October Joy (Moments In Paradise 1)

by Melanie Wilber

  “If Grace gets here before I do, let her know she doesn’t need to make dinner tonight because I’m taking us all out.”

  “Okay,” she said. “What’s the special occasion?”

  She expected him to say ‘Our engagement’, but he simply said, “You’re here.”

  ***

  When Grace arrived at the house around her usual time, she went upstairs to change out of her work clothes. It had been chilly today, and she pulled out a sweater from her closet. Going back downstairs to try and decide what to make for dinner tonight, she found Sarah in the kitchen and received the news Daddy was taking them out. She didn’t mind cooking and often found it relaxing after a day of teaching, but she welcomed the change in routine.

  “How was your day?” she asked Sarah.

  “Nice,” she said. “Your dad played hooky from work to spend most of it with me.”

  Grace smiled. “That doesn’t surprise me. He usually puts his personal life before his work whenever possible, and spending the day with his fiancée would definitely qualify for that.”

  “You don’t mind?” Sarah asked seriously.

  “That you’re engaged?”

  “It must seem really sudden to you.” She laughed. “It seems sudden to me!”

  Grace had a similar feeling of when she first met Sarah on Saturday. She could tell Sarah needed her approval, and she had no problem giving it.

  “I think it’s great, Sarah. When my dad believes in something, he’s not cautious about it. He goes with his heart. I know he believes you’re the one for him, and for us it’s not really that sudden. My mom’s been gone for five years, and for a sweet guy like my dad who married his high-school sweetheart, that’s a long time to be alone.”

  Sarah smiled and held out her hand. “He bought me a ring today.”

  Grace took her hand, and she thought it was a beautiful ring. She also thought it looked very similar to her mother’s. Her dad had given it to her after holding on to it himself for a couple of years. She kept it in her jewelry box and planned to wear it on her wedding day and to give it to her sisters to wear on theirs.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said. “Did he pick that out, or did you?”

  “I did. It was at the first place we went, and I really liked it, but we kept looking, and then I ended up back at this one.”

  Grace had been willing to trust her dad’s heart on this, but seeing the ring Sarah had selected gave her an added sense this had to be right.

  “Did you call your family today and tell them?”

  “No. I’m nervous about it. I know this is right for me, but sometimes it’s hard to convince other people to see things the way I do.”

  “You could have my dad call them,” she said. “Or better yet, have him fly back with you whenever you go and ask for their permission in person.”

  Sarah seemed to like her suggestions, but Grace knew she would be insecure about asking her dad to do either. She never wanted to be a bother to anyone.

  “He would do that for you, Sarah. When are you getting married?”

  “We don’t know yet.”

  “Do you want to get married here or there?”

  “Here, I think. I’d like for your dad to get remarried in his own church.”

  “Maybe you could go to Minnesota for a couple of weeks so he could meet your family, you could pack up your stuff, and then you could come back and have the wedding.”

  Sarah smiled. “You must be related to your dad. That sounds like something he would say.”

  “So you say it and surprise him.”

  They both laughed, and Grace was amazed at the love she already felt for Sarah. Last night she wanted to tell her dad to put on the brakes and take his time with this, but she had made up her mind to be happy for him and believe he knew what he was doing. And now she could see why her dad didn’t want to be rational when it came to Sarah. She didn’t want to be either. They needed her, and she needed them.

  ***

  Ever since they had arrived on Saturday, Andrew knew bringing Sarah back with him had been the right decision. Having her here to meet his family had been what they needed, and Sarah had needed to know how serious his feelings were.

  But as the weekend had progressed, and especially tonight as he had dinner with her and his daughters, that feeling of this being right only increased. One of the things that attracted him to Sarah initially was her smile and delightful spirit. And she’d had it off and on all week, but she especially had it tonight. Andrew could imagine her being this way with Levi, and it gave him a happy feeling to know he could bring that kind of joy to her also. But it wasn’t just him. It was Grace and Tabitha too.

  Tabby was her usual bubbly self, and she made them all laugh over and over, and her ability to make Sarah feel joy wasn’t a surprise to him. But Gracie didn’t warm up to new people this fast, and she reminded him of Annika more than any other time he could recall. It was like Annika was here. Gracie was being herself but had that little something extra that had Annika written all over it, and Sarah was doing the same thing. Separately they each had some of Annika’s qualities, but together that became more obvious, and Andrew had a definite sense Annika was watching them from Heaven and laughing right along with them. She was here. He could feel it.

  When they returned to the house, the four of them remained there for the evening, but Tabitha had homework and Grace had papers to grade, so he and Sarah had some time alone. He told her how he had been feeling at the restaurant, and Sarah had something to share about that too.

  “When you asked me to come here, I knew I wanted to, but I was scared of what it might be like. I was afraid it would be different than when it was just the two of us in Iowa, but I felt God leading me to go, and I knew I would be safe with you. I had spent enough time with you to know it would probably work out between you and me, but being accepted by your kids would take time. I trusted Jesus to lead the way and work things out eventually.”

  She smiled, and he did too.

