Page 117 of Wilder

Wilder felt unfamiliar irritation rise inside him. “You make it sound like Lexi wanted something with me, and I’m rejecting her to go gallivanting around the world. That’s not the case.”

“But if it was?”

“I would probably reconsider my immediate plans.”

He wasn’t sure what a future with Lexi might have looked like if she really was interested. It was hard to imagine living and raising a family anywhere but Serenity. No matter where he went, Serenity was always home for him. It was where he always came back to. And even in his nebulous future, it had always involved putting down roots in Serenity.

“Well, it’s a moot point,” Wilder said. “Unless Lexi changes her mind and wants to see if we could have something together, it really doesn’t matter.”

“But you need to open yourself up to the possibility of a plan for your future needing to come together sooner rather than later.”

“Okay, well, it doesn’t have to happen in the middle of a blizzard,” Wilder said.

Thankfully, everyone was distracted by Blake’s arrival with the “essentials” he’d picked up at the store. As they unpacked the bags, the discussion turned to what they would have for supper.

It wasn’t much of a discussion because they all agreed pretty quickly that the day called for a warm, hearty dish, and that dish was going to be chili and cornbread.

While Blake went upstairs to take a shower, the rest of them tackled dinner prep. Wilder pitched in to help Janessa make thecornbread muffins, retrieving the ingredients as she read them out to him, choosing to take on the supervisory role as she sat at the counter.

The icy wind continued to blow, and the snow steadily fell in the dark beyond the windows. But inside the house, there was warmth and laughter. Wilder participated, but his thoughts were split between the cornbread he was making and Lexi.

She still hadn’t replied, and he couldn’t help but be a bit worried.

When the cornbread was divided into the muffin papers in the tin, Wilder carried them over to the oven and slid them in.

As he sat down on the stool beside Janessa, his text alert sounded. He pulled his phone out and felt a swirl of relief when he saw the message he’d been waiting for.

Lexi:Thanks. We just arrived at our hotel and will have a couple of days to practice before our short on Thursday.

After considering a variety of replies, he finally settled onThat’s great. Hope all goes well!

The sick pit in his stomach as he thought of her and Mik at the hotel took him off-guard. She’d made it clear she didn’t want anything with him, so Wilder didn’t know why he was so bothered.

Well, he did know why it bothered him. She might want distance from him, but he didn’t want distance from her. He wanted to be there for her, supporting her as she reached for her dreams one more time.

Instead, Mik was going to be the one helping her achieve them. It would be easier for Wilder to accept that if he could be there for her, ready to celebrate with her if it went well or commiserate if it didn’t.

“Stop moping around,” Janessa said as she jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow. “If God wants you and Lexi to be together, He’ll guide you in that direction.”

“That only works if she’s willing to be guided.”

“Are you?” she asked.

“Am I what?”

“Willing to be guided?” She leaned on her arm on the counter and shifted to face him more fully, propping her cheek on her hand. “Are you willing to be guided?”

Wilder pondered her words. He’d always assumed he was. For years, he’d kept to the same schedule. Leave Serenity in April, travel outside of the US to produce videos, return to Serenity in October or November. Figuring if God wanted him to change up his schedule, He’d make that clear.

And it seemed that God had. When Wilder had encountered that situation in Thailand, it had sent him in a direction he’d been more than willing to embrace. And now the orphanage work was a part of his summer plans.

More recently, he’d taken on some responsibility for sharing information about the orphanages, and he was happy to do that too.

He realized that those two changes had fit into the life he already lived, so of course, it had been easy to accept God’s guidance in those. But how would he react if God seemed to be leading him away from the life he’d planned to live for years to come?

Maybe he wasn’t as willing to be guided as he’d always assumed he was. It was easy to accept God’s guidance when it aligned with what he wanted. Now he realized it wasn’t quite aseasy when it might take him completely off the path he’d wanted to keep traveling.

Still, in this particular situation, if Lexi wasn’t willing to consider God’s guidance, it wouldn’t matter much if he was.

---