Face the Future

Connie's ordinary life at Whit's End takes a surprising turn today, so I'll lay out how the whole story unfolds.

Before leaving on a trip to Chicago, Whit asks Connie to manage Whit's End while he is away, but he notices right away that she is distracted. Connie explains that after months of ups and downs with her sister Jules, her life had finally settled into a comfortable routine: dragging a sleepy Jules out of bed every morning, leading her weekly ladies' Bible study, and hosting her radio show, Candid Conversations with Connie, where the kids would rather argue about Amazing Journey trading cards than talk about anything else. She loves that routine, and she feels blessed to have it.

But this morning everything changed. Connie found Jules's bed empty because Jules had gotten herself up and driven to school on her own, telling a stunned Connie that she was right all along, that Connie cannot watch after her forever, and that Connie needs to get on with her own life. Then, after Bible study, Mrs. Randolph bluntly asked Connie whether she ever plans to get married, wondering if she really wants to dish out ice cream forever and urging her to think about moving forward. Finally, on her show, the kids excitedly described the latest Amazing Journey episode, in which their favorite character wonders whether she has done all she can with her crew and should leave to explore the "great, big, beautiful universe" on her own. Three conversations, one theme. Connie tells Whit she thinks God is trying to send her a message, and Whit agrees it is not crazy at all. He does not believe in coincidences, and he points out that Connie is at a crossroads: now that Jules is a believer and taking responsibility for herself, one of Connie's main goals is complete. His advice for when a theme runs through your life is simple: pay attention. He offers to let Jason manage the shop so she can sort things out, but Connie wants the normalcy, and Whit leaves her with a promise: "He'll reveal your future in his good and perfect time."

After Whit departs, Jules notices that Renee Carter has been moody, and Renee admits she has had a lot on her mind, including Jules herself. When Jules shares that her car crash led to a deeper healing inside, becoming a Christian, Renee labels it a "traumatic conversion," fear turning into religion. Jules pushes back: it was not just the accident; she realized she has always needed Jesus, because she is a sinner in need of a Savior who cannot save herself and wants to go to heaven. Renee, who peppers her speech with Latin, confesses the real trouble gnawing at her. She is not an atheist but an agnostic, and she hates that word because it comes from a root meaning ignorant. Everyone in Odyssey seems to possess a knowledge she does not have, and she does not do faith well; she prefers certainty. She muses that with all of Whit's marvelous inventions, it is strange he never made a program letting people experience what comes next. Jules remembers overhearing Connie and Eugene talk about an Imagination Station program Whit created that shows what heaven is like, one that apparently did not turn out the way Whit wanted, so he got rid of it. Guessing he would have kept a record of something that big, the two search the files in Whit's secret room, where Renee discovers a case of old micro-floppies and mini-discs labeled as a life after death program. Since Whit's End has no drive to read them, she plans to load the discs into the portable Imagination Station in her lab at the college. "Life after death, here I come," she declares.

The next morning, Jules suggests that Connie take a drive out to the country to think, and Connie knows just the place: the acre of the old Riley-Clements farm that Tom Riley willed to her before he died. There, among apple trees that have grown tall, she finds a well-dressed stranger admiring the view. He knows all about her land, and he introduces himself as Malachi, an angel, glad to see her again. Connie is skeptical, so Malachi asks what Scripture says to do, and she tests the spirits as 1 John teaches; he solemnly declares he is sent by the Lord Jesus Christ who has come in the flesh, which satisfies her that he is no demon. As for being a criminal, he jokes, "Would a criminal wear a suit like this?" Malachi explains that they have met before, but she is not meant to remember their meetings, and that he has been sent as an answer to a prayer she has not even prayed yet, because her Heavenly Father knows her heart. He knows she is torn between the steady everydayness of the present and the unknown paths of the future, and he tells her what she needs in a single word: adventure. As Connie follows him, asking where they are going, Renee powers up the Imagination Station in her lab, and a voice greets her by name, introducing itself as her host, Leonid, leaving both women on the edge of adventures whose endings no one can yet see.