Bo's Café Read online

  He pauses a bit as though he’s imagining his life without God in it.

  “And thanks for letting me meet Steven that night at Fenton’s. Thank You for letting me be part of this beautiful family.

  “Anyway, we love You and thank You for letting Him come breathe our air, letting Him bring the broken home. Amen.”

  Over the next hour, amid streusel and lattes, we replay how we got to this day. Lindsey recalls the day she was introduced to Andy, laughing about her trendy fashion sunglasses that passed as vintage. We laugh about Bo’s. It’s the kind of unguarded playfulness that was absent from our home for so long.

  Eventually Andy asks, “So, Lindsey, how are you doing? I talk to Steven, but I want to know how you think things are going. You and Steven.”

  Lindsey turns from the kitchen counter, where she is cutting slices of streusel, and moves up behind me. She places her hands on my shoulders, facing Andy across the table.

  “That’s not an easy question to answer. In some ways it can be almost harder than it was before. I’m realizing I can set myself up to believe I’m not ever going to get hurt again, that Steven is done with his anger. But he can still ramp up. Not nearly as often or as bad. But when he does, because I’m opening up again, the hurt can feel almost worse than before. Does that make sense?”

  “Perfect sense.” Andy nods.

  “But our relationship is so much better, in ways I never even counted on. It’s more real and alive and true.”

  I reach up for her hand and squeeze it.

  “You know my favorite moments? It’s when Steven catches himself getting wound up and he calls time-out. He’ll actually stop the conversation and say something like, ‘This is about me right now, huh?’ And I’ll smile and say, ‘Well, yeah, maybe kind of.’ And he’ll say, ‘I really think I had a point going there, and I’m pretty sure I thought I was right, but I’m going to have to let it go for now. Thanks.’ ”

  “Some of the time,” I add, “I’m stopping because of Jennifer. She and I have a signal, Andy. It’s really pretty amazing. She doesn’t use it unless I’m starting to look like the Hulk.”

  “Very cool, very cool,” Andy says as he leans back in his chair, deeply enjoying our reflections.

  “Anyway,” Lindsey continues, “he just asks to hold me. In those moments, everything gets stronger. I gain hope and trust. And he starts to believe he can live this way. And I’m learning to not take advantage of his vulnerability. I sort of did early on. Andy, that’s when it becomes about me, huh?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  Lindsey continues, “I can’t demand Steven to never fail again. I can’t control his every action, or I’ll become someone I don’t like. And Steven will wither into a well-behaved, empty shell. And he has so much more to offer than being the ‘passive, controlled guy.’ ”

  “Lindsey’s also made some good friends at church,” I add. “And we’ve gotten close to several couples. We’re starting to let them know about our struggles. I think that’s been a safety net for Lindsey.”

  “This is the church at its best. See, if you don’t have the safety of those friends to air it out with, it’s really hard for Steven to get healthy. Everything gets strange in the vacuum of privacy.”

  Lindsey now wraps her arms more tightly around me and presses her head next to mine.

  “Andy, I want you to know what else I see in my husband. I see courage. I’m realizing these issues didn’t all start with him. This is a pattern that goes way back in the Kerner family. In his love for Jenny and me, he’s facing some really hard stuff.”

  She sits down in the chair next to me and touches my face. “Steven, do you know that because you are risking to trust God and others with you, that you are giving your daughter a healthier life? Did you know that? You can’t have any idea how much that means to me. Jenny will get to grow up knowing what a good man looks like. How a healthy man faces his issues. She is watching your humility. She is watching you let me love you. You know what?” She shakes her head in amazement. “Her children will be healthier than us. And they will never know why. But I will, Steven. I will.”

  A mischievous smile forms on Lindsey’s face.

  “You know what I’d like?” she says, clapping her hands together like a young girl.

