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  THE RELUCTANT PROPHET

  “I love this book! Hop on and ride with this ‘reluctant prophet’—but hold on tight, because the call of God not only takes Allison the Tour Guide out of her comfort zone, but the reader as well. An important novel about the awesome, quirky, breathtaking adventure of obeying God’s Nudge.”

  Neta Jackson, author of The Yada Yada Prayer Group novels and The Yada Yada House of Hope series

  “In Allison Chamberlain, Nancy Rue has created a fresh and unique protagonist to challenge all who follow Christ. How will we change the world? By being willing to leave our comfortable pews and habitual routines to truly listen to the voice of the Spirit … and show the world that Jesus called us to love. Not to take care of ourselves, but to take risks in loving others. The Reluctant Prophet is a wonderful book with the power to changes hearts and lives.”

  Angela Hunt, author of The Debt

  “In her latest novel, The Reluctant Prophet, Nancy Rue asks this question: What can God do with broken people? The answer Rue comes up with is humorous, hopeful, and challenging. A story to remind us that God is involved in the everyday, and in love with everyone. You’ll cheer this motley band of people who decide love is more important than living a safe, easy life.”

  Bonnie Grove, award-winning author of Talking to the Dead

  “If you believe following Jesus can be an exciting adventure that is baffling at times and even a little messy, with zero tolerance for self-righteous complacency, then The Reluctant Prophet is a book for you.”

  Bill Myers, author of The God Hater

  “The Reluctant Prophet is a bold, wonderful novel. If you have ever felt a Nudge and thought it might be God trying to get your attention, read this book. It might just give you the courage to follow that Nudge and see where it leads. Nancy Rue writes about the tough issues of life and faith with grace, love, and daring. I am so glad God Nudged Nancy to write and so glad that she followed, Harley and all!”

  Joyce Magnin, author of The Prayers of Agnes Sparrow and Charlotte Figg Takes Over Paradise

  OTHER FICTION BY NANCY RUE

  For Adults

  Pascal’s Wager

  Antonia’s Choice

  Tristan’s Gap

  For Adults, with Stephen Arterburn

  Healing Stones

  Healing Waters

  Healing Sands

  For Tweens

  The Christian Heritage Series

  The Lily Series

  The Sophie Series

  The Lucy Novels

  For Teens

  Row This Boat Ashore

  The Janis Project

  Home By Another Way

  The Raise the Flag Series

  The ’Nama Beach High Series

  The RL (Real Life) Novels

  THE RELUCTANT PROPHET

  Published by David C Cook

  4050 Lee Vance View

  Colorado Springs, CO 80918 U.S.A.

  David C Cook Distribution Canada

  55 Woodslee Avenue, Paris, Ontario, Canada N3L 3E5

  David C Cook U.K., Kingsway Communications

  Eastbourne, East Sussex BN23 6NT, England

  David C Cook and the graphic circle C logo

  are registered trademarks of Cook Communications Ministries.

  All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes,

  no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form

  without written permission from the publisher.

  The website addresses recommended throughout this book are offered as a resource to you. These websites are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement on the part of David C Cook, nor do we vouch for their content.

  This story is a work of fiction. All characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is coincidental.

  The Scripture quotation on page 11 is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. The Scripture quotation on page 493 is taken from THE MESSAGE. Copyright © by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

  LCCN 2010932713

  ISBN 978-1-4347-6496-6

  eISBN 978-0-7814-0574-4

  © 2010 Nancy Rue

  Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard St., Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.

  The Team: Don Pape, Jamie Chavez, Amy Kiechlin, Melody Bryce, Erin Prater, Karen Athen

  Cover Design: DogEared Design, Kirk DouPonce

  Cover Photo: iStockphoto, royalty-free

  First edition 2010

  For the sisters of Magdalene in Nashville, Tennessee,

  who shared their stories and themselves and

  humbled me with their courage and faith

  Acknowledgments

  There are two kinds of readers—those who skip the acknowledgments and those who see them as peeks at what breathed real life into a book. If you fall into the latter category, enjoy a glimpse at the people I counted on unashamedly.

  ¤Rob Seiner and Rich Petrina, Rider’s Edge teachers who tried, in vain, to get me going on a motorcycle. My complete failure was due in no way to their teaching skills!

  ¤Clark Vitulli, Allen Good, and Shannon Ashley, Harley-Davidson of St. Augustine, Florida, who opened their store to me and answered at least one thousand (clueless) questions.

  ¤All the women riders associated with Bumpus Harley-Davidson of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, whose encouragement and stories and all-out living filled this sometimes somber story—and me—with fun.

  ¤Angel, my St. Augustine carriage driver who taught me everything I needed to know about being a horse-drivin’ tour guide—and took me on one unforgettable ride.

  ¤Jeremiah McElwain—sunglasses expert! Bonner has him to thank for the right shades.

  ¤Megan Lee of Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee, and Pamela Talley of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, whose work as my intern/research assistants added an accuracy I couldn’t have pulled off on my own.

