She hadn't even asked how old the pastor was, although someone had told her that he was a single man with no children. That made her feel like maybe he was just a kid out of college. That age felt so long ago for her. She had been so young and full of dreams and so sure that she could conquer the world, and then she'd met Cam and fallen in love and been eager to start their lives together.
None of it had turned out the way she thought.
She carefully put a brochure at the top of the box before she closed it and grabbed the packing tape again.
Leaning over, she punched the button on her computer to send the information to the printer to print out a label.
She used to love making candles and packing them with care, sending them along to brighten someone’s day - literally. But now that she had to do it in order to feed her family, it felt more like pressure, less like fun.
She supposed that's what being an adult was.
There was rustling from the back, and she turned her head, glancing at her boys.
At four years old, they only had one more year at home with her before she had to send them to kindergarten.
In her mind, when she got married, she had wanted to homeschool. But there was just no way she could take the time that would entail and still work full-time to support the family.
Lord, I know I have to give up things that I want in order to do your will. But when they're good things, things that I think should be your will, but seem to not be, it's hard.
Wouldn't it be best for the boys to be homeschooled? For her to keep them out of school and teach them from God's word every day, showing them science and history from the lens of a Christian perspective?
She wouldn't say that she was bitter against God, but she definitely wasn't as close to Him as she used to be. After all, she didn't really understand why he'd taken her husband and left her alone.
Maybe it was so that she would reconcile with her parents.
No. She wasn't even going to go there. She wouldn't even entertain that thought.
"Mommy?" Aiden, the more outgoing and energetic of the two boys, came out of the back room, rubbing his eyes. "Is it time to go home?"
"As soon as I get these orders packed," she said gently.
Aiden looked so much like his dad. Blonde hair, blue eyes, a mischievous grin, and a bent towards trouble.
Ethan was so much more like her, dark and serious, always counting the cost before he jumped in behind his twin.
They got along so well, since Aiden was the natural leader and Ethan was his natural sidekick. Of course, Ethan had a tendency to think things through, and as the boys had gotten older, she noticed Aiden depending more and more on his twin's ability to process information. It was how she and Cam had worked.
A scraping sound pulled her mind back to the present. Aiden had gotten his stool and was sliding it over. He climbed up, got the curly paper ribbons that she boxed up with the candles, and started putting them in the bottom of the open box beside her.
"With your help I'll get done a lot sooner."
He grinned up at her. "Ethan's still sleeping."
"He is. It was really good of you to get up without waking him."
"That's what you told me to do," he chirped, already his naturally optimistic and positive personality coming out.
"Yeah." When he was younger, he'd had a tendency to run over everything, with no concept that there were other people in the world. That included his brother, who always required a little bit more sleep. Aiden would wake him up without meaning to, and then she would have two grumpy boys on her hands.
Those days of juggling the twins were so hard.
They wouldn't have been that hard if you would've allowed your parents to help you.
She finished wrapping the candle in crinkly paper and pulled the ends down, nestling it into the curly cues Aiden had put in the bottom. She was not going to think about her parents, and was not going to think about Cam.
She could think about the new pastor, and wonder what changes he would bring. Everyone at the church hoped that he'd pretty much keep everything the same, since Pastor Johnson had been so belovedby everyone. But she knew that a new person usually liked to put their mark on things.
Hopefully he wouldn't go and mess up a bunch of stuff that was already working.
