A Blessed Life

But knowing was powerless against the hope that sprouted in her heart.

Chapter Three

“Go, horsey, go.”

Tessa cracked a pretend whip on the shoulder of the make-believe stallion racing with her through the room. The equine creature more closely resembled a teenage girl with a long golden ponytail that bounced as she galloped. With a few waves and a whinny, horse and rider were off on another adventure.

“Giddy up, horsey, don’t be slow. Take my Tessa to the rodeo.”

Serena smiled, hearing her daughter repeat the rhyme they’d often say together. Tonight, her shy, clingy child of two hours before had transformed into the life of the party. The group’s new mascot, Tessa already had played Ping-Pong, her head barely over the table, and had been on a team in the game of Life so she could get help collecting “paydays.” They had even let her pick the next contemporary Christian CD for the boom box.

It felt so good to see Tessa laughing, having fun, just like any normal child. Serena felt almost normal, too, and it seemed like a first gasp of fresh air after years of holding her breath.

“Did I mention a truckload of potential baby-sitters would be here?” Andrew asked from over her shoulder.

She shook off the tremor that his closeness produced and insisted that the hairs on the back of her neck lay down. This was ridiculous. She was a grown-up here, not one of the kids.

“Why do you think I’m here? Who is that with Tessa now?”

“Only seventeen-year-old baby-sitter extraordinaire, Hannah Woods.” He turned to face Serena, watching her as if expecting her to react. “Think…Reverend Bob Woods.”

The preacher’s daughter. That couldn’t hurt. It already was obvious that Hannah was great with children. This night was turning out to be more successful than Serena had expected. “Does she baby-sit a lot?”

“I’m sure she will for you, if you need her to.”

Serena knew he was right. It was obvious Hannah adored Tessa. The two of them looked like old friends. Just seeing them together made Serena think about how nice it would be to get out of the house alone, once in a while, to run errands or grab a cup of coffee. Tessa would be in good hands.

“Hey, little cowgirl, do you need a fresh horse?” Andrew was already crouched low to prepare for a rider. “Your other one’s wearing out.”

A chair climb later, a successful exchange was made and they were off again, with Andrew in full trot. Seeing the two of them together tugged at Serena’s heart, her thoughts bittersweet. How much did Tessa miss having a father in her life since Trent had deserted them both for that other woman?

Had her memories of her dad begun to fade? Serena certainly hadn’t forgotten. It was just so much easier not to remember. As she watched Andrew and his rider, she remembered Tessa and Trent laughing together over a bathroom flooding with bubbles, and Daddy and daughter napping together on the sofa.

Tessa didn’t ask questions about her father, at least not yet. What would Serena tell her when she did? Was there a gaping hole in Tessa’s heart where a daddy should have been? Maybe someone like Andrew could fill that hole a little, or at least cover it with a bandage of compassion.

Watching the horse and his rider, Serena missed things she’d never had, longed for things she had no right to. Dreams emerged and danced off in various directions. She needed to shut away these thoughts before they led her to their only possible end—disappointment. She’d experienced enough of that to last a lifetime.

“Look at them go,” Diana said, coming up behind Serena and patting her shoulder. “Andrew’s such a doll. I’d do anything for him. He’s going to be a wonderful father one of these days.”

Serena stiffened. Was she so transparent that even an acquaintance could read her thoughts? How could she be considering only herself? She had no business entertaining selfish thoughts when Tessa needed to be her focus. What would happen if the JRA flared again? She couldn’t allow any distraction from her duty to her child.

“Look who is queen of the mountain.” Andrew approached, carrying Tessa on his shoulders. “Say something to your loyal subjects.”

Serena reached up and rustled Tessa’s already wild hair. “Better wave and turn over your scepter, sweetheart. It’s time for you to go night-night.” She prepared herself to have to drag away a kicking and screaming miniature queen, but Tessa climbed from one set of arms into the other and hugged her mom.