  ¤Jackie Colburn, who graciously shared her prophetic gift with me.

  ¤Lee Hough, my literary agent, who helped me hone the story; Don Pape, who believed in it; and Ingrid Beck, Jamie Chavez, and Erin Prater, my editors who caught my mistakes. If you find any, they’re all mine.

  ¤The women of Magdalene in Nashville, Tennessee—especially Valerie, Gladys, and Tracy—who shared their stories, their hearts, their faith, themselves. They are living statements of the God-infused power of the human spirit.

  ¤The Reverend Becca Stevens of St. Augustine’s Chapel at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, founder of Magdalene, who inspired The Reluctant Prophet with her tireless work of respecting the dignity of every woman who wants to change her life in Christ. Every woman.

  ¤My husband, Jim Rue, who takes me anywhere I want to go on his Harley—one ride at a time.

  What I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach…. No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

  —Deuteronomy 30:11–14

  Life is a church

  These are the sacraments

  This is the altar

  Love is t
he spirit

  Making the blue planet turn.

  —Marcus Hummon

  CHAPTER ONE

  I found Jesus seven years ago, but until that Sunday morning, I didn’t know what to do with him.

  It wasn’t for lack of asking. Nor was I above whining. I’d even taken to begging.

  That day, in my usual third-row-from-the-back pew in Flagler Community Church, I started into what I called Allison Chamberlain’s Pathetic Pleading Prayer: “Come on—I get it already. But what am I supposed to be doing about it?”

  I had the usual undeniable sense that God was listening, probably leaning over to Jesus and saying, “There she goes with the badgering, Son.” What I couldn’t sense was his adding, “What do you say we throw her a bone?”

  I’d have taken anything and run with it.

  I recrossed my legs and tugged my uniform jacket over my hips and noticed that it didn’t quite shimmy down like it used to. Too much time spent sitting in a carriage waiting for a fare. I folded my hands, angelically prayerlike in my lap, and refixed my gaze on the Reverend J. Garrett Howard, who was holding forth from the center aisle. This was his first Sunday not preaching from the cantilevered pulpit that hovered above us like Care Flight from Heaven. He said at the beginning of the service that he wanted to be closer to us as he brought forth the Word.

  Very avant-garde, the Reverend Howard.

  “What do you do when you’re stricken by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune?” he said now.

  Also very literary.

  “You take it to the foot of the cross.”

  Joshie McElhinney’s towhead bobbed into my line of vision, blocking out Rev. Garry and giving me full view of his seven-year-old self. He appeared to be doing a 360-degree survey of the congregation, finger inserted into left nostril. Was he looking for the foot of the cross? For a second I thought he was about to raise his hand and ask for coordinates. The seven-year-old in me wanted to ask the same thing.

  I followed his gaze until his mother put her hand on top of his head and twisted it forward like she was turning a jar lid. Once again I tried to focus on the Reverend Garry, but my glance snagged on Frank Parker, a fellow small-group member, who wore a puckered expression. Was he looking for the cross too? Or was that just acid reflux? Probably not the latter. Frank was far too much the Southern gentleman for indigestion.

  I felt a little queasy myself, though. What was wrong with me? I adjusted my jacket yet again and telescoped my gaze toward the sermon. Except that across the aisle, Mary Alice Moss said, “Amen,” and I had to look at my watch. Bless Mary Alice’s heart. If she was true to form, we’d be hearing another one of those about …

  “Amen.”

  … now. Thirty-two seconds on the nose. Garry must be into his third point at this juncture. Another thirty-two and …

  “Amen.”

  My wonderful, multichinned Mary Alice must know exactly how to get to the foot of the cross. Or was it that the Reverend Garrett Howard was really that precisely inspiring?

  Then why wasn’t I inspired right now?

  I mean, I always checked out India Morehead’s outfit when she slipped into her pew because the woman could definitely put one together. I always watched Frank execute his ushering duties as if every service were a formal wedding. I always caught Bonner Bailey checking me out over the top of his hymnal. But until that day none of it had kept me from at least catching a thread of the sermon. I needed those threads to hold me together. I was a veritable tapestry woven from seven years’ worth of them. Okay, maybe not something so elegant as a tapestry. Burlap feedbag, maybe.

  Okay—what was going on with me? I snapped the jacket down so hard I felt the seam pop. And then I felt something else. A Nudge, like someone had given me a healthy shove with a beefy elbow. It was palpable—even though nobody was sitting on either side of me.

  “Let us pray,” the Reverend Howard said.

  Heads bowed in unanimous reverence. I stared over the tops of ponytails and buzz cuts and tinted-blue perms, waiting for someone to poke me again while all the other eyes were closed. Nothing moved but Garry Howard’s mustached lips as he poured out his prayer. No one else spoke, except a clear voice in my head.

  Allison, it said. Go out and buy a Harley.

  I whipped my head around, sharply enough to pull Bonner Bailey’s eyes up from his lap and cock his head at me. I was obviously acting as weirded out as I felt. And I was obviously the only one who had heard it. Which meant it was probably my imagination.

