The Breaking Point (8 page)

“Grace …”

She hesitated. No, not Jimmy. The voice had been a woman’s. Or maybe a girl’s. “Well, then, it must have been little Robin Lee. You know, Oren, how such an angel-faced child could come up with so many pranks is simply beyond me.” She pressed her nose against the glass, trying to see if anyone was hiding just below the window. “Now, don’t get me wrong, dear, I love it that the children enjoy coming to visit, to tease and have fun, but my poor pansies—”

“Grace!”

She studied her husband. What on earth was he getting so worked up about? But something about the look on his face—like a man suddenly recognizing someone he hadn’t seen in a long time—made her stop and turn back to him.

“Hon,” he said slowly, as though working the words past whatever was rolling around in his mind, “exactly what did the voice say?”

She clasped her hands in front of her. “Pray.”

“Pray? Are you sure?” Oren wasn’t laughing now. In fact, every vestige of humor was gone. Instead, his eyes were wide and rueful.

Grace frowned. “Yes, pray. That’s it. Just …
pray,”
Her husband leaned back in his chair, and Grace could
tell
he knew something. So he
had
been behind it! She planted her hands on her hips—something she usually avoided because it only reminded her how they’d spread over the past few years, but right now she didn’t care about that. “Oren, what are you up to—”

“Hon, I heard it.”

That stopped her cold. He’d heard the voice? She marched back to the table. “Then why did you say you didn’t?”

“Because I heard it outside, in my shop.” His gaze met hers. “Just before I came in for lunch.”

Grace stared at him; then, her knees suddenly too weak to support her, she pulled out her chair and plopped down on the seat. “Outside.”

He nodded, those generous lips twitching. “Before I came in.”

Oh, dear. “Then that means …”

She saw in his expression that the same understanding filling her mind had come to him. “We did it again, didn’t we?”

He sighed and lifted his shoulders in a hapless shrug. “I figured it was just kids playing.” “So did I.”

“Well, hon—” he folded her hands in his—“at least we can rest in the fact that God is patient with us.”

She looked down at their joined hands, loving the way his huge paws covered hers, the way her fingers nestled in his as though every aspect of the two of them had been made to fit together.

Even their stubborn weaknesses.

Just a few months ago they’d asked God to speak to them, to move in their minds and hearts until they came to know His still, small voice with such intimacy they wouldn’t hesitate to obey. It had been a bold request, but they truly wanted it. God had brought them through so much, and they wanted to give back. To Him. To His people. What better way to do that than to pray for others?

They waited, sure a response would come. But nothing happened. Not in the way they expected, anyway.

Of course, that didn’t surprise Grace. God always seemed to work with her on the offbeat—when she least expected it, in ways that were surprising, unexpected …unique.

Oren said that was because God fit the working of His will to the clay being molded, and if there was one thing Grace was, it was unique. “You’re one of a kind, hon,” he’d say, those blue eyes shining, “and you’re all mine.”

No, God’s answer hadn’t come quickly. But it had come. Several weeks after their fervent prayer, He had sent a call whispering first through Oren’s heart and then Grace’s. It was nothing elaborate. Just the name of a young man from church. And the urge to invite him over for dinner. But by then Grace and Oren weren’t really thinking about their request, and so each had dismissed the prodding as their own thoughts, and each let the idea slide.

It wasn’t until a few days later, after church, when they realized what had happened. The very same young man stood up during prayer request time and shared how God had saved him from making a terrible decision.

“I was so depressed.” Emotion choked his voice. “I felt like nobody cared, and then Mrs. Wilson called—” he directed a shining smile at the woman seated in one of the front pews—“and said God had put my name in her heart. Can you imagine that? Put my name in her heart and asked her to invite me over for coffee.”

He told how their conversation showed him God was watching over him, but Grace only listened to bits and pieces of his happy report. Something was gnawing at her, distracting her.

On the drive home, she started to say something about it to Oren, but he beat her to the punch.

“You know Danny, that young man in church today?” Grace nodded.

“Funny thing—” Oren chewed his lip as he maneuvered a sharp curve—“I almost came home that very day and asked you to invite him over for dinner.”

Grace stared at him. At her far-from-characteristic silence, Oren glanced her way. “Grace?”

“Oren, I almost did
exactly
that same thing.
I
thought of Danny. And I wanted to ask him for dinner.”

Her husband pondered this, then pulled to the side of the road and shut the car off. “Are you telling me we both thought about asking that same boy over for dinner?”

She nodded.

“On the same day?”

She nodded again, and they both sat back. “Well.”

Oren reached out to take her hand. “So God answered our prayer. We just didn’t listen.”

She bit her lip and nodded, fighting the urge to cry. “Well …”

When Grace met Oren’s gaze, he gave her hand a gentle tug. “I guess next time maybe we’d best pay attention.”

They’d tried. Really they had. And Grace wondered if that was part of the problem: They were trying too hard. Like watching a kettle of water and waiting for it to boil. Blasted thing
never
boiled, no matter how hard you stared. But look away for half a blink, and there it went, spitting water everywhere.

Maybe God’s gentle whispers were like that. Focus on
them, try to make yourself hear them, and the only thing ringing through your mind and heart was a blaring silence. But let yourself get distracted by life, and bingo! There it came … that soft, unassuming nudge that was so easy to ignore.

Just as they’d done today.

Grace settled back in her chair as regret played tag with frustration inside her. Oren patted her hand.

“Don’t fret, dear. We’re still learning.”

She nodded. “If only God would be a bit more obvious.”

Oren tipped his head at that. “Obvious?”

