A Morning Like This

by Deborah Bedford

  Gray gulls sailed overhead, dipping deep into the air as if they were attached to riggings, their bowed broad wings bearing them aloft like kites. Gulls began to zoom in for a landing beside Sam and Braden. One came, then another, a dozen, maybe two, screeching with greed and beating hard at the air as they alighted, sidestepping, their alert eyes on the little sack beside Sam’s leg.

  “No fair,” Braden whispered to her. “You’re baiting them with fries.”

  “Sh-hhh,” Sam whispered back. “I know what works. McDonald’s.”

  “You’re bribing the birds.”

  “Yep, I am. This is how it’s done. You ready?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah,” Braden whispered.

  The two children raised themselves on their haunches, then sat as still as driftwood while seagulls continued to descend. Birds landed beside their knees and behind their backs and upon gnarled roots that protruded from beach sand like bent elbows. They landed on rocks and limbs and water-glossed sand. They didn’t stop touching down until Sam and Braden launched themselves in unspoken agreement, springing from their places like they were springing from a starting block, sand flying from their feet. They parted that huge gathering of seabirds like Moses, with God’s help, parting the Red Sea.

  Braden flapped his arms at them. “Go! Go! Fly! Fly!”

  Samantha leaned her head back, her hair streaming in the wind, her mouth wide with joy.

  An unfathomable number of birds took flight, emitting screeches of terror and complaint, wheeling away, circling over the breakers, rising higher.

  “Ah! You’re killing me.” Braden held his ears against his sister’s screams.

  Of course no beach scene like this one can be complete without a sandcastle. So, while the children were occupied chasing birds, Abigail Treasure took it upon herself to scoop a trough out of wet sand beside the weathered log where she sat. She worked a good while, digging deep, using a McDonald’s soda cup to shape and stack turrets one upon another. So absorbed was she by her task that she only stopped once to tuck a strand of stray hair behind her ear.

  Little by little, the surf inched closer to her creation. Little by little, water encroached. When Abby least expected it, a shallow, gentle wave dashed itself over the edge of the moat she’d built, and filled the hollow. The castle settled into the moat, its foundation receding. The next wave would take it down.

  David, who’d been running along the beach in his Nikes, stopped behind his wife, silently surveying her handiwork. “It’s going to fall in,” he said, sounding tentative, as if he still didn’t know how he ought to approach this woman sometimes. “Let me move it.”

  “You can’t move sand,” Abby said. “It siphons through your fingers and then it’s gone.”

  “Okay,” he said. “But it’s a shame to lose all you’re building.”

  “Yeah.” Abby stared at it as another wave washed in. “It’s tough.”

  David knelt and began to dig the same shape in a different place. “Look. We’ll do it here. This is better. It’s solid ground.”

  She hung back a moment, saying nothing, staring at his digging hands. Then, “Okay.” She whispered it again, with emphasis. “Okay.”

  The only sound as they worked, for the longest time, was the froth of the waves, the cries of the gulls, Braden and Sam laughing down the way. With seashells, Abby created a tiny fence around the edges, scalloped with the soft pinks and purples and peaches of the sea. David laid out a tiny slab of driftwood, worn smooth, for a bridge.

  The children joined them once, bringing over a collection of seagull feathers to jab into the tops of the towers and use as flags. Then as quickly as they had come, they disappeared again.

  Abby focused on her fingers and the trails she was carving in the sand, suddenly realizing that her breath wouldn’t sink deep enough into her lungs. Did she want this man beside her? Her hands froze with awkwardness. Doubt and hope, all Abby knew, rolled in on her like waves from opposite directions, slapping together on the shore. She sat so close to him that his sandy elbows and his sandy knees brushed hers when they moved, and Abby became keenly conscious of that slight contact.

  David straightened, picked up the hand on which he had been bracing himself, and pitched a stone from his digging into the surf. “Abby.” She began to scrub a hole in the sand with a seashell. When he leaned forward to see her face, her eyes were full of hope. Brief and questioning, his gaze touched hers and then went far out over the ocean. “We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us, don’t we?”

  She kept scrubbing, scrubbing. “If I had to pick,” she spoke at last to the sea, “I’d fall in love with the man you are now, David. Not with the man you used to be.”

  “We go forward,” he said, “instead of backward.”

  “I think so.”

  “To have and to hold,” David recited. “From this day forward.”

  “From this day forward,” she echoed. “I like that. From this morning forward.”

  “It’s a beautiful morning, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  Abby remembered the gift Sophie had once said she’d give. If I could, I’d give you a morning. I think it’s the morning times that change our lives, Abby. The times we give ourselves permission to start fresh.

