Chapter 18
“I told you that you know who your right match is because God shows you.” Wesley was silent for a moment, and then he said, “I think God gives us the prerequisite that the person that you’re with has to be a believer. The Bible clearly says that we are not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers. We’re not to even think about a relationship with them. So, when you go into a relationship, that should be the first question. Are they a believer? That makes sense. But yet, how many Christians do that?”
“We just look for someone that we like, because that’s what we’ve been taught.”
“And that’s what I’m saying. We’ve been taught wrong.”
She lifted her shoulder and nodded.
“Of course, if we’re truly Christians, we’ll be attracted to someone else who is a Christian, because non-Christians aren’t going to be doing things that attract us, but so many of us are nominal Christians, or Christians in name only, but we have no actual desire to read the Bible or please God.”
“You just described pretty much every Christian I know.”
He nodded. “Sometimes that’s me too, but I don’t want to be. I can’t say I’m a Christian, and then if a non-believing girl wants me anyway, be okay with that. I have to actively look for girls who are Christians. Because of what the Bible says.”
“Because we are not allowed to marry non-Christians. ”
“Yes. And the world wants to knock that out of us. They want to call us racists or narrow minded, or whatever else they want to call us, but it’s just the devil making up names to try to get us to disobey what’s in the Bible.”
He laughed and looked at the ground. “I guess I get a little passionate about it, because people have made fun of me because I’ve said that, and it’s so radical, so unacceptable in today’s society, that a lot of times, people, Christians, haven’t even heard of it.”
“And yet it’s biblical.”
“Exactly.”
“So any Christian will do?”
“Maybe? God gives us free choice. I do think He will guide us, but I also think that He gave us guidelines, told us that who we choose has to be a Christian and a member of the opposite sex. Those things are clear in scripture. But as for a specific person, He doesn’t really say. And love is a choice—we can choose to love and be committed to anyone, whether we’re ‘in love’ with them or not. Although, I do feel like if we ask Him, like I was saying earlier, He will guide us to the right one.” He lifted his shoulder. “Maybe more like He’ll say this was a good choice, that one’s not. I don’t know. Maybe He’s more specific than that, but I’ve never felt that way.”
“So as long as you have the same values, the same morals, and you feel like you can get along with them, and they’re a Christian, living according to the Bible, then it might be okay?”
“Sure. I guess I would say it’s also good to get the advice of trusted Christian advisors, your parents if possible. They’re the ones who love you. They’re the ones who care about you.”
“At our age, should we really be asking our parents?”
“Why not? Are they not as smart now as they were when we were kids?”
“It just seems really weird for someone of my age to go and ask, and of course since I don’t have parents, it would have to be my gram.”
“You think she would give you bad advice?”
“I don’t think so. I think she wants me to be happy, and... I guess you’re right. It just seems odd.”
“That’s because society has made it odd, much to the devil’s delight. If you have good Christian friends, you could ask them. Friends who know what the Bible says and have experience. But I guess I would be cautious asking someone our own age. You want someone who’s been there and done that, at least I do. Someone with experience. Although... Different people probably give you different advice, so it’s always best to go back to God and the Bible.”
“It just feels really confusing,” she said as her horse shifted and she realized that full darkness had fallen.
“We really should go,” she said, turning and putting her foot in the saddle stirrup, and managing to get on by holding tight to the pommel and pulling hard.
He waited until she was settled before he handed her the reins and then went around and got on his own horse. He did it so easily, made it look so effortless that it made her even more envious. She was already envious about the way that he lived his life with purpose. It seemed so much smarter than what she had done.
“Gramps thinks you’re a pretty good choice,” he said, “by the way.”
They’d barely taken three steps, and she turned to him, shocked.
“Seriously? You’ve talked about me?”
“Sure. You’re our neighbor. Of course we’ve talked about you. Although, I’m not sure whether he thinks you’re a good choice because of you or because of your gram’s cooking and he can just see that there’d be benefits for me being married to you.”
“Yes. Everyone wants me for my benefits.”
She didn’t really mean that. She was mostly teasing. And he didn’t say anything more.
