Page 66 of The Friend Game

“Oh.” Some of my outrage deflates. “You’re going to the bathroom. Well, okay then.” I step back, ready to let her go and pick this back up when she’s finished.

“Don’t know why you’re stopping,” Etta calls over her shoulder. “My nurse always stands outside the door, just in case. Seems to think there’s a chance I might kick the bucket mid-pee.”

“Don’t you dare kick the bucket before you tell me what you meant by knowing love when you see it,” I tell her, earning myself one of her throaty laughs.

“Oh you really are a riot, Hannah,” she croons. “I can see why he loves you back.”

I trip over my own feet, narrowly missing taking her down in the process. Wouldn’t that have been the perfect end to this crap week: bowling over a little old lady and landing her in the hospital.

“Wait, you think Luke loves me back?” I breathe, but she’s already shut the bathroom door behind her and misses the question.

Which is good. Because I realize I’ve slipped up again. Not only by using his first name, but by sayingloves me back. Which implies that I love him.

Which can’t be true. We haven’t even gone on a date yet. We’re only friends! And anyway, I refuse to rush into falling in love with a man again. I got badly burned the last time I fell in love too fast.

Moment of truth though…I’m not sure that I ever actually loved Marshall. I thought I loved Marshall, but lately I’ve been wondering if maybe what I really loved was the idea of Marshall, not Marshall himself. After all, he was a successful, handsome, well-respected man who’d taken interest in little old me. Dating him gave me clout as both an artist and a woman. To catch such a man’s attention gave me a sense of worth that I’d never fully had before.

It was a heady and addicting feeling that made me overlook the problems in our relationship; at least until the biggest problem in our relationship (aka the fact that he was secretly engaged the entiretime) revealed itself in the form of his fiance´e showing up on my apartment doorstep.

I shudder at the memory. After she discovered that Marshall had been cheating on her, she broke off their engagement then headed straight over to my apartment. Giving me far more grace than I think I could have in her shoes, she let me know of her existence and told me she thought I deserved to know that Marshall was a cheater. A week later I’d shown up on Jill’s front porch, a shell of my former self.

I lean back against Etta’s wall as I wait for her to finish in the bathroom, my mind roving back over the emotions and trials of that time period.

Yes, Marshall did a number on me, but I’ve spent the last year attempting to bounce back from that. I’ve been focusing a lot on remembering that my true worth doesn’t come from any man or any human at all for that matter—it comes from God. Funny, though, how sometimes your head can know something to be true, but your heart refuses to cooperate.

Still, my self-willed heart aside, I don’t want to tie my worth to anyone ever again. So how do I form a relationship with a man that’s separate from my opinion of myself? I admit that I want Luke to think I’m funny and for him to enjoy talking to me and—to my shame—perhaps most of all I want himto think I’m attractive. But what I don’t want is for Luke’s opinion to be what gives me my worth.

My worth needs to come from God, and He’s already given me that worth through Jesus’ death and resurrection. So long as I have faith in what He’s done for me, nothing I do or say can add or detract from that. He has made me holy and blameless in His sight.

I suppose the dilemma this leaves me with then is how to recognize real love when I see it.But I have told you,a still small voice seems to whisper to my soul.Love is patient and kind.

I think of Luke high-fiving all of the kids as he walks up the aisle before Wednesday morning chapel, being sure to hit every hand in his path. Of Luke, listening to me talk about my day, sincerely interested in what I have to say. Of Luke, working so hard to get more scholarships to kids who need them.

Lukeis patient and kind.

Love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way.

Marshall loved nothing more than to hear other people praise his work. Don’t get me wrong, every artist enjoys a bit of adulation now and then, but Marshall acted as if he expected it everywhere he went. On the flip side, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard Luke boast about anything.

It is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Luke hasn’t held my lie against me, instead he not only forgave me, but took some ownership of his own mistakes. Perhaps it’s time for both of us to rejoice in the truth, though, rather than hiding the feelings growing between us from the Grace Canyon congregation.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Together I think we can bear and endure whatever comes next. If I have Luke and we both have Jesus, what do we have to fear from man?

These things, the ones listed in 1 Corinthians, are the things I should be measuring love by. And while Luke certainly seems to live his life by this set of characteristics, what’s standing out the most to me is the way he makes me want to live that way too. The way he spurs me toward living a life that reflects the love of Jesus—a love which so perfectly demonstrates the words in these verses.

“Good golly. I think I do love Luke,” I breathe. Of course it’s at that exact moment that Etta opens the door and steps back out in the hallway.

“Well, of course you do,” she grumps, stamping her cane on the ground. “The heart-eyes you wear to church every week gave that away a long time ago. Now what are you hanging aroundhere for? I’ve got my groceries and there’s aMatlockmarathon starting in five minutes, go get your man!”

“Etta, I can’t just go tell him. He has his contract with the elder team to think about.”

“Oh, that old thing,” she dismisses my concern with a wave of her cane, missing hitting me by mere centimeters. “They did that more for his benefit than anything else. They’d be happy to have him taken off the market.”

“What are you talking about, Etta?” I ask her in bewilderment.

---