did the translation in their heads, whispered the meaning to the others, and all eyes were soon on me as chuckles floated around the room. Yeah, I don’t go with her anymore when she does her presentations.

But I do go shopping with her. More often than we used to. Amy and I have both developed a funny little delight in yummy shoes that make us happy. No pair will ever take the place of my Paris Pinkies, as Amy now calls them. But we do have fun looking for a pair that comes close. And the pink purse is still in use. Jeanette borrowed it once and said she was proud of me for being so fashionable.

Probably the biggest change of all since our trip to Paris has been my involvement at church. I no longer help with the nursery. I came out of hiding, so to speak, and began to teach a class on Sunday for the teenage girls. They love the attention and having a group just for them so they can openly ask all their questions. A bunch of them come by the house every chance they get. I love being involved in their lives. I love speaking truth to them. I love watching some of them open up and step away from wrong thinking. The truth starts to shine like a light in their eyes when they see how tenaciously God has been pursuing them. Some of them have horrible situations at home. I love telling them how their heavenly Papa will never leave them and never betray them.

Last Friday eight of the girls came over for a pajama party. I pulled out my beret and told them how this was
the same beret I wore in our picture from the top of the Eiffel Tower. They looked at me as if I were the coolest middle-aged woman on the planet. Either that or the craziest. All of them want me to take them to Paris. Who knows? Maybe Amy and I will organize another adventure one of these days.

When I went into the kitchen to make popcorn, Amy’s younger daughter, seventeen-year-old Lizzie, followed me. “Aunt Lisa, what do you do if you really, really like a guy, but he doesn’t like you back the same way?”

My heart felt free. I looked her in the eye. “You have yourself a good cry, and then you go on. If you’re quicker than I was, and I know you are, you’ll transfer all those emotions to the only One who will never leave you. Love God first and the most. Keep your heart full of His light, and you’ll mend. You really will.”

Tears filled her eyes. “That’s what my mom says. But it hurts so much. She doesn’t understand that part. She said you would understand.”

I took her in my arms and drew her close. With a depth of love and honesty I’d not known or understood until my second trip to Paris, I gave my best friend’s daughter the gift her own mother wasn’t able to give. I cried a few tears of sympathy and whispered into her silky hair, “I know, Lizzie. I really do. But if you keep your heart open to God and to others, you’ll be okay. The hurt eventually will go away.”

She pulled back. “Do you promise?”

“Yes, I promise.”

A thin trace of hope formed a Mona Lisa smile on her adolescent lips. She believed me because I was telling the truth.

Maybe one day I would tell her my story. But not that night. That night she was going to open up and tell me her story. I knew that when she did, I would be given the privilege of speaking truth over Lizzie the same way her mother had spoken truth over me in the City of Lights. That truth would continue to set free. Free to mend and free to love again.

I gave Lizzie my full attention and knew that she and her sister, Jeanette, would be the fourth generation of DuPree women whom I adored.

I told her I have a theory that every promise is heard in the celestial courts. Every promise has the potential of becoming eternal. It is very possible that God really does listen when young girls make “forever friends” promises under the pink ruffles of a canopy bed.

As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if every time one of those promises is fulfilled, a couple of angels stand side by side looking down on all of us twinkling bits of humanity spread out like diamonds far, far below them. I can just imagine how they might link their arms, tip their wings back, lift their chins, and proclaim at the top of their heavenly voices, “Ooh la la!”

1. As little girls, Amy and Lisa thought that walking down the Champs-Elysées and visiting Grandmere’s homeland would make them classy and refined. What symbolized “having arrived” to you when you were young? Did you ever do it, and how did it compare to your expectations?

2. Lisa reflects that every promise can be heard in the celestial courts, which gives every promise the potential of having eternal significance. What earthly promises have had eternal significance in your life? Why do you think promises matter to God?

3. Amy works very hard to lose weight before the trip to Paris. Have you struggled with weight gain? How has it affected your willingness to pursue your dreams? How have you been helped by supportive friends like Lisa and Shirleene?