  “I’m willing, Abby, if you are.”

  “When would we start?”

  “Maybe we already have.”

  It was a fragile beginning. They had hope, but no guarantees. They had the goodness of the Lord, but that didn’t mean they’d always be comfortable.

  A long-billed curlew came stalking past on tiny knobby knees, piercing the sand like a needle with its beak. Four brown pelicans skimmed the waves in formation, inches above the water. Abby whispered, her voice breaking, “I miss you, David. I’ve missed you for a long time.”

  He turned to her; he barely swiped her nose with his thumb. “I’ve missed you, too.”

  They sat together through one long silence. Today, beside the ocean, they wouldn’t hold hands. But sometime in the not-too-distant future, they’d be willing to touch and to need and to depend on each other. Today, as the Treasures watched, a brother and sister raced the width of the ocean, still discovering, waves splashing in and sliding out, gilding the beach with silver.

  Author’s Note

  My husband and I met each other after I had moved into his room. Not one to rest long on square footage that can be used as an asset, Jack’s mother had turned his apartment into a rental property within three months after Jack joined the U.S. Coast Guard.

  So, I moved in. And then Jack returned.

  We both give the cat full credit for our romance. When I was gone, Jack would come downstairs and take my cat so I had to come get her when I came home from the newspaper office. When I was in my apartment, I would turn the cat loose so Jack would have a reason to bring it down. The poor cat, Puffin, lived to be over thirteen years old. It’s a surprise she had any legs left when she finally departed from us.

  Every marriage starts with fun stories like this one, and with a lot of hope.

  A Morning Like This is a composite story of one friend’s very real, very difficult, marriage. As Christians we often make the human commitment to grit our teeth in a relationship and get by. This story began as a simple cry from a friend’s heart after an hour of walking by the river. “I don’t want to just survive in my marriage,” she said. “I wanted to be in love. I wanted to feel passionate towards my husband. Don’t I have a right to ever expect that?” And so began, in my own heart, the story of David and Abby Treasure, Braden and Samantha. This story became a journey, a responsibility, a burden, and a joy. It became, in the end, about much more than God’s healing a marriage. It became a story about understanding the depth and the truth and the character of God’s love.

  I believe the mistake we make as we walk with Christ is that we forget to expect the full goodness, the full miracle, of what a loving God, handed our trusting heart and our greatest sacrifices, can do with ou
r marriages and with our lives. There is, I believe, a beautiful straight-arrow place that exists when we both trust our Father with the reality and the expectation of our lives.

  We need to shout to the world that we don’t settle for second-best when we settle for God. Trusting Him can mean waiting and watching when we’re stuck in a place where we think we’ll never find enthusiasm or ardor again. But what He gives us, when we’ll only trust Him with frank and transparent hearts, far surpasses anything we could ever have imagined for ourselves.

  May God’s love bring its sunrise of passion into your life!

  Deborah Bedford

  www.deborahbedfordbooks.com

  P.O. Box 9175

  Jackson Hole, Wyoming 83001

  Reading Group Guide

  Discussion Questions

  Many thanks to the members of the book group at Westbrook Public Library in Westbrook, Minnesota, for penning these questions during their own study time, and being willing to share them with my readers! D.B.

  Do you think being a Christian made David’s decision to tell Abby the truth harder or somewhat easier? Why?

  Abby counseled women in a shelter. Do you think her experiences at the shelter magnified her feelings about David’s betrayal? How did her childhood situation with her father affect how she responded to David?

  Who was your favorite character? Why?

  Do you think David would have reacted differently if Sam had not been sick?

  Sophie tried to make Mike stop hitting her by being good and doing everything right. As Christians, do we sometimes think we have to do everything right in order for God to love us?

  When Abby finally called and talked to her father, she was surprised to find out he wanted her number so he could call her. Then, just before she said good-bye, she said, “I’m not out to prove I’m right with this. I just… well, I think it’s worth working toward something. Not deciding who’s right and wrong. Just… finding out who we still are with each other” (pp. 301). Think about these words and discuss how they apply to your own life.

  Abby felt justified in being hurt and angered by David’s betrayal, but eventually she came to terms with the situation enough to let God lead her out of the pain. How can we find our way out when we run into a wall and feel trapped by our emotions?

  At Viola and Floyd’s fiftieth anniversary party, Viola told Abby, “I think of all the things I might have had, and then I look at what I do have, and… and it’s okay. It’s very good” (pp. 252–253). Do you think its okay to measure what you have against what you might have had? Why or why not?