  “I’d like you to ask me out on a date for tonight. You will take me to an extravagant restaurant, and we will eat a ridiculously expensive meal. I will order their nicest glass of red wine. And we will embarrass other nearby couples with our obvious affection. Then you will drive us home. I’ll light some candles, while you put on some romantic music. I will tell you how proud I am of you. Then you will tell me how beautiful I look.”

  She giggles. “You will do that part throughout the evening.”

  Andy winks at me.

  “Then you will thank me for hanging in there with you all these years. And then, once again, you will bring up the part about how beautiful I look.”

  Lindsey is beautiful. She was always attractive, but over these last six months she has become incredibly beautiful to me.

  I stand and pull her up to me, taking her into my arms. “You know what I think I’d like us to do? We need to go out tonight, to a really expensive restaurant. What do you think?”

  Our faces inches from each other, she says, “That’s a great idea. I’d love to.”

  Andy finally speaks. “Have you ever felt like you needed to be hosed off just listening to a couple plan a date?” He loosens an imaginary tie and fans himself.

  “You know what? I’ve got an idea. If you’d like, we can trade cars for a few days. It seems fitting. Steven, when we started this journey, I told you that the Electra could take you to the places you needed to go. Right now it sounds like that might be a romantic seaside hideaway somewhere up Highway 1.”

  “Yes!” Lindsey shouts, throwing her arms around Andy.

  “Plus,” he adds, “I’ll be driving the Mercedes. Folks in Palm Springs will stare at me tooling down the boulevard, wondering which L.A. celebrity I am.”

  Twenty minutes later I’m standing in the driveway holding the keys to a 1970 Buick Electra, while a homeless-looking man in flip-flops and a Hawaiian shirt slides behind the wheel of my Mercedes.

  He pulls away in my car, yelling loudly enough to wake all the neighbors, “Enjoy the Electra. I’ll be back in town early the week after Christmas. Just drop her by my house on your way to work one day. Merry Christmas! Ho, ho, ho!”

  By the time I turn back around from watching Lindsey’s reaction, he’s gone.

  “I Have Waited for This Moment All Week.”

  (Tuesday Morning, December 29)

  I’m driving over to Andy’s house, sad to be giving up his car. It’s one thing to ride in a 1970 Buick Electra convertible; it is something else all together to commandeer one. Talk about old school. Behind the giant steering wheel, with its loose play and ridiculous turn radius, you can’t decide if you should round up some buddies and go rob a bank or pick up the homecoming queen and drive her around a track.

  Today, dressed in a tie, I feel like a character from an old Sinatra movie, on the Vegas Strip, making his way to the Dunes to rough up someone with his brass knuckles.

  But, alas, today Andy and I are exchanging cars.

  At least that’s what he thinks.

  I have waited for this moment all week. Maybe I have waited for this moment my whole life. Some call what is about to happen convergence. Andy calls it the true legacy of exchange. This is the stuff you expect to see only in movies. And now it is happening in my world. How crazy. Before the world began, God showed the angels this whole scene on tape delay, and now it takes place on earth. This is what Andy has waited for all along. He’s been modeling the necessary destination of the very relationship he initiated. He knew that for it to be authentic, someday, in some areas, the student would have to become the teacher. The one being protected would become the protector. This is the life Andy led me into. This is what I hav
e matured into. He’s been working toward this since the day we met! He just didn’t know it would happen like this.

  I cannot wait to see the expression on his face.

  I have my Oakleys on, the ones with glare-resistant lenses and unbreakable frames. I’ve called ahead, asking him to be outside when I pull up. I’m very, very good, if I do say so myself.

  I turn onto his street and spot him off in the distance, standing out front, next to my Mercedes.

  Here we go.

  I pull up next to the Mercedes, out in the middle of the street. I put the car in park, the engine still running.

  He looks at me, confused. “What’s going on?”

  We both stare at each other. I say nothing. I just smile and put my right arm on top of the seat. I’m suddenly flooded with a blur of experiences he and I have shared on this amazing ride.

