Page 46 of When We Were Young
The Comforter.Noah let the words settle in his mind. “Couldn’t he just fix things? Like that’s His job, right? Rescuing people. Making miracles happen.” Noah shrugged. “So how can you be okay when He lets bad things happen?”
“My mom loved God before I did.” Emily stared off, as if she were seeing her parents together again. “After my dad left I watched how she handled it. How she ran the house by herself and got by with little.”
“Little love?” Noah was listening, savoring how she was revealing her heart to him, a bit more all the time.
“Little from a man, anyway. And little in the way of material things.” Emily smiled. “Yet every morning I found my mom sitting at the kitchen table reading her Bible.” She looked back at him. “She used to say, ‘A chapter a day keeps the darkness away.’?” Emily nodded. “After she died I started to believe her.”
Emily explained that she’d had doubts about her faith before her mother died, but after the funeral, there was nowhere else to turn, no one to help her but God. “For the past few years God has become my... everything. Jesus walks with me wherever I go. He’s my Father, my Savior, my Comforter, my Friend.”
Every one of those titles seemed like someone Noah could use in his life. His parents still lived in England, and with his football dreams shattered, and Emily still refusing to be in a relationship with him, he definitely wanted something more than himself.
Over the next few months, God turned out to be just what Noah needed. He and Emily started a Bible study, reading about the family of Jesus. With every new story, every section of Scripture, Noah came a little closer to the Lord. By January of his junior year, with his concussion completely healed, Noah made a decision.
He wanted to be baptized.
A few dozen people were gathered at their church that day and when he came up through the surface of the baptismal water, Noah hugged Clara first, then Emily. All of them burst into applause.
Once Noah had a real and lasting friendship with God, his whole life felt better. Strong and more ordered. As if it didn’t matter what happened next because God was leading him. God was in control.
Emily told him that praying was just like talking to a best friend. The more he did it, the easier it would get. And so it was. Noah talked to God about school and his purpose in life, football and Emily. Her most of all.
But the more Noah prayed about football, the more he could sense God telling him the same thing.Noah, My son, I have great plans for you. Very great plans.Noah began to connect the dots. If God was telling him about great plans ahead every time Noah prayed about football, then the answer was obvious.
God wanted him to play again!
And so Noah became convinced of something that sounded crazy to everyone else. He was going to try. One more time, for his senior year. That way he could see if there might be an open door for him to play in the NFL. The great plans God kept laying on his heart.
When he told Emily one night at her house between homework assignments, she turned pale. Noah wondered if she might collapse to the floor. “You can’t be hearing that from God.” Emily shook her head. “Noah, you almost died with that last hit. And now... now your head can’t take another injury. You know what the doctor said.”
It was true that the team physician didn’t like the risk. But if Noah could pass the reaction tests and analytical tests, the man had promised to clear him. Concussion protocol was very specific. A player either passed or failed the various tests. And a pass meant clearance to play. Like before, Noah began eating better and working out twice a day. And once more, by spring of his junior year, Noah passed every test with flying colors.
The doctor and his coaches all signed off. His parents even reluctantly agreed. He was physically able to play for his senior year if that was what he wanted to do.
Like before, his dedication to the game took its toll on the time he could spend with Emily and Clara. But still he ate dinner with them at the cafeteria, and made it to their house after practice a few nights each week.
But something changed between Emily and him. She seemed colder, more aloof. Like the walls that were there in the beginning had grown back up around her heart again. One night he knocked on her door and as soon as she let him inside he could tell something was wrong.
She’d been crying.
Sure, she tried to hide it, tried to dry her eyes before he stepped inside. But he knew her too well. They sat down on the sofa and he took both her hands in his. “What’s wrong? Emily, tell me.”
The anniversary of her mother’s death had been the week before, so Noah figured it might’ve been that. But instead of answering him, she looked at the place where their hands were joined. And in small subtle ways she began to tremble.
“Are you sick?” He kept his voice low, since Clara was asleep by then. “Please, Emily, talk to me.”
Finally she lifted her eyes to his. By then she was shivering, her teeth chattering a little. “I’m afraid, Noah.” For the first time in months, the walls were down again and it was just the two of them, the way they had been before. “I’m so afraid.”
He pulled her close and held her, rocked her until she wasn’t shaking anymore. Then he pulled back a few inches and searched her eyes. “What are you afraid of? Everything’s fine.”
For a long time she only stared at him, her eyes brimming with fresh tears. “I... I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
The reality of her fears hit Noah hard. Between God’s affirmation and the doctors and coaches clearing him, he had forgotten that she still worried about him. “Emily, it’ll be fine.” He held her again, running his hand along the length of her pretty blond hair. “God is with me. He’ll keep me safe.”
Emily put her hand alongside his face, her skin gentle and warm against his. “I can’t lose you, Noah. I... didn’t know how much I cared until you decided...”
Suddenly it hit him. “Is that why you’ve been different? Because you’re afraid?”
She leaned closer and rested her forehead on his, her arms around his neck. “Yes.” The word was only a whisper. “I never wanted to fall in love with you. But...” Her eyes found his again and something in the air around them changed.