  “But I never imagined it going this well. Earlier today when you had to leave, and I knew Grace was coming home, I was nervous about having some time with her without you here too, but then it was easy and comfortable, like we’ve known each other for a long time.”

  “God is in this, Sarah. This is meant to be. Let’s just go with it, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said. “Can you do something for me?”

  “Anything.”

  “Can you call Donna and tell her I changed my mind about having lunch with her sometime this week?”

  He smiled. “I can do that. And I know you don’t need to worry about it, Sarah. She and Annika were really good friends, but Donna never pressured her into doing something she didn’t want to do. They respected each other’s gifts and were close even though they were very different in a lot of ways.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Andrew had brought home the DVDs of his message series “Enjoying God”, and Sarah watched the first one on Tuesday morning after she spent some time reading her Bible, journaling her thoughts, and listening to God share His Heart with her.

  She had always believed in God and done her best to live for Him, but having a personal connection with Him on a daily basis wasn’t something she had experienced like this before. She wasn’t sure how she could have missed something that seemed so obvious now. It was like she had been walking around in this fog--living from day to day with no real direction or sense of God’s presence, and now the fog had been lifted to reveal a glorious view of what her life was supposed to be about: To know God and His love for her in a deep, personal, and intimate way.

  The first message in Andrew’s series touched on that subject. He spent most of the time using Scripture to show God does indeed want us to enjoy Him, like David talks about in Psalm 37. One of the things she noticed about the difference between Andrew’s teaching style and Levi’s was Andrew was very encouraging and affirming, whereas Levi had been more on the convicting s
ide of things. She also noticed Andrew talked about his failures and weaknesses she could identify with, rather than being made to feel like a perfect man was preaching at her about everything she was doing wrong.

  He emphasized the reality we have a personal God who is deeply concerned for us, and for us to know Him is His greatest agenda. “To enjoy God you have to know Him for who He really is, and for all that He is,” he said. And Sarah could see how she really didn’t know God very well. She knew the Bible well. She had gone to Bible college for two of her four years of higher education. She knew the familiar stories, the history of God’s people and the nation of Israel, the fundamentals of the gospel, and the many truths and principles for right-living lined out in both the Old and New Testaments. But she didn’t know much about why God said what He said, or did what He did.

  But Andrew said she could know, and God wanted her to know, and she could enjoy Him, not just be knowledgeable about Him. He used Elijah as an example of the way it shouldn’t be, but often is. Elijah was a great prophet of God who prayed great prayers and did whatever God asked him to do. He asked God to reveal Himself in mighty ways, and God did. As Andrew described him, Sarah couldn’t help but think of Levi, and Sarah wondered what the negative side to Elijah could be Andrew was hinting at.

  “I’m not exactly sure why, but after Elijah destroys all the prophets of Baal, as it is recorded in First Kings 18, Elijah gets really scared and fears for his life. In Chapter 19 we see him running away to the desert where he asks God to take his life, but God leads him on a forty day journey to Mount Sinai instead. Once he gets there, Elijah doesn’t go up on the mountain to meet with God like Moses did. He goes and hides in a cave.

  “‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ the LORD says to him. And then Elijah gives God this song and dance about being zealous and doing everything He has commanded him and yet now his life is in danger. God doesn’t buy it and asks Elijah to come up to stand before Him on the mountain, but Elijah remains where he is in his safe little cave. God sends a windstorm and an earthquake and fire, but He’s not in any of it.

  “Instead He comes in a way Elijah does not expect. He expected the windstorm and the earthquake and the fire--that’s why he stayed where he was. But what he misjudged about God was He simply wanted to talk to him. And not harshly. How does He come? Verse 12 says, And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper. And then God repeats His earlier question.”

  Andrew’s voice went soft. “What are you doing here, Elijah?’”

  Andrew let silence follow his imitation of God’s voice, and Sarah got chills over it. She could imagine God saying those words to her right now if she was still in Minneapolis, wondering when, if ever, she should go to California with Andrew. Her answer would have undoubtedly been, ‘I’m here because it’s safe and rational and going off to California with a guy I just met is ludicrous! Why couldn’t You have brought me someone from around here?’ But since she was sitting in Andrew’s family room, she felt she could answer that same question in a different way: I’m here because I’m trusting you, God, and because I love him.

  “If I may be so bold,” Andrew continued on the video, “I think it was probably something like how I hear God speaking to me sometimes. I’m all caught up in my worry and fear, thinking the world is crumbling around me and taking me with it. God has abandoned me. He doesn’t care. I’m on my own. And then I hear this gentle whisper in my spirit that says, ‘Andy? What are you doing living as if I don’t see you and don’t care? Don’t you know Me at all? Don’t you know how much I love you? Don’t you believe in My faithfulness and My promises? You think I’m not here? Where did you get a crazy idea like that?’

