That was the kind of love Tess and Rudy had given to her and her brother.
It was no longer possible for Leah to view Tess with the same wholehearted trust that she had before. But even if she could not forget what Tess had done, shecouldforgive.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
It was Dylan’s closet that precipitated Leah’s breakdown.
The morning after his accident, Tess and Rudy arrived at the hospital just as they’d said they would. Leah returned home to shower, change, and gather the items Dylan had requested.
To her astonishment, she’d slept well last night on the hard futon. She and Dylan had shared a room when he’d been small, so sharing a room with him last night had wrapped her in a blanket of nostalgia. Even the middle-of-the-night visits from the nurses had soothed her because it had been reassuring to know she wasn’t the only one in charge of Dylan’s well-being. Trained professionals were watching over him!
It wasn’t until she opened his closet in order to pack some of his clothes and smelled the familiar scent of his soap that a wave of emotion swelled up and enveloped her.
Every article was sohim. So familiar.
Her brother was going to live.
Thank God, her brother was going to live. Her gratitude was too enormous to contain.
Knowing everything she knew now . . . if she could go back to the hospital nursery on the day of her birth and change the course of events... would she choose life with the Brooksides over life with Dylan?
She would not.
It wasn’t even a close call. No set of circumstances could tempt her to give her brother up.
Tears slid down her cheeks.
Tess’s action had impacted Leah’s life in drastic ways. It was easy to think that Tess had entered in and mucked up what God had ordained. But could Tess’s error in judgment actually have been used by God?
Could something happen in a way that was so strange and amazing that it couldonlyhave been Him?
In recent days, she’d been disappointed by what she’d perceived as God’s inattention. Dylan’s accident revealed that God had not been inattentive. He’d simply been working in ways she hadn’t understood.
Yesterday, when Dylan raced off in his truck, her false sense of control had been stripped from her. She’d been powerless.
Yet God had not been.
He’d brought Sebastian to her months ago. When Dylan overheard her switched-at-birth secret, God had placed Sebastian there. When Dylan collided with that tree, God ensured that Sebastian possessed the skills needed to preserve her brother’s life.
Despite her quibbles over some of the twists and turns her life had taken, everything was, ultimately, exactly as it should be.
Praise you, God. Thank you.
She cried and praised Him, praised Him and cried.
The woman who delighted in tidy math quotients enjoyed feeling as though she understood God’s plan. She liked clear guidance and guarantees. It made her comfortable to believe she had a degree of power over her brother and her relationship with Sebastian.
But God was bigger than her wishes. His methods didn’t always suit her. Often, He didn’t make her privy to His ways. Sometimes, she couldn’t fathom His plan. And in the end, she had no power to wield.
Hewas the only guarantee she was going to receive.
Fortunately, He was the only guarantee she needed.
Her task: to surrender.
If God could accomplish His will for Dylan so beautifully, then He could accomplish His will for her and Sebastian, too.
Still sniffling, she texted Sebastian.
