12. Talk about a time when you struggled to find healing and forgiveness. How did that hurt carry over into your life or the life of someone you know?
13. How did Emma react to the idea that Brad had come to Holden Beach to apologize? Has anyone you know ever told you they were sorry for something grievous? How did you react?
14. Emma hadn’t told anyone about what actually happened at the abortion clinic. Why do you think it was important that she shared this information with Brad? How did the news change the way Brad viewed their decision to have an abortion?
15. Christians can get a bad reputation for being judgmental, but many times Christians are actually very understanding. Explain how Emma must’ve felt when Gavin Greeley was willing to listen without judgment when she talked about her abortion.
16. Tell about a time when you or a Christian you know did not pass judgment on someone who was struggling. Explain how love and grace was extended to that person, and talk about the outcome for the person who was struggling. Share, also, about a time when a Christian was judgmental. How did that situation turn out?
17. Share your favorite “life” story — proof that life is God’s alone, and that all life is to be treasured. This might be the story of the birth of a child or the miracle story of someone you know or love. Talk about the gift of life.
18. Psalm 139:13 – 14 says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” What does this mean to you?
19. Emma and Brad created their own moment of confession and forgiveness on the beach. Talk about what it means to confess your sins to one another. Why do you think God asks His people to confess their wrongdoings as part of the healing process?
20. Laura washed Brad’s feet upon his return to New York City. Explain why this act of humility was a critical part of her transformation. How can you serve someone you love as a way of showing Christ’s love and grace?
READ AN EXCERPT FROM THE FIRST BOOK IN THE ABOVE THE LINE SERIES: TAKE ONE
One
CHASE RYAN DOUBTED THERE WAS ENOUGH oxygen in the plane to get him from San Jose to Indianapolis. He took his window seat on the Boeing 737, slid his laptop bag onto the floor space in front of him, and closed his eyes. Deep breaths, he told himself. Stay calm. But nothing about the job ahead of him inspired even a single peaceful feeling. On Monday Chase and his best friend Keith Ellison would set up shop in Bloomington, Indiana, and start spending millions of dollars of other people’s investment money to make a film they believed would change lives.
Even during the rare moments when that fact didn’t terrify him, Chase could hear the quiet anxious voice of his wife, Kelly, splashing him with a cold bucket of reality. “Only two million dollars, Chase? Seriously?” She had brought it up again on the way to the airport. Her knuckles stayed white as she gripped the steering wheel. “What if you run out of money before you finish the film?”
“We won’t.” Chase had steeled his eyes straight ahead. “Keith and I know the budget.”
“What if it doesn’t go like you planned?” Her body was tense, her eyes fearful. She gave him quick, nervous glances. “If something happens, we’ll spend the rest of our lives paying that off.”
She was right, but he didn’t want to say so. Not when it was too late to turn back. The actors were arriving on set in two days, and the entire film crew would be in Bloomington by tomorrow. Plans were in motion, and already bills needed to be paid. They had no choice but to move ahead and stick to their budget, trusting God that they could make this film for two million dollars, and illustrate a message of faith better and stronger than anything the industry had ever seen.
Failure wasn’t an option.
They reached the airport, but before she dropped Chase off, Kelly turned to him, lines creasing the space between her eyebrows. She was only thirty-one, but lately she looked older. Maybe because she only seemed to smile when she was playing with their two little girls, Macy and Molly. Worry weighted her tone. “Four weeks?”
“Hopefully sooner.” He refused to be anything but optimistic.
“You’ll call?”
“Of course. Every day.” Chase studied her, and the familiar love was there. But her anxiety was something he didn’t recognize. The faith she’d shown back when they lived in Indonesia, that’s what he needed from her now. “Relax, baby. Please.”
“Okay.” She let out a sigh and another one seemed right behind it. “Why am I so afraid?”
His heart went out to her. “Kelly …” His words were softer than before, his tone desperate to convince her. “Believe in me … believe in this movie. You don’t know how much I need that.”
“I’m trying.” She looked down and it took awhile before she raised her eyes to his again. “It was easier in Indonesia. At least in the jungle the mission was simple.”
“Simple?” He chuckled, but the sound lacked any real humor. “Indonesia was never easy. Any of us could’ve been arrested or killed. We could’ve caught malaria or a dozen different diseases. Every day held that kind of risk.”
The lines on her face eased a little and a smile tugged at her lips. She touched her finger to his face. “At least we had each other.” She looked deep into his eyes, to the places that belonged to only the two of them and she kissed him. “Come on, Chase … you’ve gotta see why I’m worried. It’s not just the money.”
He caught a quick look at his watch. “You’re afraid we won’t finish on time and that’ll put us over budget and — ”
“No.” She didn’t raise her voice, but the fear in her eyes cut him short. “Don’t you see?” Shame filled in the spaces between her words. “You’re young and handsome and talented …” Her smile was sad now. “You’ll be working with beautiful actresses and movie professionals and … I don’t know, the whole thing scares me.”
