by Alana Terry
That’s why he hadn’t asked her to come back to the conference hall with him. If he had his choice, she’d stand by his side for the rest of the afternoon. He didn’t want to take his eyes off her, didn’t want to risk losing her. Not again. Now that he’d seen her, now that they’d spent an hour and a half not just talking but actually in the same location, the same time zone, having a face-to-face conversation for the very first time, he realized more than ever how empty the past four months had been without her.
How bleak the future looked if she wasn’t in it.
It would take time. That’s what he kept telling himself over and over. Time to earn her trust. Susannah was timid. He could tell just from her body language, the way she hugged her arms against herself as they walked through the crowded building, how out of place she felt here. Had she ever seen a crowd this large before? She was scared. Overwhelmed, and if she felt anything like he did, she was terrified that their walk together this afternoon had been some sort of dream.
A delusion.
Patience. That’s what he needed. But all he wanted to do was hold her close against his chest and tell her how much he loved her. How he had loved her before he’d even met her in person. How he wanted nothing more than for them to spend the rest of their lives together.
He was already working out his plans. How he could transfer his work to Washington and telecommute from Orchard Grove. He’d tell his missions director that he could only travel abroad once a year. Twice at most. Any fears he’d previously entertained about feeling trapped in the States paled next to the thought of losing Susannah again.
He would love Kitty. He would be the most devoted brother-in-law the world had known.
No, he was getting ahead of himself. That was the kind of impulsive thinking that would scare Susannah away. He would wait. Wait for God’s timing. And until then praise the Lord for bringing such a godly woman back into his life.
CHAPTER 55
“Where are we going?” Susannah asked. The question was purely for the sake of conversation. She would have followed him anywhere.
“A few of my buddies and I found a nice burrito place. It’s not far, only about a ten-minute walk. You aren’t too cold, are you?”
Susannah didn’t tell him that she could brave Siberian winter as long as he stood confidently by her side.
That afternoon, after they’d taken a walk together and he returned to the Kingdom Builders booth in the conference hall, it took every ounce of self-control in Susannah’s spirit not to follow him there. She didn’t know what she would do, maybe just sit behind him and let the realization that he was actually here sink in.
Instead, she had returned to the prayer chapel and poured her heart out to the Lord in her journal.
God, the last thing I want to do is make you disappointed in me again by letting someone come between me and your plans for my life. I’m so confused right now. Part of me is afraid that Scott’s going to want to talk about our relationship again, only I have no idea what to tell him. The rest of me is terrified we’ll just spend these last two days of this conference together, then go our own ways, and that will be it. I don’t know how to go back to Orchard Grove now. I don’t know what to expect. I’ve tried so hard to learn the secret of being content, to serve where you’ve called me, but now my mind is racing and my spirit is crying out for you to guide me.
Mom told me to protect my heart. I did a terrible job with that, and I’ve suffered the consequences ever since she died. Now she’s not here to give me warnings, to tell me what to do. So I have to trust you. You know that if I spend any more time with Scott, it’s going to be nearly impossible for me to not fall in love with him again. Now that we’ve been together, I realize there was never a time when I stopped loving him. I just denied those emotions because I thought that’s what you wanted me to do.
And now he’s here, and it’s even harder to protect my heart. I love him, Lord. I’ve loved him almost from the very beginning. And I did what I could to be the kind of wise, prudent girl Mom raised me to be, but I gave my heart to him so long ago, and the whole time we’ve gone without talking I’ve been missing him because I’ve been missing part of myself.
You are the God who restores, but you are also the God who takes away. You took my mother from me, and she’s someone I know I can never have back again on this side of heaven. And that pain is still so fresh. So raw. I’m scared that even if things start to go well again with Scott that you’ll change your mind, that you’ll rip him away from me a second time, and I’m so tired of mourning. I’m so tired of this heaviness that hangs over me, that steals the abundant joy you promised to those who put their trust in you.
I’m afraid to do it, God, but I’m going to put my hope in you again. Hope that you will guide me and that you’ll understand it’s too hard for me to protect my own heart. You’ll have to do it for me. If Scott’s not the one, if there isn’t any future for the two of us together, if you led us to meet each other at this conference just so we could get some sense of closure, I need you to make that so obvious to us both. Shut those doors.
But if that’s not the case, if you really do have a way in mind for Scott and me to pick up where we left off — to combine our commitment for you and our passion for missions and my love for my sister and the promise I made to my mom — if you can make something actually work out of it, then and only then may things progress any farther than they already have.
I know I’m asking a lot of you, Lord, and I have no right to assume you’ll listen to me, but I pray that out of your grace you’ll either take Scott Phillips out of my life forever or you’ll bring us together where we’ll never have to say goodbye again.
Susannah thought over the words to her prayer as she and Scott made their way to the restaurant.
“You’re quiet,” he remarked once they were a block or two off campus.