Tessa waved as Serena carried her through the house to the back bedroom that Andrew had unlocked. Once inside her Pooh sleeping bag, Tessa was asleep before they reached the last page of her bedtime story, but Serena read to the end, anyway. Brushing hair from her daughter’s face, Serena dropped a kiss on her forehead and slipped from the room to return to the party.

Her exhausted body begged for a spot beside Tessa in that minuscule sleeping bag, but she’d made a commitment and she planned to follow through. Maybe she could convince a few of the youth to watch that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory video, so she could catch a few winks in the back of the room. What a great idea. Serena gave the shrill whistle that her mother had always called “unladylike.”

“Thanks for the attention grabber, Serena,” Andrew called from across the room. “It’s nine-thirty. The party needs a fire built under it. Who wants to play Twister?”

It was well past noon by the time Andrew stared at his reflection in the bleary medicine cabinet mirror. It confirmed his suspicion. Even a Mack truck would have done a gentler makeover on his face. He should have slept like a baby after the last doughnut was munched and the last chip was sucked out of the carpet with the archaic vacuum.

But no, he just lay there in that pitiful square of a room, a series of still images flashing behind his eyelids in unending succession. Serena performing an award-worthy “parting of the Red Sea” clue in boys-versus-girls charades. Serena gathering that sweet little girl of hers into her arms in an embrace singularly shared between mothers and their children. Serena sneaking a look at him with what he couldn’t help but interpret as attraction.

He smiled into the mirror. That was the way he wanted to interpret it. The message she wished for him to read was probably something else. Something with the words Forget it attached firmly at the end. No, the look was probably just gratitude for his helping her climb out of the dumps. She’d even smiled a few times tonight, although never at him. It was beautiful all the same.

With the Father’s help, she could get through this difficult time in her life. She had only to ask for His help—something Andrew guessed was about the hardest thing ever for Serena to do. Why was it so important to him that she find her way? And why did he feel such a tug to be part of that path to discovery?

He yanked open the medicine cabinet and grabbed his toothbrush, not wanting to see that face in the mirror anymore. He couldn’t allow himself to think of her this way. She was a divorcée—a recent one at that—with a child. It didn’t matter at all to him, but he would have been naive not to realize some church members would consider a youth minister dating a divorcée to be scandalous.

Besides, Serena had so much baggage. Would he be able to handle helping her carry it? Of course, he knew better than to try. He’d even tasted the inevitable pain that an ill-advised relationship could cause. That knowledge, which had come courtesy of Marnie, had left a bitter taste in his mouth. The sting felt fresh sometimes, despite the few years’ buffer since their breakup. He didn’t want to feel pain like that ever again.

No, he could have no romantic fantasies about Serena Jacobs. His only interest in her should be spiritual. He sensed that she had a personal relationship with God, but it was obvious she wanted the Lord to take a hands-off approach, a plan that wasn’t working well for her. Maybe his interest in her was God-sent, making him a vehicle for her spiritual guidance. That was all it could be.

Last night’s party had given him an idea of a way to help Serena with her depression and to jump-start her spiritual growth at the same time. He shouldn’t have to feel guilty that this ingenious plan—convincing her to teach Sunday School in the youth department—also happened to make his life a few hundred times easier, right? A knot that formed in his stomach made him wonder if regularly being that close to Serena, within reach but still so far away, wouldn’t also make his life a lot harder.

Turning on the shower faucet, Andrew kept the water temperature a few degrees below comfortably warm. He shivered as he stepped under its spray and tipped his head back so the flood covered his face. This would be a good way to clear his mind of all unnecessary thoughts. Then he could focus on his calling to help the whole church community, not just one troubled young mother and her sick child. He hoped beyond hope that the water would also remove thoughts of dark, shiny hair and a sweet, feminine smile.

The knock had to be from miles away, somewhere in her dream, but it dragged Serena helplessly to consciousness, anyway. She heard the knock again, not ten feet from the sofa where she’d collapsed what seemed like only a few minutes before. She tried to lift up, but had to roll Tessa off her chest before she could move. How and when had Tessa gotten out of bed? She remembered putting her slumbering daughter to bed before giving in to exhaustion. At least, she thought she had.