  Why do you think it was easier for Abby to forgive Susan than to forgive David?

  The author started the book with Psalm 9:9–10. Read that Scripture aloud. Has there ever been a time in your life when you felt like God abandoned you? Why? With your group, search the Bible for Scriptures that show you that God does not abandon his children. Start with Deuteronomy 31:6, Proverbs 29:25, and Philippians 4:6–7. Keep a list of the Scriptures that relate to your feelings and read them aloud during your personal daily prayer time. The next time your book group meets, share any changes this may have made in your prayer life.

  Suggested Resources

  The author recommends these books to couples seeking help in restoring their marriages:

  Why Should I Be First to Change?

  Nancy Missler

  Koinonia House Publishers

  Reconcilable Differences

  Andrew Christensen, Ph.D., and Neil S. Jacobsen, Ph.D.

  Guilford Press

  Getting the Love You Want, A Guide for Couples

  Harville Hendrix, Ph.D.

  Harper Perennial

  Boundaries for Marriage

  Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend

  Zondervan Publishing House

  Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, A Practical Guide for Improving Communication and Getting What You Want in Your Relationships

  John Gray, Ph.D.

  HarperCollins Publishers

  The Language of Love

  Gary Smalley and John Trent, Ph.D.

  Focus on the Family Publishing

  For more information about bone marrow donation, contact:

  The National Marrow Donor Program

  3001 Broadway Street Northeast

  Suite 100

  Minneapolis, MN 55413-1753

  1-800-627-7692

  www.marrow.org

  If you liked A Morning Like This…

  be sure to pick up Remember Me.

  Sam Tibbits loves life—especially life at Piddock Beach, where his family spends its summer vacations. It is here where he first meets Aubrey, a local girl who becomes his childhood confidante… and later, his first love. So the year Aubrey’s family moves away with no forwarding address, Sam is crushed. He was going to propose.

  Aubrey McCart enjoys being with Sam. He accepts her unconditionally like her father never has. But when her father’s pride and joy—her brother—is killed in Vietnam, Aubrey is unable to cope. She chooses a path that changes her life forever, leading her away from Sam.

  Years later, when Sam and Aubrey find themselves back at Piddock Beach, the two are forced to confront their abandoned friendship and make peace with their lives. But can they do so without following a path that could devastate both of them forever?

  Available now wherever books are sold.

  Also, be sure to check out A Rose by the Door!

  Every summer, visitors come to Bea Bartling’s home in Ash Hollow, Nebraska, to see the historic yellow rosebush that served as a famous trail marker for wagons on their way west. And every night Bea prays she will find a special face among those at her door. Then she gets crushing news that the son who ran away years ago has been killed. Overwhelmed by grief—and bitterness as hard as steel—she has no welcome in her heart and no room in her life for the woman and child who soon show up at her door. Yet their arrival changes everything.

  Now, as old secrets are revealed, a lonely woman discovers that a prodigal son may still come home if she accepts a precious gift of grace—and if she dares to believe in the miraculous power of love.

  Available now wherever books are sold.

  Don’t miss

  When You Believe.

  Lydia Porter has waited a long time for happiness. She loves her job as a school counselor at Shadrach High School, and she loves everything about her coworker, teacher Charlie Stains. Lydia believes God answered her prayers when Charlie entered her life, and though she hasn’t told a soul, Charlie has asked her to marry him.

  That’s what makes one pretty, young sophomore’s story so unimaginable… and so devastating. The girl tells Lydia that Charlie has sexually abused her, and that she is terrified of what he will do if she tells. By law, Lydia must report the teenager’s charges. What happens when she does will test her strength, her love, and her belief in the power of God to comfort, redeem, and heal.

  Available now wherever books are sold.

  And you’ll love the New York Times bestselling novel The Penny!

  Jenny Blake has a theory about life: Big decisions often don’t amount to much, but little decisions sometimes transform everything. Her theory proves true in the summer of 1955, when fourteen-year-old Jenny makes the decision to pick up a penny imbedded in asphalt, and consequently ends up stopping a robbery, getting a job, and meeting a friend who changes her life forever.

  Jenny and Miss Shaw form a friendship that dares both of them to confront secrets in their pasts—secrets that threaten to destroy them. Jenny helps Miss Shaw open up to the community around her, while Miss Shaw teaches Jenny to meet even life’s most painful challenges with confidence and faith. This unexpected relationship transforms both characters in ways neither could have anticipated, and the ripple effect that begins in the summer of the penny goes on to bring new life to the people around them, showing how God works in the smallest details. Even in something as small as a penny.

  Av
ailable now wherever books are sold.