  “So, what does all of this have to do with enjoying God? Well, a couple of things. You can be like Elijah and serve Him faithfully and not enjoy it. You can be very dutiful and totally miss the point of why God asks you to serve Him in the first place. It isn’t because He needs our help. It isn’t because He couldn’t just as well do it Himself. He can, but He invites us to join Him in His mighty work. In John 12 Jesus says, ‘All those who want to be my disciples must come and follow me, because my servants must be where I am.’ Why does He say that? Because He doesn’t want us doing anything on our own. If we do that, we totally miss the point! He wants us to be close to Him. That is His objective when He calls us as His servants.

  “And secondly,” Andrew said, closing his notebook and stepping away from the podium, “Our greatest obstacle to enjoying God is fear. Elijah was too afraid of his enemies, and too afraid of God. He wasn’t too afraid to serve Him, but he was too afraid to enjoy Him. In First John 4:16 it says, We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in him.

  “Do you know how much God loves you? Those who know it, trust Him. Are you trusting Him? That’s the key to enjoying Him, my friend. How do I know? Because I’ve been on both sides of it. Which side are you on right now?

  “If you’re not enjoying Him, my charge to you is this: Embrace His love for you. Believe it with your entire being. Believe it enough to trust Him fully and completely with everything right now, because no matter how difficult your circumstances are or how afraid you feel, you are safe. You are safe in His love.”

  ***

  Andrew came home to have lunch and then went back to the office, so Sarah listened to the second message while he was gone. It was mostly about different people in the Bible: some who enjoyed God and some who did not. He also talked about his journey of learning to enjoy God, sharing ways he had and hadn’t done so in the past.

  One benefit of listening to the messages she hadn’t anticipated was getting to know Andrew better through them. He was so candid and just himself, so it was like seeing the same man she had been getting to know, but in a different capacity. Andrew returned at three, and they had most of the afternoon and evening to themselves because Grace didn’t get home until almost dinnertime, and then both Grace and Tabby spent a couple of hours with James and Ryan after dinner. Her time with Andrew was the same as it had always been: relaxed and enjoyable. She talked, he listened, and vice-versa. It was all very comfortable whether they were teasing or being serious, talking or kissing, or just sitting together quietly.

  She’d always had that with Levi too, but not a lot of it. Sometimes she felt like if she wanted a quiet evening with Levi, or any time with him to herself for more than dinner, she needed to make an appointment. It seemed ironic to her Levi had often said, ‘I can’t sit still, there’s too much to do, too many lost souls to save, too much...’ the list went on and on, and yet God had taken him from this earth at such a young age. Apparently God and Levi saw things a bit differently on that subject.

  On Wednesday morning, Sarah listened to the next message where Andrew focused on who God is and what He is like. And again Sarah felt like she knew most of it in her head, but she had never allowed the reality of His love and forgiveness and goodness to reach her heart. Andrew had said he wouldn’t be here to have lunch with her because he usually fasted and prayed during his Wednesday lunch-hour, so he’d arranged for her to have lunch with Donna instead. Donna came to the house to pick her up, and the small amount of anxiety she felt beforehand pretty much vanished within the first five minutes. Donna was very sweet. She asked her a ton of questions about herself, but she listened well and never made her feel inferior or uncomfortable in any way.

  Sarah felt comfortable sharing what God was teaching her through all of this, and Donna said she’d had a similar experience when one of her teenage daughters had gone through a rebellious time. Her response to God over it sounded a lot like Elijah, and like herself during the last three months.

  “I was like, ‘God! I’ve been so faithful to You. I’ve prayed for my daughters since they were babies that this exact thing would never happen, but it’s happening! Where are You? What’s going on?’ And then God brought me to a point where I heard Him say, ‘You say you’re following Me, Donna, but you’re not. You’re busy. You’r
e distracted. You’re listening to everyone except Me. Just come and let Me give you rest. Rest in Me. Trust in Me. Believe I am over this and everything is going to be okay.’”

  ***

  “We’re leaving now, Gracie,” Tabitha said. “See you at home.”

  “Okay. I shouldn’t be too late.”

  “But tell Dad not to wait up?”

  She laughed. “No. I have to work in the morning. I won’t be that late.”

  Grace watched Tabitha step away with Ryan who had picked them both up on his way to the church tonight. She’d had a fun time as one of the youth leaders, but she hadn’t had a chance to talk to James, and she was looking forward to a little time with him before this day came to an end.

  Helping him with cleaning up and shutting down the building for the night, she couldn’t help but think of when she had done the same thing a week ago and how much had changed between them since--and not only between them. Her life had been completely turned upside-down this past week, sort of like when her mom died five years ago, only this was a joyful series of events.

  Part of her feared in another week’s time everything would be different again. Sarah could change her mind about marrying Dad and hop on a plane back to Minnesota just as easily as she had come here. James could decide his fantasy about dating her didn’t match up to reality, and he’d dump her like a hot potato. She couldn’t really imagine her feelings reversing about him, but a week ago she never imagined falling in love so quickly.

  “So, how was it?” James asked, taking her hand as they left the building and walked toward the lone vehicle remaining in the parking lot.

  “It was fun,” she said, knowing he was referring to the night with a bunch of rowdy teenagers on a more normal night than last week. “I really liked the worship. That was my favorite part.”