She turned to face him. “You know, more …I don’t know … Godlike. I mean, He sounds so much like me …”

Oren’s lips were twitching again. “Oh yes, dear, I’ve always thought you sounded like God.”

She swatted at his arm. “You know what I mean. It’s easy to dismiss those little urgings because they seem like
my
thoughts.” She waved her hands. “Why, I’d
never
have dismissed the voice if it had
sounded
like God. You know, powerful. Holy.”

Oren didn’t answer. He was frowning, in deep concentration. “Grace, did you say the voice you heard sounded like a woman?”

She focused on his dear face. “Yes. Actually, it … it was a particular woman’s voice. It sounded like Renee.”

Apparent surprise tugged at his brows. “Renee Roman?”

She nodded and then almost jumped out of her chair when he gave a whoop. “Oren, what on earth—”

“Sweetheart, the voice I heard? It was Gabriel Roman! And it said the same thing:
Pray.”
Awe crept across his features. “Hon, we haven’t missed it. Not at all. God is calling us to pray for the Romans.”

Excitement danced through Grace, and she clasped her hands—then stopped. “Oh, no …”

Oren studied her features. “What?”

She grabbed his hands. “Oh, Oren, the Romans! They’ve been through so much.”

Oren and Grace had met the Romans years ago when they attended a Bible study together. It hadn’t taken long for the two couples to realize how much they had in common, and a strong friendship grew between them. Oren and Grace opened their hearts and home to the younger couple, grateful to be able to help someone else as they’d been helped.

“I know, hon.” Oren patted her hand.

“And this was supposed to be such a special time for them. What could have gone wrong? You don’t suppose they—”

Oren’s fingers pressed against her lips, and she swallowed back the string of questions ready to spill forth. The patience she saw in the depths of Oren’s eyes warmed her heart, casting off the chill of apprehension that had begun to cloak her.

“Grade, I don’t know what’s going on. But God does. And He’s asked us to pray for them, so maybe it’s time we stopped jabbering and got down to doing what He says. After all, there’s nothing more powerful than that, now is there?” The tenderness in his features, the touch of his fingers, enveloped her.

No, there wasn’t anything more powerful than prayer. The simple fact that they were here was more than enough proof of that.

With a full heart, Grace nodded, and together they bowed their heads. As they did so, a powerful certainty grew within Grace’s heart: She and Oren were doing exactly what they were supposed to do. And no matter what the Romans were facing, God was with them. Just as He’d been with Grace and Oren.

And He would be sufficient.

D
ECEMBER
19, 2003

1:15
P.M.

RENEE OPENED HER EYES SLOWLY, BLINKING AGAINST
the brightness that surrounded her.

Pain followed on the heels of wakefulness, and she cried out against it as a mixture of fear and anger flooded her. What was happening? Why was everything white? And why was it so cold—?

Reality, stark and sudden, soaked in, and she closed her eyes on a weary sigh. She’d hoped it was a dream. Prayed it was. But there was nothing dreamlike about the wind buffeting the truck, rocking them from side to side.

They really had gone over the side of the road. They really were stranded in a blizzard.

She looked into the backseat to find Bo curled into a tight ball, his fluffy tail draped over his face, sound asleep. She watched
his chest rise and fall, rise and fall … If only she could be so at peace.

Renee glanced at her watch. Another hour had passed. Another hour, and, from what she could see through the driver’s window, the snow was still falling. She looked at her husband. Another hour, and Gabe was still unconscious.

Or was he? Maybe he was just sleeping, as she and Bo had just been doing. If his battered body was just keeping him sheltered in a deep slumber, she might be able to bring him around. “Gabe?” She held her breath, hoping … praying. “Gabe, honey, wake up.”

Bo, roused by the sound of her voice, jumped up and came to her, tail wagging, a low whine coming from deep in his throat. She pushed him away. “Not now, boy. Lie down.”

He did as she ordered, but his worried eyes never left her as she closed her mittened fingers on Gabe’s shoulder and gave him a gentle shake. “Gabe?”

When he stirred slightly and moaned, wild hope raced through Renee’s veins, sending her pulse pounding in her temples. The shake she gave him this time was anything but gentle. “Gabe, wake
up!”

He drew a shuddering breath, and she waited for his eyes to flicker open—instead, he seemed to settle back into the oblivion Renee was slowly coming to hate.

“No …”

Her hands fisted in the blanket covering Gabe, and she caught her breath at the emotions that churned within her, surging through her like liquid fire, making her feel hot and ice cold all at once. It took all her strength to relax her fingers, to let go of the blanket and not shake Gabe until he opened his eyes. She wouldn’t even have cared if he yelled at her.

Anything was better than this dense, terrifying silence. Snow had settled in a thick blanket over the windshield, which meant it probably covered a good portion of the rest of
the truck as well. The result was an eerie kind of muffling, as though both light and sound were being kept at bay. Renee felt encased, trapped, entombed in a place of isolation and gloom.

So this is what it feels like to be a mummy …

She turned to face the windshield, planting her hands on the dash, feeling the cold of the plastic even through her mittens.

They were running out of time.

“Where are You?” The question came out in a hoarse whisper, breaking the suffocating silence around her. “Behold, I am with you always, remember? Even to the end of the world. Isn’t that what You promised?”

Guilt assailed her at the sarcasm in her tone—after all, who was she to question God?—but it was quickly pushed aside, obliterated by the pounding of her heart, the ragged breathing that tore at her lungs, the trembling that assaulted her from the inside out …a trembling that she knew had nothing to do with the icy weather and everything to do with the emotion that seared her heart and singed the corners of her control.