Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Seth
Ella was the most stubborn woman I’d ever met, and the Lord kept telling me to take care of her.
And I wanted to. With every passing day, I was drawn to her like a magnet.
Not because Ella was fragile or couldn’t do things herself.
She made that very clear. But because I really felt the Lord calling me to her.
‘Take care of her,’ He’d say. And so I vowed to Him that I would. Ella was stubborn and lost, and I just wanted her to smile and be happy again. I knew all too well how the death of a loved one could suck the joy from your life and rearrange everything.
I’d been worried sick the past several days when she told me she was too sick to care for her farm animals. But when she came over today with the bag of pregnancy tests, shaking hands, and tears in her eyes, it took every ounce of strength I had to remain strong for her.
Because it took me back to Scarlett.
Seeing those positive pregnancy tests with Ella reminded me so much of when I had taken them with Scarlett.
The heartbreak of finding out she was pregnant while she had cancer felt too similar to Ella’s finding out she was pregnant without her husband here to see it.
I held it together until Maggie got there, and then I broke down in the barn.
I fell to my knees and held my hands together.
‘Lord, what are you doing? What’s your plan here?’ I prayed in one of the horse stalls, not caring that my knees were in dirty hay.
‘Wait for her.’ The Holy Spirit pressed those three words into my heart, and my eyes popped open. My heart raced at what they could mean, something I’d hoped for a long time. Maggie had told me that, the night Scarlett died with our unborn daughter in her belly, the Lord gave her a dream.
In the dream, she was at a large dinner table with just her and God.
She’d made a nine-course meal and was serving the Lord a giant plate.
She was on one side of the table, in the land of the living, and the Lord was on the other.
Then, before she knew what was happening, Scarlett was standing behind God, holding our baby in her arms, wearing all white, and smiling at Maggie.
My grandmother said she knew at that moment the Lord had taken both Scarlett and our daughter, and she fell to her knees, sobbing in the dream.
Then she said God reached over, brushed her forehead with his thumb, looked her right in the eye, and said:
“I will redeem Seth and restore everything he has lost.”
I’d thought a lot about that dream over the last four years, more so over the last year, as the loneliness really set in.
I missed Scarlett every day and sometimes our unborn child even more because I hadn’t gotten to meet her.
I had tried to move on, like Scarlett told me to, and went on a few dates last year, but I wasn’t really interested in any other woman until now.
The moment I saw Ella grieving in the woods, it felt like I’d been struck by lightning.
I hated that her husband had been taken from her in an act of senseless violence.
A sign that the world was breaking down even further into chaos.
But I couldn’t deny that she was everything I’d been looking for.
Ella was beautiful, smart, stubborn, and kind, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I could see a future with her under the right circumstances.
But it wasn’t the right time. She was still grieving the loss of her husband, mad at God, and trying to find her way back to him.
I wanted to be the beacon that led her back to shore, but I knew I had to do it slowly or, like a wild horse, I’d spook her.
So I’d wait. I’d wait for her however long it took. Assuming she’d even want me.