"I'll put some hot chocolate on."
"Okay," he said, standing up with her. He'd rather spend the last few minutes cuddling on the couch with her, but he appreciated the fact that she wanted to make his guest feel welcome too. He hadn't had that at all in his ministry, and it felt good to be able to offer his guest something when they came in.
Noah arrived, accepted the hot chocolate, and they were settled on the couch not too long afterwards.
"This doesn't have anything to do with the Secret Saint thing, does it?" Mark started, just because Noah seemed to have a hard time trying to figure out what to say.
"No. It has to do with one of my siblings. You know I raised them."
"You did a great job," Mark said.
"Thanks. It's only by the grace of God. I certainly wasn't qualified to do anything."
"I don't know. I guess that's true."
"So it's about Ty."
"The second oldest, right?"
"That's correct."
"Is he in trouble?"
"I don't think so. I just got a really weird phone call from him today, and I told him I needed to think about it and pray about it before I gave him advice. Although my first instinct was to tell him to run in a different direction."
"All right, go ahead. Start wherever you need to," Mark said, wanting to encourage him to talk, not feel like he had to have a perfect story put together.
"Apparently he's met a woman who has proposed a marriage of convenience. I didn't even know there was such a thing, but he explained to me that they're not dating. They haven't even met in person. They've met online, and she wants to get married without allthe trappings of modern dating or all of that. She just wanted someone who shared her values and morals, and he hasn't even seen what she looks like."
"Wow. I didn't realize that was a thing."
"I didn't either. But apparently there's a website. I don't know what my brother was doing on it."
"Well, that's a good question. Has he been longing to get married and just couldn't find anyone?"
"I didn't think so. But it's true that he's not married, and he's almost as old as I am."
"I see. I don't think that men kind of have the ticking clock the way women do," Mark said, glancing at Olivia, who shrugged her shoulders. She didn't seem to have a ticking clock. He didn't think that she was even looking for a husband and was kind of surprised by their relationship. But he didn't know for sure.
"I don't know what to tell him. I've asked him all the questions—is she a Christian, does she have references that you can talk to, people who know about how she acts and whether she acts like a Christian, and whether she has fruit, and what her character's like. He said he's checked her out."
"And he hasn't seen a picture?" Mark asked, shocked. "In today's world, everyone has their photos on social media."
"No. No picture. Apparently she doesn't do social media."
"But somehow he found out that she wanted a marriage of convenience?"
"It was a website." Noah lifted a shoulder like he really wasn't sure exactly what was going on.
"But he's checked around, talked to her references? Has he met any of the people that know her?"
"He visited her town. Apparently. He hasn't met with her yet, because he didn't want to even see her if she didn't check out. Then, after he had checked her out himself, he came to me and said that he wanted to get married. He wasn't going to agree to marry her without talking to me about it. Which I appreciate, but... I don'tknow what to say." Noah leaned his forearms on his knees and rubbed his hands together. "I've run into a lot of odd things raising my siblings, but this takes the cake as the thing that has stumped me the hardest. Even the girl stuff I managed to muddle my way through."
"I've gotta say, I guess I haven't been a pastor as long as Pastor Johnson has, but this is a first for me too."
"So what do I do?" Noah asked, looking at Mark like he had all the answers.
"I guess, even though it's a first for us, the Bible hasn't changed. God doesn't really give any specifications for marriage other than they have to be a believer. Beyond that, we seem to be able to pick for ourselves. Does he really want to just choose, for his lifetime mate and partner, someone he's going to be one with in the eyes of God, as someone he's never even seen? Someone he doesn't know at all? But with that said, he checked out the most important thing—that she's a believer. So biblically, I think it's okay. Humanly, I don't know that I would recommend it. But Ty has a brain. I've always thought that he was rather practical, and maybe this is just taking that kind of practicality into a whole new level. I'm just surprised he found a woman to go along with it. Or who actually suggested it."