Again the knock beckoned, louder this time. More insistent. Sitting up, she glanced at the wall clock in the corner. Three o’clock. Had they slept all day? She jogged to the front door and jerked it open. Andrew stood there, his hair damp and combed back straight, but his eyes looking anything but fresh. She steadied herself, refusing to acknowledge the immediate jolt to her system.

“It’s about time. If I hadn’t seen your car parked out front, I’d have given up and gone home.”

She would have asked him why he was there in the first place, but his unusual demeanor hinted that he was wearing his minister’s “hat” today. Something about this other side of him made her even less comfortable than did his presence as a man at her front door. She self-consciously patted down her hair, thankful that she’d been too tired to change out of her clothes when she’d arrived home. She was rumpled, but at least she was decent.

“I was trying to catch up on some much-needed rest. You might be able to relate.” She pulled the door open wide. “Would you like to come in?”

She pushed the screen door halfway open and felt a whisk of air past her knees. Tessa, still wearing a pair of baby-doll pajamas, was in Andrew’s arms before he made it through the front door. Immediately he slipped out of his official capacity and became Tessa’s playmate, twirling her around and letting her drag him up the stairs to see her room.

Eventually, Tessa deserted her guest to go play “dress and undress” with her dolls, leaving Serena and Andrew to sit across from each other in the living room. The way he watched her today seemed more intense, as if he were looking straight into her soul. The knot in her belly felt as if it were pushing on vital organs. She wondered if he’d find her as vacant inside as she often felt.

“You had a nice time last night, didn’t you?”

Relief flooded her. Maybe he would make this visit easy on her. “Yes, the kids were great. Tessa had a wonderful time. I’m glad we went.”

He looked away, his gaze traveling over the navy-and-burgundy plaid sofa where he sat, then across the three-foot gap to the love seat she was perched on. “The kids were glad you were there, too. And they loved Tessa. You two really fit in.”

She tried to forget her discomfort over what he must have thought about the cramped room, stuffed with furniture that had fit nicely in her old Grand Rapids home. Besides, the way he was talking made her uncomfortable.

“What are you getting at?”

“Have you ever thought about being involved with a youth group?”

“Not since I graduated from high school,” she said with a quick smile.

“I mean as a teacher.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Isn’t that what the church pays you to do?”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “That’s part of my job, but I’d like to have at least two Sunday School teachers for the youth department—one for junior high and one for high school. I’d take the high school class. Would you consider teaching the junior high class?”

“Oh, Andrew, I don’t know about that.”

“It would be really easy. The lessons are all broken down in the teacher’s guide. If you have any other questions each week, I’m always available to help you. You’ll feel so much better if you stay busy helping other people.”

She shook her head. He wasn’t playing fair. He was making it hard to say no. “That just doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.”

“Didn’t you like the youth group when you were a teen?”

“I loved it.”

“Then, I’m sure you want that same great experience for the kids here in Milford.”

Serena chuckled. He should have been a politician. He already had persuasion down to an art. “Yes, I want that, but—”

“Did your parents bring you to church when you were little?”

What kind of new approach was this? She felt as if she were being manipulated, and wondered how to respond. “Every week. It was a real family affair.”

“Did they force you to go?”

She shook her head. “No, never. I wanted to go. I was a teenager who looked forward to it. Does that sound strange to you?”

He threw his head back and laughed. “Not to me. I just want to know how they did it and how I can pass that information along to the parents of my kids.”

His kids. She liked the way he claimed the church’s youth as his own. “Their method was pretty simple. They introduced me to their loving God and helped me to develop a friendship with Him, as well.” Vignettes from happier times filled her mind, full of her parents’ smiles and songs of praise. “It was so easy to love the Lord then.”

She was surprised that she’d spoken those words aloud.

He said nothing for a long time, then finally nodded. “That would be hard for me to understand if I hadn’t experienced it myself, but I know what it’s like to struggle with trusting God even when I need Him most.”

She stared into eyes, her questions finding no answers in his carefully neutral gaze. He straightened, as if he recognized her awakening curiosity about his own box of secrets. She had a pretty good idea that he wouldn’t give her a chance to pry.