She didn’t come out and admit her deeper feelings, those she’d shared with him a week before the trip. The fact that she didn’t feel she could measure up to the Hollywood crowd. Chase ached for her, frustrated by her lack of confidence. “This isn’t about the movie industry. It’s about a bigger mission field than we ever had in Indonesia.” He wove his fingers into her thick dark hair, drew her close, and kissed her once more. “Trust me, baby. Please.”
This time she didn’t refute him, but the worry in her eyes remained as he grabbed his bags and stepped away from the car. He texted her once he got through security, telling her again that he loved her and that she had nothing to worry about. But she didn’t answer and now, no matter how badly he needed to sleep, he couldn’t shake the look on her face or the tone of her voice. What if her fears were some sort of premonition about the movie? Maybe God was using her to tell Keith and him to pull out now — before they lost everything.
Once on the plane, he tightened his seatbelt and stared out the window. But then, Keith’s wife was completely on board with their plans. Her father was one of the investors, after all. Besides that, Keith’s daughter, Andi, was a freshman at Indiana University, so the shoot would give Keith a window to Andi’s world — something he was grateful for. Andi wanted to be an actress, and apparently her roommate was a theater major. Both college girls would be extras in the film, so Keith’s entire family could hardly wait to get started.
Chase bit the inside of his lip. From the beginning, all the worries about the movie came from him and Kelly, but now that he was on his way to Indiana, Chase had to focus not on his fears, but on the film.
He ignored the knots in his stomach as he leaned against the cold hard plastic that framed the airplane window. The movie they were making was called The Last Letter, the story of a college kid whose life is interrupted when his father suffers a sudden fatal heart attack. The kid isn’t sure how to move on until his mother reveals to him a letter — one last letter from his father. That letter takes Braden on a quest of discovery in faith and family, and finally into a brilliant future Braden had known noth
ing about.
The story was a parable, an illustration of the verse in Jeremiah 29:11: “ ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ ” The verse would be their mantra every day of the filming, Chase had no doubt.
He closed his eyes, and in a rush he could hear the music welling in his chest, feel the emotion as it filled a theater full of moviegoers. He could see the images as they danced across the big screen, and he could imagine all of it playing out beyond his wildest expectations.
But the way from here to there could easily be a million miles of rocky back roads and potholes.
They were still at the gate, still waiting for the plane to head out toward the runway. Chase blinked and stared out the window, beyond the airport to the blue sky. Every day this week had been blue, not a cloud in sight, something Chase and Keith both found fitting. Because no matter what Kelly feared, no matter what pressures came with this decision, here was the moment Chase and Keith had dreamed of and planned for, the culmination of a lifetime of believing that God wanted them to take part in saving the world — not on a mission field in Indonesia, but Take One 325 in packed movie houses across America. Oak River Films, they called themselves. The name came from their love of the first Psalm. Chase had long since memorized the first three verses:
Blessed is the man who does not walk not in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
Oak River Films. That everything he and Keith did would be rooted in a delight for the Lord, and a belief that if they planted their projects near the living water of Christ, they would flourish for Him. Chase shifted in his seat. He silently repeated the Scripture again. Why was he worried about what lay ahead? He believed God was sending them to make this movie, right? He pressed his body into the thinly padded seat. Breathe. Settle down and breathe.
In every way that mattered, this film would make or break them in the world of Hollywood movie production. Easy enough, he had told himself when they first began this venture. But as the trip to Bloomington, Indiana, neared, the pressure built. They received phone calls from well-meaning investors asking how the casting was going or confirming when the shoot date was. They weren’t antsy or doubtful that Chase and Keith could bring a return for their investment, but they were curious.
The same way everyone surrounding the film was curious.
Keith handled these phone calls. He was the calmer of the two, the one whose faith knew no limits. It had been Keith’s decision that they would make the film with money from investors rather than selling out too quickly to a studio. Producers who paid for their projects retained complete creative control — and the message of this first film was one Chase and Keith wouldn’t let anyone change. No matter how much easy studio money might hang in the balance.
Moments like this Chase worried about all of it. His wife and little girls back home, and whether the production team could stick to the aggressive film schedule they’d set. Chase massaged his thumb into his brow. The concerns made up a long list. He had to manage a cast of egos that included an academy award winner and two household names — both of whom had reputations for being talented but difficult. He had to keep everyone working well together and stick to his four-week schedule — all while staying on budget. He worried about running out of money or running out of time, and whether this was really where God wanted them — working in a world as crazy as Hollywood.
Chase took a long breath and exhaled slowly. The white-haired woman next to him was reading a magazine, but she glanced his way now and then, probably looking for a conversation. Chase wasn’t interested. He looked out the window again and a picture filled his mind, the picture of an apartment building surrounded by police tape. The image was from his high school days in the San Fernando Valley, when a major earthquake hit Southern California. The damage was considerable, but the Northridge Meadows apartment symbolized the worst of it. In a matter of seconds, the three-story apartment building collapsed and became one — the weight of the top two floors too great for the shaken foundation.
