But his eyes moved on, and the feeling was gone.
"That's what faith is. Simple trust. And we're trusting God for our eternity, right? At least we say we do. We say we're trusting Him to keep us out of hell, to take us to heaven. How can we not trust Him with a little storm? It's our whole world, but most of this country is not getting snowed on right now. It seems like a huge thing to us. But it's not nearly as big as eternity, or even as a soul getting saved."
There was silence there, as though people were trying to make the connections.
She had to admit that Mark was good at speaking off the cuff. He didn't have any notes with him, and he wasn't even holding a Bible.
"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. In everything we do, we're supposed to acknowledge God. And everything that happens to us, we're to trust. It sounds simple, but... I don't know about you, but I've spent more than a few minutes a little worried tonight."
"Why would you worry? This is your house. If anything's gonnasurvive the storm, it's gonna be you. Plus, you're working overtime. But most of us aren't working at all."
There was a murmur of laughter around, and Mark nodded.
"I was a little worried there might be a fight breaking out. Or something like that."
"Yeah, I don't know if Eleanor and Casey can be in the same room for more than an hour together before they start to fight. They should've gotten married back when they could've. And now the rest of us have had to deal with their antagonistic attitudes for the last thirty years."
Olivia didn't know where Casey was, but she could see Eleanor with her arms crossed over her chest, although she smiled a little, as though acknowledging the truth of those words.
"He's not here, so you don't have to worry about me getting into a fistfight," she said when the laughter died down. But her words inspired more laughter.
"Well, there's a relief. And see? I could've just trusted God to take care of that, but instead I had to worry about it."
"Well, I'm not saying anything about anybody else. I'm just talking about me," Eleanor clarified. Everyone shook their heads, hoping the town could get along for the duration of the storm.
Chapter 15
Mark woke in the predawn darkness, immediately wide awake. He'd fallen asleep praying for everyone in the shelter and those he knew were weathering the storm without coming in.
He started his day the same way he’d ended it, praying for the people under his care, and that God would help him to shepherd them well and to help him become more like Jesus, so he could point them to the Savior.
He slipped out of his bed, still praying, but restless. Normally, when he prayed in the morning, he paced around the church, although he did spend time on his knees before the Lord.
He carefully mapped out where everyone was the night before and managed to avoid stepping on anyone as he headed to the kitchen to grab a glass of water.
He hadn't wanted to sleep in his own bed. The parsonage was separate from the church, and the generator only provided electricity for the church, so even though his house was right next door and connected via his office,it was cold and dark.
"I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were up," Olivia said, as he almost ran into her coming out of the kitchen as he was going in.
"No. I'm sorry. I..." He looked around, and then jerked his head back toward the kitchen. He didn't want their speaking to wake anyone up. It probably wasn't even quite five o'clock yet.
She jerked her head in return and went back into the kitchen.
He carefully closed the door behind him, and with the light on over the stove, he could see that she still wore pajamas, and her hair didn't look like it had been brushed.
"Just getting up for a drink?" he asked, although she didn't owe him any explanations. It wasn't like he was the movement police or anything.
She didn't seem offended as she shook her head.
"No. I always wake up early. I didn't used to. I would've considered myself more of a night owl, but after the twins came, the only time all day that I was guaranteed to have any kind of personal, private time was first thing in the morning. It got to where I felt like I needed that, to just spend time with the Lord and center myself for the day I was going to have."
"It couldn't have been easy raising two boys by yourself."
"No."
She didn't say anything else, and he didn't pressure her.
"I guess we have that in common then," he said. "Although I never did consider myself a night owl. I'm definitely not one now. I actually slept in a little this morning."