“Now is your time to trust, Serena. The Father is waiting. You have only to ask.” He spread his arms, hands palms up, as if to demonstrate the simplicity of his seemingly monumental request.

“Come on, Andrew. I’ve never said I lost faith. I still believe, just as I always have.”

“What have you always believed? That God is this wonderful benevolent spirit who’s there to make the daffodils bloom but can’t be called upon for anything more complicated than traveling mercies or final exam support?”

“I don’t think you’re being fair.”

“I’m sorry. I guess I’m not.” Andrew shifted in his seat again, leaning forward. “I just want you to see that it’s okay to give up the power, to allow God to carry you through times when you can’t walk under your own steam.”

Anguish gripped her in its powerful fist, but she fought for control. Always control. “You don’t understand. I’ve had to walk alone too long. Too far.”

“I’m sorry that your former husband hurt you. You never should have had to experience his betrayal. He failed you when you needed him. But God never did. And He never will.”

The subject died a quick death then. She didn’t want to reveal all of the humiliating details. Although she could hardly argue with his logic about God, she wasn’t ready to inhale his words like the scent of lilacs, either. It was easier to let it drop.

The silence between them disturbing her, she returned to the earlier—safer—subject. “I really did have fun last night. Tessa did, too.”

Andrew grinned, seeming to put behind him the intensity of the moment before. “She’s great, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“So are you…especially with the youth group.”

Her laugh started somewhere deep inside and bubbled out. She had to give him credit for trying. Besides, she had enjoyed working with the teens at the overnighter. Teaching Sunday School would be fun. Tessa would be in her Tiny Tots class, so it wasn’t like Serena would be deserting her. Being needed wasn’t so bad, either.

“Okay, I’ll do it.”

Andrew was out of his seat and in front of her before the fourth word left her mouth. He knelt and gripped both of her hands together between his. “Thank you. Thank you. You won’t regret it.”

But with the way her hands tingled, as if they were awakening from a numbing sleep, she had to wonder. She suspected that working with Andrew was going to be the best—or the worst—decision she’d ever made.

Chapter Four

Reverend Bob turned to another passage in his huge black Bible on Sunday morning, the flutter of pages amplified by the microphone.

“In the Book of John, did Jesus say to the woman at the well, ‘You are a sinner, so I cannot look at you’? Or ‘Because I am a Jew and you are a Samaritan, I cannot speak to you’?”

Murmurs of “no” popped up in the packed sanctuary.

“Not my Jesus,” he said with a firm shake of his head. “Not my Lord who loves all us sinners. Instead He told her about His ‘living water.’ Shouldn’t we aspire to our Lord’s type of compassion? Let us all love our neighbors without falling to the temptation to judge.”

Reverend Bob shut his Bible with a snap, startling Andrew in his seat just behind the minister’s left shoulder. He hoped no one noticed how far his thoughts had been from the Samaritan woman and how close they were to the lady frowning in the back pew.

Serena obviously had been trying all through the service to keep her daughter quiet. Tessa couldn’t have been that loud, or he would have heard her. But how could he have heard anything over the crinkling of candy wrappers, seventh-grade giggles, and what could only have been a snore elsewhere in the sanctuary?

Memories of his own childhood antics in church filtered through his mind—of crawling under pews, rustling hymnal pages and faking sneezes. And of spankings and more painful criticism after the services. Somehow, he felt certain Tessa’s reprimand would be a loving one.

Heat scaled his neck, so he glanced to the other side of the auditorium, away from Serena, who sat ready to entrance him again. He steadied himself as he rose for the invitation. He had to get out of this service and into some private prayer where he could find perspective.

That goal helped him through the closing hymn. Only his regular stint in the greeting line remained; then he’d be free for a few hours until the evening youth group meeting. He pressed through the crowd, but two women became a solid wall of delay.

He pasted on his best smile and called for a heavenly gift of patience. “Hello, Mrs. Sims.” He nodded to the elder before turning to the younger. “And Charity.”