“Just got distracted for a minute.” She blushed, but he kept his eyes straight ahead and didn’t seem to notice.
Lord, I wonder what he’s thinking about.
Could it be all those late nights they’d spent talking about their heart for the nations, their plans for the future?
Could it be that ring he’d bought her and never had the opportunity to place on her finger?
No, she couldn’t rush into things. That’s what I mean, God. I’m no good at guarding my own heart, so you’ve got to do it for me.
When a strip of restaurants and store fronts came into view, Scott broke the strained silence. “What are you thinking about?”
Susannah scurried for a response. “Just wondering how Kitty’s doing.”
He smiled down at her. She would have never guessed it from his picture, but he was so tall she barely came up to the middle of his chest.
“It must be hard to be away from her so long when you love her that much.” There was tenderness in his eyes. A significance to his words that she didn’t want to acknowledge.
Her heart quickened, and before she realized it, they had stopped walking. Where was the restaurant? Why weren’t they moving anymore?
He leaned forward.
Susannah’s heart fluttered like the wings of a hummingbird. Dear God, he’s going to do something stupid. Please make him stop.
He reached out his hand. Brushed a little strand of hair that the wind had whipped across her face.
It was the first time they touched.
He leaned down farther.
No, Lord. This is too soon. Tell him to back away.
“Susannah Peters?” The words reverberated throughout her entire body even though he was whispering.
She looked up, her voice quivering. Her whole body quivering. “Yes?”
The smile he rained down on her sent a flood of heat and comfort through her being.
“I’m really glad I found you.”
CHAPTER 56
Scott had spent nearly the past year wondering what it would be like to sit across from Susannah at a restaurant and wat
ch her eat.
Now, after months of impatient waiting and painful separation, he finally knew. She had a little dimple in her cheek. He had noticed it in her senior picture but couldn’t have guessed the way it became more pronounced when she chewed. Her hair was even softer than he’d imagined. It took all his self-possession not to reach out and stroke it.
He was lost in her eyes, the gentle beauty that flowed from her expression, the tenderness that graced every move she made.
She caught him staring and paused with her fork in the air. “What do you keep looking at?”
“You.”
She blushed deeply, and he loved her for it.
“I could watch you eat every day of my life.” He hadn’t meant to say it that way. He was just trying to be honest. “I mean ...” He started to stammer an apology but gave up and finally just said, “It’s really nice having you here.”
She smiled softly. “I know what you mean.”
Her words emboldened him. He knew he was about to make a fool of himself, but he couldn’t help it. “Susannah?”
“Yes?” Her eyes were so wide. So full of love. Not the romantic, passionate love he bore in his heart for her. Pure, selfless love. The kind of love that allowed her to put her life permanently on hold to care for her sister. The kind of love that sustained her through her mother’s death, keeping her sensitive and gentle in spite of all the grief she’d suffered.
He cleared his throat, clutched his Diet Coke as if it might give him strength, and said, “There’s something I need to tell you.”
He paused, half expecting her to stop him. Half expecting her to protest that it was too much, too soon.
She remained quiet. Waiting with that soft, serene expression.
“It’s about us. About you and me.”
Her lip quivered once, but her voice was steady when she said, “Ok.”
Now that he started, he wasn’t sure he could finish. He took a gulp of soda. Anything to steady his nerves. “Well, months ago, almost a year now, I asked you to start praying about our relationship. You remember that?”
“I remember.” Her eyes were still so full, so trusting, but now he caught a glimpse of something else too. Hope?
“And I told you that I was going to pray about it too. See if maybe God had plans for us to deepen our relationship, if maybe it might lead to ... if over time it might slowly develop into something more.”
She nodded. It was all the encouragement he needed.
“I’ve never stopped thinking about you.” The words poured out of him now, like water spilling over a dam. “You were right when you told me we had to call it off. As hard as it was, I realize that was a step you had to take, a sacrifice you had to make. You’ve done so much for your sister, and I can only imagine how much grace and love and strength it takes to do what you do. And maybe you think that nobody sees you. That God’s just left you there to take care of Kitty for the rest of your life, and you’ll never get noticed or thanked or appreciated for it. But you’re wrong. No, don’t interrupt me. I know you don’t do it for the applause or the recognition. That’s just what makes you who you are. It’s what makes me ...”
He stopped himself short.
“It’s what makes me admire you so much. But it’s more than that.”
He leaned forward. Was there any way to make her understand? Open up his heart and show her the love he had for her? Did she realize? Could she ever guess?
“I’ve loved you almost since the first day we talked on the phone. Maybe now’s not the best time to admit something like this, but I can’t help it. I’ve spent the past four months without you, wondering what might have happened between us, and I know that if I don’t tell you everything that’s on my heart right now, I’ll never be able to forgive myself.
