Page 8 of Love Story
Andi closed her eyes and tried to stave off the wave of sadness. The irony of course was this: All day long she worked with people who had lost everything, even very nearly their lives. But in the process she had found hers. The victims needed her.
Which was more than she could say about Cody Coleman.
She glanced at her journal, the place where she could pour out her heart and soul and try—one more time—to understand what had gone wrong with Cody. He had loved her at one point. More than he had ever loved anyone.
Even Bailey Flanigan.
She believed that, because if she didn’t, the heartache would bury her alive. What they shared was real. It had to be. The feelings she’d seen in Cody’s eyes couldn’t have been anything but the truth. Otherwise she would struggle to get out of bed in the morning.
Andi exhaled and opened her eyes. She read the Bible first—something she did every night. The way she figured it, she still had a lot of time to make up. Her days of living crazy had cost her much, days when she had walked away from God and His Word.
She had assumed the Bible to be some archaic book, a stodgy list of old-fashioned dos and don’ts. Real life, she had told herself, was out there waiting for her to grab hold of it. She’d had no use for the faith her parents had raised her with. It had never occurred to her that God’s ways might’ve been instituted by a loving Father who only wanted the best for His children.
Not until Andi had her own son did she realize what she’d done. What had happened to her life, and how living her days without the Lord had gone so terribly wrong. She had chosen her own way and God had allowed it. But sitting there that day in the hospital room with her baby boy in her arms, knowing it would be the last time he would truly be her son... well, that was enough to get her attention.
After that she turned back to God with a vengeance. She found a quiet place every night where she’d spend an hour reading her Bible and praying. God became less of a power figure and more of a friend. Someone she could talk to about anything.
In the midst of that time, Andi followed her family to Southern California, willing to stay single. Forever if that was God’s plan for her. For the first time in her grown-up life, she’d been content. She was auditioning for one of her father’s movies when she ran into Cody Coleman again.
A moment that changed everything.
At first Andi figured it was a meeting orchestrated by the Lord. Only He could’ve seen to it that they would be in the same place at the same time so far away from where they first met, in Indiana. But as time passed, as she became more aware that Cody would never love her the way he loved Bailey Flanigan, she was no longer sure that reconnecting with Cody was a miracle.
More of a mistake. Something she should’ve run far away from.
Because no matter how much Cody loved her back then, he loved Bailey more. He probably still did, no matter what she tried to believe. And that was the problem.
Andi could never be Bailey.
She turned to the book of James in the New Testament. James was a book of action—something Andi could easily connect with. She started at the beginning of Chapter One.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
Andi stared at the words.Pure joy, Lord? Watching that old man wait for his wife?She wasn’t angry or upset. Just sad.Why not take them both at the same time? Why let a man like that survive alone?She studied the night sky.I trust You, God. I really do. But still...
Gradually a realization began to take shape in her mind. She trusted God, even now. Something she hadn’t done so easily six months or a year ago. Which could only mean one thing.
The testing of her faithwasproducing perseverance.
And one day, however far off, the joy would come.
Because God said so.
3
Some days John Baxter missed the intensity and energy of the emergency room, the urgency and desperation, the way patients had needed his expertise morning to night. He missed the life-and-death decisions and the way he’d called on God minute by minute to get through a single shift.
John would always be a doctor—one of the best Bloomington, Indiana, had ever known. But this beautiful April day he didn’t miss the work. Now that he was retired, he and Elaine had time for their family, their children and grandchildren. Sweet precious time. They had hours for long walks and thought-provoking talks and trips to their small downtown.
Maybe it was his age, but in this season of life he found himself appreciating the little things. The parts of earth that might not be there once he got to heaven. Sunlight shimmering on Lake Monroe or the morning wake-up song of the swallows and blue jays and robins.
The smell of jasmine growing outside their front door or the vibrant reds and yellows and greens of the local-grown peppers and cabbage and beets, and the way they looked spread across a dozen wooden tables at the farmers’ market—the way they looked today. He and Elaine had picked up enough for a new salad recipe they were going to bring to the family dinner at Ashley and Landon’s this weekend.
John stood at the kitchen counter sorting through a bushel of the reddest bell peppers he’d ever seen. “Nothing like an Indiana bell pepper.”
Elaine was unloading the dishwasher a few feet away. She smiled at him. “It feels good, doesn’t it?”
“Buying peppers?” He winked at her.