4. Describing their childhoods, Lisa says that her life “provided Amy with roots in the richness of this good earth,” while Amy offered her “butterfly wings to soar above it all.” How have your friends offered you things you needed? How have you been able to enrich their lives in return?

5. When Amy prays that their luggage would be returned, Lisa wants to tell her not to bother God with this. Do you ever feel like your concerns are too petty for God to care about?

6. By going to Paris and visiting the du Bois family and the shops on Rue Cler, Amy catches a new glimpse of her grandmere’s life. Have you ever visited a faraway place special to past generations in your family? What gifts did that experience bring to your life?

7. Lisa comes to realize that she has been afraid of God. In Notre Dame, she sees a little girl hiding from her father, and the father’s loving, joyous determination to pursue his daughter helps Lisa understand this dynamic between her and God. Have you ever had an earthly scene help you understand God better? What was it, and what did you learn from it?

8. Lisa says that the gift of a true friend is seeing who you are inside and who you can become. Who among your friends have seen you this way? How has that affected you?

9. Lisa talks about waiting to approach God until she’s sure He’d be proud of her. Are there reasons you wait to approach God? What are they?

10. Lisa’s mother planted eggplants and parsley in the “garden of life,” while the DuPree women planted daffodils and forget-me-nots. What are you planting in the garden of life? And how is it affecting your children?

11. Amy’s grandmere says, “Hope is the most versatile and sparkling of all accessories and can be worn by any woman, regardless of her age.” How do you accessorize with hope in your own life?

12. Lisa comments later that Amy wraps her “in the accessory that is even more versatile and lovely than hope”—acceptance. Who have you wrapped in acceptance lately? Is there anyone in your life who needs to be wrapped up and embraced in this way?

13. God is described in the book as the Artist, and we as people as His maverick subjects, the ones who resist Him. How have you been resisting His creative touch in your life? What does He want to free you from? What might that look like in your life?

14. Lisa gave Amy her first Bible. Later in life, it’s Amy who gives the Bible back to Lisa again and again as the truths of God’s Word come springing out in her life. Do you have friends who you’ve gone back and forth with in this way? How so?

15. Lisa comes to realize that in the years since Gerard rejected her, she has guarded her heart so tightly that she hasn’t given it freely to God or to those she loves and trusts. Have you guarded yourself in this way? Has God freed you from a situation like this? How did your life change as a result?

16. In Paris, both Amy and Lisa face their fears and some old wounds: Amy’s fear of heights and Lisa’s fear of God and her grief over Gerard’s rejection. Are there fears and old wounds in your life that you are ready to face?

17. Lisa’s longtime view that God requires perfection from us was shaped by her mother’s judgment of her. Have you known Christians with a judgmental attitude? How did they affect you? How do you think their attitude affects their own lives?

18. When Amy and Lisa were teenagers, Amy’s mother encouraged her not to do anything that might alienate Lisa from her mother. But when they reconnect years later, Lisa tells Amy that she’s always felt alienated from her mom and still does. Have you gone through seasons of alienation from your mother? What kind of season is your relationship in right now?

19. Amy and Lisa’s trip to Paris is the fulfillment of a childhood promise. Have you had childhood promises fulfilled in unexpected ways? What were they?

Available February 2006!

C
HRISTY
M
ILLER
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OLLECTION
, V
OLUME
1

Book 1:
Summer Promise,
Book 2:
A Whisper and a Wish,
Book 3:
Yours Forever

C
HRISTY
M
ILLER
C
OLLECTION
, V
OLUME
2

Book 4:
Surprise Endings,
Book 5:
Island Dreamer,
Book 6:
A Heart Full of Hope

Available April 2006!

C
HRISTY
M
ILLER
C
OLLECTION
, V
OLUME
3

Book 7:
True Friends,
Book 8:
Starry Night,
Book 9:
Seventeen Wishes

Available June 2006!

C
HRISTY
M
ILLER
C
OLLECTION
, V
OLUME
4

Book 10:
A Time to Cherish,
Book 11:
Sweet Dreams,
Book 12:
A Promise Is Forever