I reached out and held her hand. It felt good to be there for someone else when so many had been there for me.
She shook her head. “I blamed God. And if I’m being honest, I still don’t understand it all, and I carry anger over why. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does God allow tragedy when He can spare it? I completely fell out of my faith. Took a baseball bat over to the church and bashed the sign right in.”
I gasped. “You didn’t.”
She chewed her lip, looking guilty. “I did. But I paid for it the next day. I was justsoangry.”
“I get that,” I told her, feeling relieved to hear that someone’s experience had been so similar to my own. I had a flashback of my chopping the wood like a maniac with the axe and nodded.
“I shut everyone out, especially God,” she told me. “Which just made the healing harder. I got depressed. I almost lost my bakery. Everything was just…bad.”
A tear slipped free from my eye, and I swiped it away.
“Then Maggie found me,” she declared, and I laughed.
“Of course she did!” I said.
Ruthie grinned. “That woman can smell a widow from a mile away!”
We both had a good chuckle at that. I was almost too scared to ask the question that had been burning on my tongue.
“What brought you back to God?” My voice was small. I didn’t want the answer because I almost liked being mad at Him right now and didn’t want to have to let go of my anger. It had become my companion.
She sighed. “A lot of things. I started going back to church with Maggie.”
“The same church you bashed their sign in?”
She grinned and nodded. “Pastor Jake is a very forgiving man.”
Hah. I’d barely met him the one time James and I went to church before he passed, but the pastor seemed nice enough.
“I started reading my Bible again, talking to God again even if it was only to tell Him I was really unhappy with my circumstances.”
Well, I’d done plenty of that, but then I’d gone radio silent because that was easier than having to deal with a God who would allow my sweet husband to be taken from me.
“And in the end, I landed on the fact that maybe God had a higher purpose for Zach’s death and I just couldn’t see it yet. That gave me hope.”
A higher purpose for the death of her husband? I just couldn’t believe that.
I squeezed her hand. “Thanks for sharing that with me.”
She nodded. “Anytime. He’s been gone now for two years, and sometimes it feels like yesterday. But I’m okay now, and you will be too.”
Leaning over, she gave me a hug, and my throat tightened as I forced myself to keep it together.
“I’m glad I met you,” I told her. “I just moved here, and I don’t have any friends my age.”
She smiled. “Just Maggie?”
I nodded, and we both laughed.
She plugged her number into my phone. “I own Blessed Bakery on Fourth Avenue in town. You should stop by.”
My face lit up. “I’ve been meaning to! That place looks so cute.” The outside was a whitewashed brick, while the pale-blue letters gave it aBreakfast at Tiffany’svibe.
I wished her good night and unlocked the door of my house. Honey jumped up from her place in front of the fireand greeted me with pecks and purrs. After soaking the Crock-Pot in the sink, I looked at the pink leather Bible I’d thrown in the corner one night in a fit of rage and walked over to it, picking it up and setting it back on the table.
My fingers itched to open it and read a passage, but I just wasn’t ready. I did, however, remember that Seth had left a note that morning, and I’d forgotten to open it. I did so now. Would it be another funny joke or…
