Page 19 of There I Find Hope

“That’s what my mom says. I suppose I feel the same way. Or...felt. With my son. I couldn’t stand it when he was hurting. I wanted to hurt instead. Take it on me, you know?”

Boy, did he ever. He had wanted to take her hurt since he first heard about it, and they weren’t even that close. It was just a long-standing infatuation, crush... Those words didn’t seem to be the right words. Regardless, it was a long-standing admiration that he had for her, and he didn’t want to see her hurt. Not at all.

“Yeah. But life doesn’t work that way.”

“That was something else I had to learn. I mean, I already knew it, that God is in charge and life doesn’t work the way we want it to or think it should. I mean, if I were as wise as God, I could create a world and make the rules for it. But I can’t. And so I have to admit that and submit to God’s rules.”

“That sounds hard, until we remember that the Bible tells us over and over again that God is love. He is love.”

“Exactly. And not only is He loving, He’s kind, long-suffering, and He wants the best for us. He’s gone out of His way, over and over again, to make sure that He could have a relationship with us. And He’s shown, over and over again, that everything He does is for our good.”

“And His glory. I think we forget that a lot. We think that life is about making ourselves happy. But it’s supposed to be about giving God glory.”

“And somehow that makes us happy. Isn’t it crazy the way that works?”

“And that’s how you know the Bible is true. Because when you actually put those principles to work, things that don’t make any sense, like us not living for ourselves, giving God glory, and other things like forgiving and being kind... They end up being better for us than what we realized.”

“Not just good for us mentally, but scientists are finding out that it’s good for us physically as well. And God knew it all along.”

Noah nodded. “Don’t you think sometimes it’s sad the way we have such a hard time trusting God, even though He’s proven Himself over and over again to be trustworthy? If I were God, I wouldn’t have patience for that. I’d be like, ‘Don’t you get it already?’”

She laughed, as he intended, and he felt better that they were back on solid ground. She was no longer sad. Although, after going through what she had, it was totally understandable that she would have times where she wasn’t happy. It was completely allowed.

They spent a little bit more time talking about brochures, with Sunday promising that she would work on them and talk to her mother about them.

He gave her his number. And he also refrained from telling her that he’d been wanting to give her his number for years. Decades.

She punched it into her phone, and shortly after that, his phone buzzed.

“Excuse me.”

“That’s probably just me. I sent you a text so you have my number too.”

His hand stilled on his phone, without picking it up.

And he had hers.

It was like a dream come true. He shouldn’t put too much stock in it. Obviously, he shouldn’t. It was a business transaction, but... Maybe things actually were going to go in the direction that he wanted them to for so long.

He thought about asking her out for dinner. Could he do it?

“Have you seen the new menu at the diner?” he asked as he gathered his paper and put it back in his briefcase.

“I was just there today.”

“I saw you.” Maybe he shouldn’t have said that. Because she obviously hadn’t seen him.

Her eyes got big. “Really? You were there?”

“I was sitting a couple of booths down. You were talking to a friend, someone I recognized. Kristin?”

“Yes. Kristin.”

“You guys were in deep discussion. I thought I was going to be talking to your mom. If I had realized that I needed to talk to you, I could have saved myself the hassle of walking the couple of blocks up the sidewalk.”

“That wasn’t a big hassle.”

“No. It wasn’t. And I enjoyed my time with you.”

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