  Or maybe I was the one with acid reflux.

  Bonner got to me before I could even slide my hymnal back into its rack after the final song. Not that I’d uttered a note. Buy a Harley? I was undoubtedly nuts, and I was afraid if I opened my mouth I’d start reciting the preamble to the constitution or something.

  “You okay, Allison?” Bonner said, with the usual touch-retract at my elbow. He definitely wasn’t the one who’d Nudged me. “Did I see you having neck issues?”

  “Thanks for asking,” I said. I turned my head and let C1 and C2 pop. He sympathetically readjusted his own inside the just-ironed Oxford button-down collar.

  “All better,” I said.

  “Is that from driving a horse all day?”

  No. It was from having God tell me to purchase a motorcycle. Only, as the seconds passed with Bonner smoothing the pockets of his pressed Dockers, getting ready to ask me to brunch the way he did absolutely every Sunday, the possibility that God had actually spoken those words to me became less likely. A little Nexium and I’d be fine.

  “Miss Allison.”

  Frank Parker was the only person who called me that, and thank heaven for him at that moment. I wasn’t in the mood for Bonner and a Belgian waffle. Hallucination or not, I had to get to work.

  Frank sidled up to the pew Bonner and I were conversing over and settled his hands into prayer position at his lapels. “Miss Allison, I don’t mean to fuss at you, but—”

  “Is it Bernard?” I said.

  Bonner smothered a smirk with his hand. Frank nodded as if he were in pain.

  “Out front—he just …”

  “I’m sorry, Frank,” I said. “He must have busted another radiator hose. I’ve got to get that fixed.”

  “How are you going to do that?” Bonner said, straight-faced. “Dehydrate him?”

  “We just can’t have that, Miss Allison. Pastor is on the front steps greeting people, and in that heat, all you can smell is …”

  Frank looked from me to Bonner and back again, watered-down, blue eyes beseeching. When neither of us filled in the blank for him, he whispered, “Horse urine.”

  Bonner choked, and I took pity on poor Frank.

  “I’ll take care of it,” I said. I gave his suit sleeve an affectionate tug.

  “I just wish you wouldn’t … park it … him … there. Next thing you know, he’ll be …”

  “Pooping, Frank?” Bonner said.

  His eyes were practically streaming—he was working that hard to hold it in. I gave him a nudge and slipped my arm through Frank’s.

  “I don’t usually work Sundays,” I told him as I steered him toward the vestibule. “But business is so slow right now, I have to grab all the fares I can. I wouldn’t have time to go all the way to the stables after church, so—”

  “I understand, Missy.” Frank slid into his soothing-daddy voice and patted my hand. At sixty-four, he actually was old enough to be my father, but at forty-two, I hardly felt like I needed one. “You go on to work and I’ll see that … things … get cleaned up.”

  Bonner stood in the doorway ahead of us, shaking his head toward Valencia Street in mock solemnity. “Looks like your worst fears have been realized, Frank. You’re going to need a fire hose.”

  Frank composed his
face and, with a departing pat on my arm, hurried out and down the steps.

  “You are evil in your soul,” I said to Bonner.

  “What? What did I say?”

  “Allison,” a voice purred behind me, “nice haircut, Honey.”

  India Morehead ran what I knew to be a perfectly manicured hand along the ends of my hair before brushing her lips against my cheek. She pecked Bonner’s, too. India took to heart the admonition about greeting one another with a holy kiss. I didn’t tell Bonner she’d left a Marvelous Mauve imprint just above his jawline.

  She sailed the ends of a gray spun silk scarf behind her and surveyed me through slightly squinted dark eyes. I always wondered if India could actually close them with that much mascara clotting her lashes. “Shoulder length is a good start,” she said. “If you go a little shorter, some highlights would be good, just to accentuate your natural blond.” She dipped into sotto voce. “And cover any gray. Not that you have much. Just a little shorter, though, I think. Don’t you?”

  That question was for Bonner, who rested his chin on one hand and nodded.

  India’s gaze swept my uniform. “I hate that they dress you in beige. It washes you out. Something in a nice teal would bring out your eyes.”

  “Definitely,” Bonner said.

  “I’d love to stay for the makeover,” I said, “but I’ve got to get to work.”

  “We’ll see you Wednesday?” India said.

  “Always.”

  I wiggled my fingers in a wave over my shoulder and tried to jockey my way out past the handshaking line.

  The Reverend Garrett Howard, however, was quick for an old guy.

  “You’re not leaving without a hug, Allison.”

  He had his arms outstretched, the sleeves of his vestment spread like wings. It was hard not to compare them to the white waves of still-thick hair that unfurled from his forehead. He’d only recently taken to embracing members of his flock, having previously been a rather staid clasper of fingers. The last couple of ministerial retreats had convinced him he needed to enter the age of up-close-and-personal, which he saw as rather new and daring. I had to give him credit for trying at age seventy-something, though. India had told me he’d even recently acquired a Bluetooth.