“I love you. I’ve never stopped loving you. When I think about the future, when I pray about God’s plans for me, everything feels dark unless I’m thinking about you. A few months after we met, I asked you to pray about our relationship, to start asking God if it’s meant to progress beyond friendship or romance, and I told you that I’d be praying too. Well, I’ve prayed. For the past half a year or more I’ve hardly prayed about anything else. And every time I told God that I was going to give you up, every time I asked him to help me cut you out of my heart, you came back again. And now you’re here, and we’re together. Neither of us planned it this way. We could have gone the entire conference without ever bumping into each other, but God led us together.”
His heart was pounding. He wondered if Susannah could hear it from her seat.
“I know it wasn’t a mistake. I know it wasn’t an accident. And I know at first you said we couldn’t be together because you had a duty to take care of your sister and I had a call to serve God as a missionary. But being a missionary is more than where you live. It’s more than how much you travel. You felt years ago that God called you to the mission field, and now you’re confused because you can’t leave Orchard Grove. But you don’t see what I see. I see a woman who spent a year working at an assisted living home, praying with the sick and the elderly, spreading the gospel there. You remember that man you baptized in the shower because he’d asked Jesus into his heart and his family didn’t want the chaplain to visit? Or your co-worker, Tiff, the one you kept telling me was so hardened by life but who’s now saved? God’s been using you as a missionary for years, and you don’t even know it.
“I wish I could give you my eyes so you could see what I see when I look at you. You are the most compassionate, gentle-spirited person I know, and I’ve met all kinds of believers over the years all across the globe. But there’s none as sweet or as giving or as selfless as you, and there’s none I would rather spend the rest of my life with.”
After he got this part out, he dared to glance up. It wasn’t the tears streaking down Susannah’s cheeks that he first noticed or way her lips trembled.
It was the love and joy that was shining in her eyes, the love and joy that answered his question before he found the courage to ask.
Slipping onto his knee, he took her hand in his. “I can’t show you any ring because I left it back in Massachusetts, so you’ll have to use your imagination. Susannah Wesley Peters, will you be my wife?”
CHAPTER 57
She said yes. The entire time he was talking, from the moment she suspected the question that might be coming, she’d planned on telling him something different. Wait. Or you should ask my stepdad. Or I need to pray about it first.
Instead, she’d opened her mouth and said yes. Ignoring the small applause from the few other diners in the restaurant who’d watched the intensely personal exchange, she threw her arms around his neck and repeated that small, beautiful word.
“Yes.”
He stood and picked her up by the waist, swinging her in a circle. “Really?” He let out a full belly laugh. A glorious sound. “You mean it? You’re saying yes?”
She laughed again while tears of both bittersweet sorrow and joy mingled down her cheeks. “Yes,” she repeated. She’d say it a hundred times if she had to. The word itself felt so freeing, so powerful.
He kissed her cheek, his scruffy stubble scratching her skin. “I can do that now because we’re engaged, can’t I?”
She still hadn’t stopped laughing. Hadn’t stopped repeating that magnificent word. “Yes.”
He kissed her again, this time on the corner of her mouth.
“And that one was ok, too?”
“Yes.” A hundred times, yes.
“Well now, what about this?”
When she’d thought about kissing someone for the first time, she’d been afraid she’d have no idea what to do, but this kiss was fresh and pure and tender.
She wanted more.
But he put her down, collapsing breathless into his seat. “I’m going to love you for the rest of my life. You know that, don’t you?”
Susannah looked around her as if for the first time. A painted picture of a bullfight
er hung just to the right of Scott’s shoulder. On the other side of him was a still-life vase full of flowers. So many colors. So much life.
So much joy.
He took both her hands in his, but all she could think about was that last kiss.
“It’s getting late,” he told her. “We should probably start walking back if we’re going to get to the general session on time.”
His voice sounded as if it were traveling through water. Her pulse surged through her ears. She’d never known you could hear your own heartbeat that clearly without a stethoscope.
He glanced at her half-eaten burrito. “Do you want to pack that up and save it for later?”
Food? How could he think about eating at a time like this?
What was supposed to happen next? Would they hold hands like this for the rest of the night? Would he kiss her again before they got back to campus? Would he sit through the general session with his arm wrapped around her waist?
What would Kitty think when Susannah came home engaged? What would the people at Orchard Grove say? Would they gossip about her for daring to find joy after her mother’s death? Would Derek understand, or would he regret sending her off to the conference?
And in the end, did it really matter? She had prayed for this for months. Even those times when she was trying to voice a prayer of surrender, in her heart, this is exactly what she’d been asking God for.
And he answered.
Gloriously, powerfully, miraculously, he answered.
Susannah didn’t know what would happen next. Would they have a short engagement like her mom and Derek’s? Would they be separated again for months before Scott could make it out to Orchard Grove? Would they move right into her mom’s house or look for a place of their own with room for Kitty? Would he keep on traveling with Kingdom Builders? Would she ever find the opportunity to go on mission trips with him?
