On the way to the Interpreter’s house, her daughter kept asking, “How much farther?” At first Chris answered carefully each time. Later, he no longer knew what to say and looked at the map instead. Christiana had once disliked so many questions. Now she was a little afraid the children might stop asking her.
The Interpreter welcomed them outside his house. He did not ask Chris to explain everything to the family simply because the boy had been there before. First he asked the grown-ups how much water they had brought, then asked the little girl whether her shoes hurt.
After lunch, he took them into the yard. A hen was scratching in the earth while her chicks ran around her. Suddenly a hawk’s shadow swept across the ground. The hen called and spread her wings. The chicks darted underneath. Even the one that liked to wander farthest squeezed close beneath her.
“Did they learn to fight the hawk first?” the Interpreter asked.
Her daughter laughed. “They’re much too small!”
“So they shelter under her wings. The Lord Jesus spoke of a hen gathering her chicks when he described how he wanted to gather people to himself. But some were unwilling to come.”
Christiana watched the hen. She remembered the book her son had offered her, and saying, “Don’t keep frowning.” She had heard him perfectly well. She simply had not wanted his words to spoil a fine supper.
“I was one of the unwilling ones,” she said.
The Interpreter did not hurry to make her words sound less serious. “Refusing the Lord’s call is something to repent of. But today you have come here. Will you keep turning your back on him, or ask him for mercy?”
“I want to come. Only when I think of the past, I feel I cannot lift my head.”
“Repentance turns us toward God. If we stare only at our sins until we decide that he will not forgive, we have not listened to him. The Lord does not tell the chicks to collect all their old wrong footprints before coming under his wings.”
Her daughter was crouching nearby, counting chicks. Suddenly she found one missing and called to her mother. Christiana saw a little yellow fluff beneath a wing and pointed it out.
“There it is,” she said.
The hen drew her wing closer. Something small stirred underneath. Christiana stood watching for a long time. She did not need another excuse to make her past actions seem right. She needed to admit her sin and come to the Lord who was willing to receive her.