A shudder ran its way through Chase.
That could be them in a few months if the filming didn’t go well, if the foundation of their budget didn’t hold the weight of all that was happening on top of it. Chase could already feel the weight pressing in along his shoulders.
“Excuse me.” The woman beside him tapped his arm. “Does your seatback have a copy of the SkyMall magazine? Mine’s missing.”
Chase checked and found what the woman wanted. He smiled as he handed it to her. “Helps pass the time.”
“Yes.” She had kind blue eyes. “Especially during takeoff. I can usually find something for my precious little Max. He’s a cockapoo. Cute as a button.”
“I’m sure.” Chase nodded and looked out the window once more. Pressure came with the job, he’d known that from the beginning. He and Keith were producers; with that came a certain sense of thrill and awe, terror and anxiety, because for every dollar they’d raised toward this movie, for every chance an investor took on their film, there was a coinciding possibility that something could go wrong.
“You ever wonder,” Chase had asked Keith a few days ago over a Subway sandwich, “whether we should’ve just stayed in Indonesia?”
Keith only smiled that slow smile, the one that morphed across his face when his confidence came from someplace otherworldly. “This is where we’re supposed to be.” He took a bite of his sandwich and waited until he’d swallowed. He looked deep into Chase’s eyes. “I feel it in the center of my bones.”
Truth and integrity. That’s what Keith worried about. The truth of the message when the film was finally wrapped and they brought it to the public, and integrity with the cast and crew, the investors and the studios. For Keith, every day was a test because God was watching.
Chase agreed, but the pressure he felt didn’t come from being under the watchful eye of the Lord. That mattered a great deal, but God would accept them whether they returned home having completed their movie mission or not. Rather Chase worried because the whole world was watching to see what sort of movie the two of them could make on such a limited budget. And if they failed, the world would know that too.
They were in the air now and the woman beside him closed the SkyMall magazine and handed it back to him. “I’ve seen it all before. Nothing new for Max.” She shrugged one thin shoulder. “I’ve been making this trip a lot lately. Trying to sell my house in Indiana.”
Chase still didn’t want to talk, but the woman reminded him of his grandmother. She had a warmth about her, and something else … a sadness maybe. Whatever it was he felt compelled to give her at least a little time. “Moving to San Jose?”
“Yes. It’s time, I guess.” She looked straight ahead at nothing in particular. “Lived in Indiana all my life.” Light from the window fell on her soft wrinkled skin, and for a few seconds her smile faded. She had to be eighty at least, but she seemed a decade younger. Then, as if she suddenly remembered she’d begun a conversation with a stranger, she grinned at Chase again. “What about you? Heading home?”
“No.” He angled himself so his back was against the window. “Going to Bloomington for business.”
She looked delighted that he was talking to her. “Business!” She raised an eyebrow. “My husband was a businessman. What line of work?”
“I’m a producer.” Chase fought with the sense of privilege and headiness that came with the title. “We’ll be on location four weeks.”
“Produce! Isn’t that wonderful.” She folded her hands in her lap. “My great nephew works in produce. Got a job at the grocer not too far from his parents’ house and now he unpacks tomatoes and cabbage all day long.”
>
Chase opened his mouth to tell her he was a producer, and not in produce, but she wasn’t finished.
“He’s only been at it a few months, but I don’t think he’ll end up in produce long term. He wants to finish school.” She angled her head sweetly. “Did you finish college, young man?”
“Yes, ma’am. But —”
“Well, of course you did.” She laughed lightly at herself. “You must be a produce manager, heading to the farms of Bloomington for harvest season, making sure the crop’s coming up good and going out to stores across the country.” She gave as hearty a nod as she could muster. “That’s a mighty important job.” Her finger gave a quick jab in his direction. “The public takes it for granted, the way we need produce managers. We walk into a store and just assume we can buy a pound of red apples or Vidalia onions.” She settled back in her seat, but she looked straight at him. “Farming’s the American way.” Her grin held a level of admiration. “Thanks for what you do for this great nation … what’d you say your name was?”
“Chase. Chase Ryan.”
“Matilda Ewing. Mattie.”
“Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
“Well, Mr. Ryan,” she held out her bony fingers. “It’s a pleasure to meet you too. But what about your family back home? Four weeks is an awful long time to be apart. My son nearly lost his marriage once because of that. He was in sales … had to figure out a different territory to save his family.” She barely paused. “You do have a family, right?”
“Yes, ma’am. It’s hard to be away.” He was touched by the woman’s transparency. “My wife, Kelly, is home with our little girls. They’re four and two.”
She sucked in a surprised breath. “And you’ll be gone four weeks! You must have a peach for a wife. That’s a long time to tend to a family by yourself.”