Page 66 of His Perfect Bride
The ache in her heart radiated for him and all that he must be feeling this morning as he viewed the site of the accident after months away. Even though she hadn’t known him long, she knew him well enough to realize he was torturing himself this morning with the memories and with all he could have done differently.
“Would you like some breakfast?” Pastor Abe set aside his plate and reached for the pan that was resting on a stone beside the fire pit.
“I don’t want to impose?—”
“You’re not imposing.” He began scooping a forkful of fish onto another plate. “I’m more than happy to share.”
The morning air was cold, and a light frost coated the grass. As she took the plate from the reverend and began to eat, she huddled closer to the fire for warmth. He also offered her a mug of coffee, which she drank gratefully.
“I imagine you must be wanting to leave soon,” she said after finishing her last bite.
“I’m not in a great hurry. I told your husband I can wait to leave until the two of you are ready.”
Guilt once again prodded her. She couldn’t lie to this man of God any longer about her relationship with Jackson. She glanced again at Jackson, who had started lifting away boards and stones, as though he was searching for answers to all his problems in the depths of the wreckage.
“Reverend?” she said hesitantly. “Jackson and I aren’t really married.”
The reverend, in the process of taking a swallow of coffee, spluttered.
“We’ve only been pretending so that we don’t cause a scandal.”
The reverend wiped his sleeve across his mouth and lowered his mug. “I admit I’ve been curious about the two of you, but you’re both so in love with each other that I naturally had no reason to believe you weren’t married.”
“So in love?” She couldn’t keep the scoffing from her voice. “Jackson doesn’t love me. That’s the trouble?—”
“That man definitely loves you.” Pastor Abe chuckled lightly, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “He’s so in love with you, he could hardly keep his eyes off you.”
This was a strange conversation to be having with a holy man, but she was already feeling better at having confessed the lying. “I won’t deny he’s—we’re attracted to each other. But he doesn’t reciprocate the love.”
“He’s not putting on an act. It’s clear he deeply cares about you.” Pastor Abe shifted his gaze to where Jackson was rummaging through the rubbish. “But it’s also clear that he bears some burdens that might be holding him back.”
“He blames the bridge collapse upon himself.” Why was it so easy to share with this pastor? Was it his kind eyes? His gentle demeanor? Or perhaps after facing another rejection, she needed someone to confide in before she went crazy.
“It’s easy to blame ourselves when things go wrong.” Pastor Abe spoke quietly, as if he was remembering a time in his own life when things hadn’t gone so well. “But much of what we face happens simply because we live in a broken world—a world like that bridge, one that’s unsteady, incomplete, and unreliable.”
She could attest to the brokenness. She’d seen it all around her in Manchester where poverty and disease and unemployment were the lot of life. The people born into that life—like her family—weren’t to blame for the conditions.
“Even if he finds a way to repair the bridge,” Pastor Abe continued, “eventually it will wear down and break again. That’s just what happens.”
“That sounds hopeless.”
“We do what we can to fix the brokenness here in this life while we’re alive, but ultimately we can never find complete wholeness here. Our real hope is found in the one place where we’ll have a perfect life—in heaven with God.”
She took a sip of coffee. That made sense. She’d already been learning that she had to stop striving after perfection, that it wasn’t attainable. Maybe this was one more lesson in her journey, to remember that perfection could only happen in the next life, not in this one. And maybe Jackson needed to hear that too.
Pastor Abe nodded at the bridge remains. “Relationships are like bridges too.”
“How so?”
“It takes a lot of work to build a bridge from both sides that eventually allows us to connect with one another.” This reverend was proving not only to be a good listener, but he was also wise beyond his years. She didn’t know his age, but if she had to guess, she would say he was in his mid to late twenties.
The bridge ahead jutted out over the river, the crumbling edges much more visible in the daylight than they had been the previous evening when they’d arrived. Would the bridge ever be able to span the distance and meet in the middle and become complete?
Pastor Abe poured himself another mug of coffee from a pot sitting among the embers. All the while, his expression was contemplative. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that with as much as you both care for each other, don’t give up too soon in trying to build that bridge. You just never know when you might end up connecting.”
Was she giving up too soon? Perhaps. But what could she do if he wasn’t ready for a relationship yet?
She finished draining her coffee and then placed the coffee mug in the grass next to her plate. “Thank you, Reverend. I appreciate not only breakfast but your advice.”
