Page 50 of Below the Far Horizon
She had been telling herself that she just surprised him and hadn’t allowed herself to think that maybe he hadn’t wanted to. Maybe he’d been too polite to pull back and tell her that he didn’t want to kiss her, but by his lack of interest, he’d shown her that he was over her and didn’t want to go back down that road.
Regardless, she had to push that out of her mind, because this was her mother’s day. Her mother was glowing and happy, and she wanted her daughters to be happy and excited for her, and Grace was going to do her very best to not let her mother down.
Twenty-Three
“How did it go, Dad?” Trevor asked, his eyes on the coatrack he was making, although he did glance at his dad as he walked into the shop. There was no mistaking the smile on his dad’s face. He didn’t need to hear his dad say it went well in order for him to know that it went well, very well.
“I think they liked me,” his dad said.
Trevor couldn’t shake the feeling that came over him for just a couple of seconds at the idea of his dad trying to impress someone else’s children rather than his own. At the idea of his dad being in someone else’s family, with their kids being his stepchildren.
It felt…wrong. He had never before stopped to consider how it might affect a person whose parents were working on making a different family than the one that they were used to.
How hard it must be for children whose parents got divorced, and then they tried to put a different family together. No wonder divorce was hard on children.
“Of course they liked you, Dad. Everyone likes you.” He couldn’t think of a single person who didn’t like his dad.
“There’s a first time for everything, and when I have so much riding on it, when I care so much, you can’t help but be nervous, you know?”
“Yeah. I know what you mean.” Sometimes the things that meant so much to them were the very things that God didn’t give to them. He didn’t really understand, other than to think that maybe God just wanted to test them and make sure that they weren’t putting anything ahead of Him.
“I’m glad.”
He wanted to ask if anyone asked about him, but he just kept working on the coatrack in front of him. Making sure he got the details right, giving it more concentration than what it actually required.
“So are there wedding bells in your future?” he finally asked. And he wasn’t jealous. He really did want his dad to be happy. After what his mother had done, he felt his dad deserved all the happiness in the world. Of course, his mother had burned her bridges, since she had very little or no relationship with any of her children.
“I wish you would have gone. You would have been welcome.”
“Did anyone ask about me?” He didn’t want to ask that question, but he made up for that by trying to put as much disinterest as he could into his voice. All of a sudden, the coatrack got exceptionally more interesting.
“No. I guess they didn’t.”
“That’s what I thought.” He sighed.
“I wish there was something I could do. Grace is such a nice girl, and I really feel like you guys would be perfect together.”
“I thought that too, but apparently the lady doesn’t feel the same, so I just need to accept that. Unless I fight it, and that’s kind of silly, since you can’t make people feel things for you that they don’t feel, you know?”
“It’s a hard lesson to learn.” He paused, coming over to the workbench and watching over Trevor’s shoulder as he worked. Normally he didn’t care for people looking over his shoulder, but he actually welcomed his dad. His dad was not the kind of person who was going to criticize him, but he would give him helpful tips if he saw anything that could be improved.
“Some people never learn that lesson,” his dad continued, his voice thoughtful. “It was what I had to learn when your mother left. Shedidn’t give me much warning, any, if I remember correctly. I felt like I would have been blindsided anyway. And I did beg her to come back. Begged her to not break up our family, begged her to reconsider. I prayed and prayed, and I was sure that God would answer my prayer, because after all, I was asking for something good. I was asking for my marriage to be reconciled, for my family to be put back together, something that God wanted, which is a marriage and family intact. He hates divorce. So why would He allow mine?”
“There’s a good question. I think you had a point. But… God didn’t put your marriage back together.” He had never thought about it that way before, but his dad was right. Why wouldn’t God answer that prayer? It was obviously God’s will for any marriage to stay together.
“I can’t answer that. All I can do is say that I have to continue to have faith that whatever God allows has to be the right thing. Even if it feels like something that’s very wrong.” His dad shifted, coming around more beside him and leaning against the workbench, folding his arms over his chest. “I learned a lot through that time in my life. I think a lot of times when we go through pain, those are some of the most intense learning times that we have.”
“Too bad we can’t learn without pain,” Trevor said, not wanting to acknowledge how bad his own heartbreak felt. His chest had been on fire since the moment Grace had said that they weren’t anything and sounded like she meant it with her whole heart and soul.
“I think without pain, lessons don’t stick. He makes us desperate. I read once where one of those royal Russian families were being invaded by the enemy. The father, the king, knowing he was probably going to be killed, was hiding something important and wanted his daughter to remember where it was. He knew that she probably wasn’t going to remember unless it was associated with something terrible, so he took his own knife and slashed across her hand. And then, once he had done that, he looked her in the eye and told her where he was hiding the treasure. He knew that was the only way he could make sure that she remembered where it was if it took years for her to get back to the throne.”
“Wow. That’s pretty brutal.” He didn’t know whether he couldslash anyone’s hand, let alone his own, innocent daughter’s, and especially if that was going to be her last memory of him before he was killed.
“That’s what a loving father does. He doesn’t think about himself, and sometimes you can’t think about the immediate comfort of your children. Because if that daughter was ever going to grow up and resume her rightful place on the throne, she was going to need to know where those royal doodads that he was hiding were. Without them, she couldn’t claim her right to the throne. He was doing her a favor, it just didn’t seem like that way at the time.”
That made sense. As much as he didn’t want to admit that the pain of losing Grace again, or since he couldn’t really lose what he didn’t have, of not getting Grace, was for the best.
He had to believe that. That God was allowing him to feel the temporary pain so that God could do something greater later on. It was sad comfort but something that he would be wise to remember in his life. God was in control of everything, and when things didn’t go his way, it didn’t mean that God hated him, or that he should get upset or angry, but that he should just have faith and trust the Lord to work all things out for his good.