Laura Sims shook her index finger at him, making a clucking noise. “Now, Andrew Westin, you know you don’t have to be so formal with me. You call me Laura, or at the very least, Sister Laura.”

He nodded. “Of course, Laura. Did you ladies enjoy the service today?” It was so much easier to address the two of them jointly rather than speaking to Charity individually and risk accidentally encouraging her interest in him. That was the last thing he wanted to do.

Matchmaker Laura always seemed to be pushing her near-spinster daughter in her search for a suitable son-in-law. No matchmaking would have been necessary if Charity had possessed a sweet personality to match her trim figure, golden hair and green eyes. Frustration filled him that he continued to be prospect number one—all because he had chosen a career in the ministry.

Charity stepped forward. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve always found the woman at the well story to be a difficult one. She was living in sin and everything. It would be so hard for me to…you know.”

Andrew met Charity’s gaze for the first time in the conversation, and the urge to grab her shoulders and shake her filled him. It was wrong, and he knew it. He should have been concerned with her spiritual growth, just as he was with Serena’s. But her judgmental attitude got under his skin.

“Reach out to her, you mean? Didn’t Christ set a great example of what we all should do?”

“That He did, Andrew. That He did.” Laura patted Andrew’s shoulder as if they were already related and she were relieving familial stress.

“I’d better get to the door. Reverend Bob is waiting for me.” He hurried up the aisle, but most of the members had already gone outside, all except Serena and Tessa. Serena looked as though she were a reluctant captive in her conversation with the minister. Tessa seemed to be having a great time clanging coat hangers.

“Hey, Tess.” He swung her up in his arms. “Were you having trouble sitting still in church?”

She shrugged, a mischievous look lighting her eyes. “I’m hungry.”

He lowered Tessa, squatting before her and trying to keep a straight face. “I’m sure it’s tough when you’re hungry like that. But I bet it would make your mommy happy if you’d try to sit still and be quiet during the service. God would be real happy, too.”

“Okay.”

Okay. It was as simple as that to a child. Why did everything become so complicated for adults? Serena looked over at him, appearing grateful.

The glass door opened and Hannah popped in to relieve Andrew of his tiny charge. The two girls, one quite a few heads taller than the other, darted off hand-in-hand.

He wished someone like Hannah had taken him under her wing when he was Tessa’s age. Things might have been different. With someone to smile at him, to express the tiniest bit of pride in him, instead of judgment and disappointment, he might not have tried so hard to prove the dire predictions correct. Maybe then…

“Isn’t that right, Brother Andrew?”

The sound of his name ripped Andrew’s thoughts back to the present, with only remnants of past pain coming along for the ride. “I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

“I was telling Mrs. Jacobs that we usually go to the Big Boy after church,” Reverend Bob said.

“Sure thing. I never miss it, especially the chance for an ice cream sundae.” Funny, he’d have given anything to miss it today. He needed to get his head together, to figure out why he felt this need to be near Serena.

“Mommy, can we have ice cream?” Tessa asked as she and Hannah skipped past on their way back out the front door.

Over her shoulder, Hannah yelled at them. “Yeah, Dad. Me, too.”

Reverend Bob turned back to Serena. “Then, it’s settled. You’ll go with us.”

Andrew didn’t like the way his insides betrayed him by turning to gelatin. He stiffened, hoping to cover his internal weakness. “Sure, Serena, it’ll be fun, and a great opportunity for your local pastoral staff to grill you about your past.”

Serena rolled her eyes. “Sounds great.”

Reverend Bob turned to the two women behind Andrew. “You’ll join us, too, won’t you Laura and Charity?”

Andrew looked away to hide his grimace. Why did he not want the woman who’d pursued him relentlessly in the same room with the one he wanted to assist through a tough time? It shouldn’t have made any difference. But it did. Charity would see Serena as a threat. Whether the threat was real or fictional wouldn’t make any difference. And he was smart enough to realize Charity wouldn’t be kind to the competition.

“Do you have a career outside the home, Mrs. Jacobs?” Reverend Bob asked, after wiping his mouth on a napkin.