Chapter Seventeen
Ella
We had a cute little two-person Thanksgiving, just my mom and me. Anna had to go back to Portland and promised to come in another two months toward the end of January. My mom bought a ton of baby stuff for me before she left for Paris, and I shoved it all into the guest bedroom, which I planned to turn into a nursery eventually.
Now that I was working full-time for Seth, time was flying by. Another month passed, and suddenly, Christmas was upon us. I’d promised my mother I’d fly out to Paris to be with her for the holiday. It was a good excuse not to stare at my empty house. I had no heart to put up the tree James and I had bought together during our first year of marriage. One of our traditions was buying a new ornament each year. I couldn’t bear to look at them.
“Thanks for driving me to the airport,” I told Ruthie asshe drove slowly along the highway. Snow fell in large clumps as it piled around us.
“Of course.” She smiled. We’d gotten close on our Wednesday night group hangouts.
Christmas was in four days, and my flight to Paris left in three hours. Seth and Maggie were going to care for Honey and all the other animals while I was gone, and I’d gotten paid holiday leave from work. I was pretty sure I could ask for anything and Seth would say yes, but I’d never take him for granted like that. He was the kindest man I’d ever met, and I was starting to feel guilty for some of the feelings I was having for him.
I was a new widow, and it was a confusing time, so I pushed all those thoughts and feelings into a box inside of me and locked them up. It wouldn’t be right to James’s memory to be thinking like that about a man so soon after he was gone. To be honest, I was ashamed of myself for having such thoughts.
My phone chimed, and I pulled it from my purse. “Probably my mom wondering if I’ve checked in yet,” I told Ruthie and glanced at the notification.
An email had come in:Your flight has been canceled due to weatherwas written on the subject line.
I frantically opened the email and scanned it.
“No!” I said. “My flight’s been canceled due to weather.”
“Oh no. Should I turn around?” Ruthie looked over at me with concern.
I sighed. “I guess so. I’ll have to try to book something else. I’m so sorry.”
She waved me off. “Nothing to be sorry about. It was nice to see you and catch up.”
She took the next exit and headed home while I called the 1-800 number at the bottom of the email and tried to get put on another flight. I was on hold for so long that Ruthie had dropped me off at my house when a woman finally answered.
After ten minutes of begging her for any flight to Paris or even anywhere in Europe that I could take a train to see my mother, she told me that everything was booked until after Christmas, and a big snowstorm was coming in that had shut our airport down. That’s when I hung up and cried. My house was bare, with no tree, no lights, nothing to denote my favorite holiday because I hadn’t thought I would be spending it here. And now I was all alone, pregnant, and without my mom. Anna was in Costa Rica, and this was officially going to suck.
My gaze flicked to the pink Bible now with over fifty little Bible-verse notes from Seth sticking out the top. Every day he left wood, he left a verse or a note. I’d come to look forward to them.
“What do you want from me?” I asked God. “You want me to sit at home alone my first Christmas without James?” A silent tear rolled down my cheek, and I was so ashamed to admit that I was still angry with God and losing my faith more and more every day.
“Are you even real?” I asked, wiping my eyes. I used to be so sure, but now, I didn’t know.
There was a knock at the door.
I quickly crossed the space, pulled the door open, andfell into hushed silence when I saw the group of aptly dressed carolers, including children.
“Away in a manger, no crib for his head.” They sang in perfect unison, and it was like a shock to my heart. Like someone in a coma waking up after so long. The feeling I normally got when I felt the Holy Spirit overcome me in church or deep prayer came to me then, capturing my entire body and bringing me near tears.
“The little lord Jesus lay down his sweet head,” Tthey sang, and the tears overflowed my cheeks.
I was enraptured by the song, the timing. The feeling I’d been missing this entire time hadn’t been James. Well, it had, but really what I’d needed was Him. It was God. And He filled me up now to overflowing. Something I didn’t feel worthy enough to receive after how I’d treated Him these past several weeks.
When they finished their song, I cleared my throat, thanked them, and shut the door. Then I fell to my knees sobbing, begging God to help me out of this hole I’d fallen into.
“I just don’t understand why You took him from me. How could you?” I begged God, my hands clasped, hoping to hear His voice or get a gentle nudge with some amazing answer that would make James’s death make sense.
But there was only reverent silence.
I went to bed that night feeling less mad than the night before but still confused and sad about why bad things happened to good people. And if I was being honest, I was still mad at God. The man who’d raised Lazarus from the dead couldn’t keep my James from getting shot? Of course, He could!
I felt the wall I’d built around my heart, the one the carolers had broken down with one song, begin to rebuild itself. God was all-knowing, right? Then He knew James would die. He knew I would be pregnant. And He knew I’d have to raise this baby alone. What did that say about how much God loved me? For Him to allow me to go through that.
