Page 92 of Austen

Funny enough, Austen asked her if she’d brought fresh shrimp.

“Of course I did, Tennie,” Margo said, and because it was a dream, the container of peel-and-eat shrimp simply appeared.And then she wasn’t in the life raft anymore but on the stern of her trawler, watching the sun sink across the water, seagulls crying from the golden sky, and Margo sitting on the back sofa, looking over a map of the Silver Shore.

No.Not a dream.A memory.

“Why is this statue so important to you?”Austen had asked.Margo had wanted to join the research team, but Austen had just gotten wind of a new dive outfit.One started by Hawkeye Marshall.Seemed like the right life.Diving every day, watching the sunset from the flybridge of her boat every evening.A simple life.Uncomplicated.

She liked uncomplicated.It meant easy choices, no regrets.

Margo had looked up at her.“It’s not about the statue, Austen.It’s about the hope that the statue has survived after all this time.It’s about faith.”

“But...you’re not even Catholic.”

Margo had taken a sip of the lemonade.“I don’t have to be Catholic to appreciate the fact that Mary represents trust and hope and how God defeated evil and used a young girl who was obedient to do it.It is amazing to me that God can use anyone who simplytrustsHim.”

She’d folded the map.“In His sovereignty, God knew that she would say yes.In His sovereignty, He knew that He was sending her one of the most difficult jobs ever.To be Christ’s mother, to watch Him die on the cross.To trust that Hereallywas the Messiah as promised.God took the worst crime in history, the execution of Jesus, and turned it into the most important rescue.He took what the world meant for evil and turned it miraculous.And it all started with Mary saying yes.So yeah, I would love to pull her statue out of its watery grave.But not at the expense of dinner.”

And then Margo had laughed, and Austen had too, as they reached for the shrimp.

But her words lingered, and maybe that’s why Jesus’s words on the cross hung in Austen’s head as she woke to the sea churning and the light pouring into the life raft on her first morning in the vastness of the blue.

Her stomach churned, and she leaned over the edge and lost what little she’d eaten from the ration pack she’d found in the life-raft survival packet.

Outside the raft, the sea had awakened, turned confused, the sky dotted with intermittent clouds blocking the sun in one moment, letting it stream through in another.Wind caught her, and she shivered, still in her pajamas.

And because she had nothing else, she replayed her conversation with Declan as they’d walked along the cobblestones, her words pinging back to her.“I didn’t know that grief would feel so much like fear.”For some reason, she latched on to that now.Maybe because here, alone in the raft, with her knees drawn up to herself, she had nowhere else to run.

What had Declan said about looking at his troubles so he could figure out the problem?

And then her Hawaiian shark instructor was in her head.“Stay still.”

But that was the problem, wasn’t it?Staying still meant that she had to sit in her grief.Sit in her mistakes.Take a hard look at herself.And maybe come up with truth she didn’t want to see.Like her own frailties.Her own weakness.Her own fear.

And at the end of it, she would always come down to the same reality.

She would never be enough to keep terrible things from happening.Tragedy and trauma and mistakes.

And of course, because she had nowhere to go, Margo’s words stirred inside her, another memory, maybe from that day when she was looking at the map.But now the words seemed bright and vivid.“The first thing the angel said to Mary was ‘Do not be afraid.’It’s the most common phrase in the Bible.God constantly commands us not to fear because He knows that we will constantly run from fear.In fact, most of the terrible things we do and the horrible choices we make are because of fear.”

And in her mind, she was holding on to the line and watching as Margo’s hazel-blue eyes held hers, so much determination in them as she took the regulator out of her mouth.Then Margo had given her a thumbs-up.At the time, Austen had thought it was because she was about to ascend.

But what if it was actually a thumbs-up meaning No Fear?

Austen leaned her head down onto her knees.“Be still.”The words rumbled through her, and she caught her breath.

“Be still, and know that I am God.”

Right.Except it didn’t seem like her own thought.It was deeper, like a hand had pressed on her chest and warmed it.And the words simply poured out of her, easy, whole.True.“Whom have I in heaven but you?You know when I sit down and when I rise up.The Lord is my strength and my shield.In him my heart trusts.”

Yes.Trust the sovereign God.Who knows and ordains everything, from the past to the future.Who met her no matter what direction she ran in the past.

In fact, maybe finally, who got in her way to stop her.

So, no,she wasn’t alone, was she?

She closed her eyes, sending herself back to the Cuban fishing boat, listening to her own words.“I can guarantee you that God does rescue us.Not always in the way that we want, but definitely according to His great plan for us.”

Lord, I trust Your plan for me.Whatever it is.Future, and...past.

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