Page 26 of A Cowboy's Convenient Marriage

“I don’t think a lot of people ever do that. We think that what we say is really important. We go to God and maybe give Him a little bit of praise and glory in our prayer, but we usually have a whole list of things that we’re praying for and asking Him for, situations that we hope He’ll change, people we hope He’ll heal, marriages that need to be restored, and in my recent case, asking Him why He allowed certain things to happen and asking Him to change them. Rather than just shutting my big mouth, and searching for why He might be doing the things that He is doing, and then just accepting them. Whether I understand or not.”

“Why do we as humans think we know better than God? Isn’t that what we’re doing when we do that? We’re saying, ‘God, You’re not allowing this to unfold the proper way, so You need to change it.’”

“Exactly. And yet He commands us to pray. He commands us to bring our burdens to Him.”

“Maybe that’s just so He can carry them for us, and not so that, at least a lot of times, not so that He can change anything.”

“The older I get, the more I seem to pray for God’s will to be done and less and less for mine. But I guess I forgot that over the last few months.”

Chapter 10

It was interestingthat it took a walk with Ada for Cash to bring everything he knew back into his mind. To realize that he was going down the wrong road and that he had been upset and angry at people, and at God, too, for allowing it. And yet he hadn’t spent much time at all trying to figure out why God had allowed it and trying to submit to God’s will.

“I really appreciate you walking with me today. Even if you decide to turn down my offer, I feel like there’s been a shift in my thinking.”

“You reminded me of some important things too. You’ve also challenged me. I would have said that God is the most important thing in my life, and yet the idea of leaving my family makes me want to dig in my heels and say, ‘absolutely not.’ But is my family more important than what God wants me to do?” She shook her head. “I appreciate you showing me that maybe I was doing the wrong thing.”

They had made it the whole way out to the road, which was completely deserted this time of the evening, and they stopped for a moment, turning to face each other.

“You spoke about my proposal, and that made me realize that I actually hadn’t proposed anything to you. I talked to your brother, and I’ve gotten his permission, and I needed it, but maybe I need to tell you myself?”

“If you’d like.”

“I have a letter. It offered me one billion dollars if I get married in the next three days. The idea of marrying someone I barely know is...very foreign and almost repulsive, except... I don’t know that you necessarily need to be in love in order to form a lifetime union. I think you come to love each other, and you choose to love each other, because God commands it. I also think that we should work toward that, if we go through with it. I don’t know about falling in love and all of those emotions. I didn’t really feel that much with the person I was engaged to. I just knew it was time for me to get married, and she seemed like a good match. I guess.”

Looking back, he saw less and less to love in Abby, but he didn’t need to go into that now.

“Are you still heartbroken over your breakup?” Ada asked softly.

“No. Not even a little bit. I was more upset that I was going to have to pay for things to do with our wedding when there was going to be no wedding.”

“Deposits and such that you couldn’t get back?” she asked, seeming to understand.

“Yeah,” he said.

They stood at the end of the driveway, still looking at each other, enough light from the moon and stars for him to see her face and features and see that she looked perfectly calm. Not like she was contemplating a major life decision that could upend everything that she had ever known.

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