The horses were surefooted thankfully, because she couldn’t see the ground from where she sat, although she could see the starlight shining off the water and hear the lapping of the waves along the shore.
“I know there are some people who think you have a soulmate, someone who is destined to be with you, and you just have to keep searching the world to find it, but I don’t really think I believe that. Since we have a tendency to find our soulmate very close to where we happen to be, and what are the odds that we’re going to be living or working next to the one in eight billion who was made for us?”
“Yeah. Although it stands to reason that if God made your soulmate, He would put them close to you, so that you at least ran into them.”
“Yeah, Christians can believe that, but people who don’t believe in a god are kind of up a creek without a paddle.”
“I never understood that saying. Shouldn’t it be down a creek without a paddle? Since if you’re up a creek, you can just float down? ”
“Well, I think originally the creek didn’t contain water.”
She laughed, realizing that he was probably right. She still felt embarrassed for wanting to kiss him and pushing for it when he didn’t want to, but beyond that, things between them hadn’t changed. He was still funny and easy to talk to, and she knew she could say pretty much anything and he wouldn’t be offended. In fact, she couldn’t think of anything that she could try to talk about that he wouldn’t take rationally and easily. The way he’d done with everything.
“So what do you think?” he asked. The horses continued to walk in the dark, following the shore of the lake as they went through the narrow part with the marsh on their left.
“About what?” she asked, surprised. She’d been lost in her own thoughts, a jumble of what her future might look like, the things that they had talked about this evening, ways she could implement that in her life, and whether or not she’d ever find a man since she wanted one just like Wesley, and she didn’t even know who he was. Men like him were very, very rare.
“About marriage, relationships, us.” He said the words slowly, with a pause between each one, like either he hoped to get her to think, or he was dragging his feet about asking, because it made him uncomfortable.
Either one could be true for her.
“I think you’re right about relationships, and I think you’re right about marriage too. It should be done as closely to the Bible as possible. But I think as long as two people are Christians, they can make it work. So I agree with you on the whole idea of a soulmate. I also am not sure about asking God and getting His confirmation, since He doesn’t talk to you in an audible voice. But the idea of getting advice from people who are older and wiser than you makes a lot of sense to me.”
She would have a lot to chew on. Because she got a little bit stumbled up with the whole idea of asking God if this was the right person for her versus God giving her free choice and just showing her if it was a good idea or not. She didn’t know how any of that worked. But maybe she was making it more complicated than it needed to be.
“And?” he prompted.
She tried to think back. “And what?”
“Us.”
“You said there was no us.”
“I didn’t say that. ”
“That’s what I got out of what we talked about. I told you I wanted to kiss you, and it didn’t happen. I assume that’s because...you might have wanted it, but it wasn’t a good idea.”
“I think maybe we get the kissing first and it’s out of line. I wanted to see where we might be going with this, so that maybe there would be a kiss tonight after all.” He looked a little sheepish as he glanced over at her. The moon had come up, and it lay on its side in the sky, reflecting off the water and glinting off his eyes.
“I see. So you want a commitment from me before you kiss me.” That was a little bit of teasing, but his comment had made her feel more lighthearted. Maybe things were not going in the direction that she had thought after all. Or hadn’t hit the dead end it felt like.
“It doesn’t have to be a one-hundred-year commitment where you can’t break off if you change your mind, but I want to know that you’re looking for someone the same as I am and you think that I might be him. I guess...I need that much.”
“I’d like even more.”
“What do you want?” he asked, surprised.
“Well, if that’s all it takes, just a knowledge that you’re both Christians, that you have the same values and morals and you kind of like each other, then you should have rings and vows before a kiss.” She was saying it kind of lightly, and she wasn’t sure she agreed with that, but it made sense if they took the direction their conversation was going out to the bitter end.
“So I need to get a ring.”
“Do you?” she asked, and she thought maybe she was being coy when she didn’t really mean to be.