  Threatening him at Fenton’s. Driving us up on the hill, blowing smoke rings into the night air. Hearing his voice as the sound track for the scenes below I was starting to see for the first time. Talking me out of my own house, over the phone. Walking me through my first visit to Bo’s. Listening to him describe his business failure. Watching me, in my office, trapping myself. Holding cups of coffee at the marina. Letting go of the wheel, out on the ocean. Confronting my lies after I hurt Lindsey at lunch. Sitting next to him as he bares his soul about his dad. Waking up to him on our doorstep behind shopping bags holding ingredients for his Norwegian streusel.

  “Steven?”

  I am so excited I can barely say it with a straight face. “Good morning, Andy. Get in.”

  He’s taken aback. “What do you mean? Where are we going?”

  “We’re going to go see your dad.”

  Andy is expressionless.

  “You’re going to need these.” I toss him a pair of my Oakleys.

  Andy tries to say something to buy time. “Uh, what do you… you mean right now? Because I was going to…”

  “Look, I’m pretty sure this car will take us to the places you need to go. But I can’t make you get in.”

  “But I thought we were gonna exchange cars today.”

  That’s when I give him the answer I’ve rehearsed all week long. “I can’t, Andy. At least not on your terms. So are you getting in, or am I gonna buy you a pound of coffee and send you on your way?”

  Ka ching.

  He looks at me a long time. Then he looks down, his hands in his pockets, gently kicking at the ground. The exchange is taking place, only now in reverse. Like a boomerang, what Andy threw out as a gift has finally found its way back to him.

  Then he looks up at me, almost smiling.

  “You’re good. You’re very good. All right, Steven, let’s go see my dad.”

  Go figure. Andy is letting me protect him.

  Andy reaches in to open the door with the inside handle. He puts on my Oakleys and sits down in the passenger seat. He runs his hands along the seat, and then sits back as far as he can, settling in for a ride down the coast.

  He pulls out a cigar and begins to unwrap it. “Do you mind if I smoke?” he asks.

  “Yes, I do.” I don’t, really. I’ve just wanted the chance to say that for so long.

  I caught him off guard, just as I’d hoped. He answers quickly. “Oh, yes, well, sure. Sorry.” He puts the cigar back into his shirt and continues, “You’re right. I’ve been trying to quit. I really am going to quit.”

  And with that the giant Electra convertible rumbles its way out of his neighborhood.

  Two prodigals, with vastly different journeys, are together again, finding their way back home.

  Acknowledgments

  We are grateful to those who continue to teach us God’s grace in spite of what is true about us, and for those who introduced us to his dreams for our lives and now stand with us as we are privileged to share truths with others.

  Thanks to our loyal board of directors, our dedicated staff, our generous financial partners, our advisory council, and the friends of TrueFaced for your timeless encouragement and sacrificial investments. We especially thank Amber Ong Kakimoto, Rod Gipson, Doris Wescott, Jason Lehman, David Pinkerton, Shannon McCarthy, and Steve and Carol Barger, in whose mountain home many of these pages were penned.

  Most significantly, we thank Toben Heim, our media director at TrueFaced Resources & Leadership Catalyst. Toben shepherded this project through its last year with editorial, marketing, and publishing savvy that we three coauthors didn’t possess. Like us, this TrueFaced message of Bo’s Café has rescued Toben’s life. Toben, you are a rare blend!

  Without the invitation of William Young we would never have met our collaborators and publishers at Windblown. Wayne Jacobsen, Brad Cummings, and Mick Silva—you have been an unexpected gift of immense significance. Thank you for your storytelling ways, your editorial nuance, and your generosity.

  We uniquely appreciate our friend Bob Ryan, a gifted playwright and musician, who again owes his life to the truths embodied in Bo’s Café. Bob, your exquisite literary “catches” add intrigue and energy to this story.

  Thanks to the men and women of Sharky Productions theater troupe, Open Door Fellowship, the Neighborhood Church, Spring Mountain Bible Church, and EBMMAS (the Ernest Borgnine Memorial Music Appreciation Society), with whom we are privileged to enjoy community and live in these truths.

