Page 17 of Candy Cane Dreams
"She is now. It wasn't anything to do with her muteness. It was just a summer fever that turned into strep throat, and her throat hurt so bad she wasn't drinking anything, so then she was dehydrated on top of it and... they just needed to keep her for a bit."
"And she couldn't tell you, or wouldn't tell you, that there were any issues?"
"No." He sighed again, tidying up the area where they had been rolling out the candy.
"The last school counselor didn't seem to be super interested in her. I'm really hoping that... something changes."
"Well, I'm definitely interested in her, so there's a change."
"Obviously, since you're here after school. You don't have to visit your students outside of the classroom."
"I might not have to, but sometimes that's what a good professional does."
She knew there were teachers who just taught because they got the summers and holidays off. She'd heard them talk about itin college when they were taking the classes. And a person only had to glance at them to know that they felt like their job was confined to the school and the classroom. Some of them didn't even take work home to correct, but only did what they could while in school.
"It's rare to find someone who's so dedicated to their job."
"I don't know if it's dedication to my job, as much as I just care about people, and kids in particular. Lilly is so sweet, and it's so heartbreaking that she lost her mom so early."
"Yeah. I've felt bad for her, having to put up with me as both mom and dad. I don't feel like I do a very good job of either one."
Jack didn't sound like he was fishing for compliments, and he wasn't that kind of person anyway. He was just stating what he felt were obvious facts.
"I don't think any one person would do a good job of being both mom and dad. That's why God gave kids both. Because women are specifically created to be good at the jobs that a mom needs to do, and men are specifically created to be good at dad jobs. And God meant for men and women to pair up and to raise children together."
"I wonder why I ended up raising mine by myself then, you know?" He lifted his shoulder. "If God was so set on moms and dads and about a kid needing a mom and dad, why did my wife die?"
That was a good question, and she didn't blame him for struggling with it.
"I wish I could answer that. I don't have a good answer, other than I don't understand God or His ways, and I'm not supposed to. Isn't that where faith comes in? We just trust when we don't know the answer. And that's how we live by faith."
He huffed out a breath, a short laugh, maybe. "Yeah. That's kind of the conclusion I came to too. God didn't want man to fall into sin, but now that we live in a sinful world, things aren'tperfect. Nor should we expect them to be, and it's our own fault. Beyond that, I just have to trust and have faith that God will work things out. That's what the Bible means when we walk by faith and not by sight. I want to see, though. I want to see the why, the purpose behind everything, so then I can know for sure that this is what I'm supposed to do."
"And then it wouldn't be faith, would it?" Kate said, thinking about what he had said and agreeing with him. When the way wasn't clear ahead, or the reasons why weren't given to them, it was just a matter of having faith. And it seemed so simple, so easy, but it's where a lot of people stumbled. Because they couldn't just trust God and His inherent goodness. They saw something bad happening and their faith wasn't strong enough for them to keep walking anyway. So they quit and turned away.
"Life isn't all bad," Jack seemed to be shifting the topic, and Kate appreciated it. While their former line of conversation wasn't exactly depressing, it could be, if she thought about all the people in her life that were no longer living for the Lord.
"It's not. It's mostly good," Kate said, nodding emphatically as though that would make it so.
"I think a lot of it is how we think about it. After all, a situation that looks bad in my eyes could be good to someone else. It's about how we frame it."
"That goes along with the Bible verse that says to focus on things that are right and true and good."
"It kind of does, because there's always some kind of good in a situation, but it's up to us to choose to look at it that way."
"I read a Christian writer at one point, and I remember him saying that when we're saved, God does the sanctification, but our part is the thousands or tens of thousands of small moral choices we make every day."
Jack nodded, setting the bowl in the sink and turning the faucet on to wash his hands. "I think that's true. And thosechoices begin with the decision of how we're going to allow ourselves to think."
"What you think is what you are," she said a little lightly, because for some reason with Jack, their conversation had gotten serious right away, and she hadn’t intended for that to happen. Although, she didn't mind. In fact, she enjoyed finding someone with whom she could share ideas and thoughts and things that she hadn't quite figured out on her own.
"You've got quite a lot of ideas for a candy maker, not that candy makers can't be deep thinkers," she said, afraid she might have upset him.
He laughed instead. "I probably have a lot of things going on in my head that candy makers don't normally."
"Like?" she prompted. She wasn't sure why she was so curious, but she didn't stop to examine it.
He shrugged his shoulder. "A lot of the things that I want are things I can't have, and I'm better off if I don't focus on them."
