I met her back at the island as we both took our seats.
“You want to bless the food?” I asked. She bit her lip, eyes cast down at her bowl.
“Sure. Um,” she cleared her throat, and I closed my eyes. “Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this meal. Please bless the hands that prepared it and help it to nourish our bodies, Amen.”
I nodded, my eyes popping open to send her a smile.
“I’m curious, have you been baptized? I know you—” Shiloh coughed, putting her glass back on the counter as she pounded her chest. “Oh my gosh, are you okay?”
She nodded, coughing, and cleared her throat. “Yeah. Um…I was baptized. Why?”
“Just thinking about the future.”
She quirked a brow, reaching for her fork. “The future? Like of my soul?”
I shrugged, digging into my own food. “Yeah. I mean, do you think that’s weird? I’m kinda serious about this idea of you and I being together. I’m not in this for something casual. I’m planning on forever.”
She blinked, turning her gaze back to her food. “I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think I’m going to Heaven.”
I spun in my chair to face her.
She rolled her eyes in my direction with an unamused expression. I squeezed her thigh, “God can read your heart. If you want to be forgiven, you just have to ask Him.”
She swallowed the food in her mouth and stared at me.
“Aren’t you tired of carrying the guilt?”
I wished I could read her mind, read what she was thinking as she continued to stare at me.
“What about repentance?” she challenged. “Consequences?”
I tilted my head in thought. “I think you’ve suffered enough consequences, Shiloh. And repentance just means you need to be sincere in your remorse, sincere when you ask for forgiveness. Which, I know you are, because you’re not out here actively seeking out people to kill.”
“You don’t know that,” she muttered.
I scoffed with amusement and rolled my eyes. “Shiloh. You’re not a serial killer, alright? You didn’t want to kill that man, right?”
“No. But…”
I let the silence settle until she spoke again.
“But the man I killed, he hurt me. He…” she sighed, fidgeting with her fork. “I didn’t know until after I’d done it, but then I found out who I’d just killed, and Carlos said it was justice. He said it was justice for what the man had done to me. And now I can’t help but feel more guilty, not that he’s dead, but that I was reason he was killed. I hated the man, and I’d wished for him to be hurt plenty of times before it actually happened. But knowing that I was the reason for his death is what makes me feel sick.”
If Carlos wasn’t already dead, I’d be wishing he was. That man was sick. Sick and evil.
“I’m sorry that he put you in that position,” I said, standing from my chair and wrapping my arm across her chest. I leaned down, giving her head a kiss and sighed. “Feelings are complicated. You can feel guilty for your part in his death and still feel glad that he’s gone. And neither of those things make you good or bad. Feelings are just feelings. It’s what you do with them that matter.”
“And what do I do with them? What do I do to deserve forgiveness?”
“You can’t do anything to change the fact that none of us, not even me,deserveforgiveness for any sins. But, despite that, God still loves us. God still forgives us. And we can choose to accept the forgiveness that He’s already given us. It’s a gift. We don’t have to do anything to earn it except believe in Him and follow Him. He’s given us a roadmap of how to be human. We may never be perfect like Jesus was, but we can strive to be likeHim. Follow the commandments, follow God’s laws and that’s all we can do. Strive to be better every day.”
“Right,” she muttered. “Obedience.”
My lips pulled taught as I released her and studied her disappointment.
“I think you might find it helpful to speak with a pastor at my church.”
Her eyes narrowed at me. “Why?”