“The more time I spend with you, the more I don’t want to spend time with anyone else. But I kinda saw you as someone who would be leaving my circle and never coming back. I kept cautioning myself that it might not be a good idea. But if that’s not true. If you’re willing to be committed to me, we’ll figure it out. It might be hard. I don’t know. Since I don’t know what you do.”
“And I don’t know what you do.”
“So we’ll have to work that all out, but... You don’t seem to be unreasonable, and some people have said that I am, but I try not to be.”
“People say you’re unreasonable?” She didn’t mean to interrupt him, but that surprised her .
“I’m known as being fairly aggressive at my...what I do. Maybe it’s a reputation that got made for itself, and I had to step into it. Regardless, yeah. But that’s not who I want to be.”
“Sometimes what we want to be and what we are are two very different, very not similar things at all.”
“True. Sometimes we deceive ourselves. We’re good liars.”
“Especially to ourselves,” she said, having to agree with him, but her heart was beating fast, and her mind was running over what he had said. He was willing to give her a ring. Like, an engagement ring. Like, this could be a serious relationship.
Now that the drive to kiss him had faded, and she was thinking rationally... She still liked him. Still thought that there was no man better. That he was one in a million or maybe even one in a billion. She couldn’t imagine there being a whole lot of men like Wesley walking the earth, and he wanted her.
But more than that, she wanted him. She didn’t want to be with someone who only wanted her for publicity or money. And the man had admitted that he wasn’t sure what she did for a living. So he must not recognize her. Which meant he didn’t really know what he was getting when he got her. All the stuff that came with her.
“Do you think you might change your mind if you find out that there are a lot of things that come with me? I’m not talking material things. I’m talking stress and frustration and scheduling conflicts and things that are time-consuming and difficult.” She didn’t know how to explain the amount of time that she usually put into her business. How exhausting it was to travel the globe and put on huge shows night after night. How hands-on she was with everything that happened in her business and making sure that things went the way she wanted them to.
“You have to keep it?”
“Whoa.” Her horse stopped. That wasn’t what she meant, and she laughed. “How do I get it to go again?”
“I assume you didn’t want to make your horse stop?” he said as he pulled gently back on the reins and his stopped as well, and he looked over his shoulder at her.
She remembered what Becky had said and nudged her horse forward.
They started again, and she went back to thinking about what he had just asked her .
“Are you one of those chauvinists who think that a woman should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen all the time?” she asked, trying not to offend him but realizing that she was slightly offended herself.
“I think a household is happier if they do things the way God intended, and God definitely said that women were supposed to take care of the house and the kids. The man was supposed to protect and provide. I was just asking a question though. I wasn’t trying to get your shoes off or anything.”
She laughed at the way he said “or anything,” which implied everything else that she had said.
“Good. Because I’m keeping my shoes on for now. And I’m definitely going to buy a pair of boots the next time if I can find any place that sells them.”
She couldn’t believe she didn’t have a pair of riding boots in her wardrobe. She had sparkly boots and fancy boots and dress boots, but she didn’t have a pair of riding boots. Ones that she could put on and wouldn’t look totally out of place when she was on the back of a horse.
“All right. Not trying to keep you out of your boots,” he said.
There was laughter in his voice, but she knew his statement had been serious.
There wasn’t really a way she could argue with that. What was she supposed to say, “Maybe God didn’t know what He was talking about?”
She could say that the men who wrote the Old Testament had provincial views and modern society had evolved beyond those views, but it would be easy for him to say that God could have had the Bible written at any point in history. Because He’s God and He chose when it would be written and by whom. But He’d had it written at that point, and he could have had anything included or not included in it, and God chose to include the fact that women had a place in the home, jobs they were supposed to do, things that were solely on their shoulders to keep the world running smoothly.
“I guess you’re right. I don’t like it, but I don’t have any arguments for it.”
“That’s kind of the way the Bible is sometimes, isn’t it? We don’t always like it, but you can’t argue. Unless you want to say you know better than God,” he said, his shoulders moving up in the semi-darkness. “I’ve had more than one discussion with Him, and I just had to humble myself and tell Him that I was wrong.”
“Well, it’s nice to know that I’m not the only one.”