Page 92 of I'll Be There
“What—why?”
“Because you’re not the only one who listened to Grandpa. Some of his preaching made it inside, and if I remember onething, I remember this—true love pursues. True love doesn’t give up, it always hopes, and most of all, it always protects. You can’t control life, Conner. But you can promise to love her with everything you have.”
And for the first time since Justin arrived, it all clicked into place. “Yes. Yes I can.”
“That’s my little brother. Always figuring it out.”
Please. Conner strode past him, but turned when Justin didn’t follow. His brother was staring out at the dawn, the finest wisp of gold threading through the trees, igniting the lake. Overhead the sky had turned a mottled red and orange, afire with hope.
“Sunrise,” Justin said softly under his breath.
The bowl formed almost without effort. Sleek, smooth, beautiful.
Liza turned off the wheel, grabbed a towel, and wiped her hands. Then, taking a drying board, she slid it under the bowl, gently breaking it from the throwing table, working it onto the paddle.
She got up and brought the creation over to her workbench.
Picked up an etch pen and cut in the words, her new phrase.I have come, that they might have life, and have it in the full.
Tears pricked. She blinked them away.John 10:10b.
She never wrote the first part of the verse.
The thief comes only to steal and destroy.
Her hand shook and she pulled it away before she could mar the bowl.
She dropped the pen on the workbench. Braced her hands and closed her eyes. No, she would not let the nightmares take her, steal—
Except they already had, hadn’t they? Stolen her future.
Her happy ending.
I’m sorry, Conner.
The memory of him kneeling in the parking lot could undo her if she let it find her thoughts.
So, work. Lots of it. She’d practically filled her shelves overnight. She couldn’t remember working so hard, for so long. Her arms ached, but the familiar ache, the peace of finding her center in the clay, manipulating it, forming it into something beautiful, had cleared her thoughts.
Shewouldsurvive without Conner. Sure, she’d never quite be whole again, but like a pot, broken, pieced back together, she’d survive.
Really.
Just one breath at a time.
She counted the pots—two pitchers, twelve bowls, fourteen plates, eight mugs, and a large fruit bowl. All leathering out.
Outside, her wind chimes played a tune, and farther off, the tumble of the waves on the lake stirred memories. She shook them away.
Another breath.
Liza washed her hands, reddened, a little raw. Fingernails caked with clay. She scrubbed them clean, painfully aware it didn’t matter. She didn’t need clean hands.
She wasn’t getting married today.
Rinsing off, she ran a finger up her arm, the pink, slightly raised puckering of skin.Here I raise my Ebenezer, Hither by Thy help I’ve come. And I hope, by Thy good pleasure, Safely to arrive at home.
She shook her head. She’d made her decision.