  We are grateful to the more than fifty volunteer readers, researchers, media experts, and storytellers who love this message and use their talents to propel this incredible message of God’s grace: people like Nathan Mates, Bob Snow, Kathy Deering, Mike Hamel, and Jason Pearson, who contributed their insights, critique, or substantial refinement to Bo’s Café.

  Thanks to the men and women who followed God’s nudge in their lives, embraced these truths, and now represent that diverse group around the world on which the story of Bo’s Café is based.

  Finally, we thank our wives and families, who are the most loving and faithful mirrors of these truths in our lives, both when we are living in them and when we stray from them.

  Personal Message from the Authors

  Sharing This Book with Others

  If you have been encouraged by the message of grace and life change contained in these pages and would like to share it with others, here are some ideas and easy ways to help.

  • We will be blogging on www.boscafe.com at least once a week. Come by and check it out. We’ll have plenty of stories to tell about how this message is spreading. Leave us a comment and tell us your grace-story!

  • Be our friend on Facebook. Just search for Bo’s Café Book and you’ll find us. We promise to confirm you as a friend! This is a great way to stay in touch with what’s going on with the book and the authors.

  • We know many of you have blogs, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts. We’d love to have you post a review of the book along with a link to www.boscafe.com. You can also leave your thoughts at Amazon.com. Your recommendation is all many will need to pick up the book and start their journey.

  • Create a simple button or use a JPEG of the cover on your Web site or blog with a link to www.boscafe.com. This is the easiest way for your friends, family, and readers to start their own journey into grace.

  • Buy a few copies to give away. We have a friend who takes a copy of the book on the plane with him just so he can leave it in a seat-back pocket for whoever sits there next. Another friend gives a copy away to her server in restaurants. Of course you can give them to people you know well too!

  • If you have a great opportunity for one of our authors to appear on your local radio station, morning TV show, or in a local print publication, send us an e-mail at [email protected] and let us know about it. We’ll take it from there, providing a review copy and other information to help them make their decision to help us spread the word.

  • We can’t travel and speak in all the places we wish we could, but if you have an opportunity for one of our authors to speak at your church, your organization, or
conference, send us an e-mail at [email protected] and we’ll see what we can arrange.

  Our prayer is that more and more people will come to discover the life and freedom in Christ that living in his grace affords us. We have given our lives to helping people move into relationships and environments of grace where they can be authentic and who they were created to be. Thanks for your part in passing along the opportunity to live a grace-filled life!

  About the Authors

  John Lynch

  As a great communicator and a talented writer, John Lynch is a vital member of the Leadership Catalyst/TrueFaced community. John has coauthored a number of books and resources with Bill and Bruce, including the bestseller TrueFaced and the popular TrueFaced audio-video message.

  Bill Thrall

  As vice chair and coauthor for Leadership Catalyst/TrueFaced, Bill has a desire to see relational health in those he works with. His eloquence and integrity have given him opportunities to teach these principles internationally. His wisdom has been penned throughout the entire series of The Ascent of a Leader, Beyond Your Best, and TrueFaced Experience books.

  Bruce McNicol

  As cofounder and president of Leadership Catalyst/TrueFaced, Bruce has a passion to see tens of thousands of safe places like Bo’s Café established around the world, whether they are families, businesses, schools, hospitals, churches, organizations, sports teams, the military, or governments. Bruce’s degrees in finance law, theology, leadership, and organizational development helped hone his gift to speak to the lives of others, which continues to draw international audiences.

  Trust God and Others with Who You Really Are

  “Make this the very next book you read. TrueFaced is an outstanding, truly life-changing book.”

  Luis Palau

  For those wanting to move deeper into an understanding of what it means to lead a grace-filled life, TrueFaced will take you to the next level as you come to understand the difference between constantly striving to please God and simply coming to trust Him. The difference is life-changing!