If for Any Reason (Nantucket Love Story #1) - Courtney Walsh Page 0,116
it looked like the majority of the houses on the island. The landscaping was immaculate but not flashy. Nothing about the little house was flashy.
The door was a deep peacock blue and the name on the mailbox said Walker.
Her journey had brought her here, with a fistful of questions and the resolve to hear the answers.
She pulled the photocopied article from her bag and looked at it again.
“Okay, Jack Walker,” she said aloud. “Time to start talking.”
But Emily sat behind the wheel of her grandmother’s posh car, staring at the cottage. It was as if a weighted barbell had just been laid across her chest, making it hard to breathe, let alone move.
She thought about her time here, about Hollis, about how he continued to try and do better in spite of his mistakes. He hadn’t quit on Jolie after his life fell apart, and he’d messed up—really messed up.
Emily had messed up too. Her whole life had been a series of small disasters and bad choices, starting with turning away from God.
She reached across the seat and found the book inside her bag. She pulled it out and opened it.
Dear Emily,
Faith is kind of a tough subject for me. It’s hard to explain all the things I feel about God. Mostly I feel like he’s been this true, unconditional friend who’s never turned his back on me even when I’ve made giant mistakes.
I don’t want to force my faith on you. I believe everyone has to find their own way when it comes to God, but at the same time, I want you to know it’s important. When things fall apart, it’s crucial to have hope that there is a way to put them back together.
Faith brings that to you.
And the way to have faith is to trust what God’s said. I always thought it was crazy that God promises so many things to us. (It’s in the Bible. Someday the Bible won’t be super boring, I promise.) He promises he’ll never leave us, and I have to say, when your world feels like it’s crumbling, that’s a really important promise to hold on to.
As you grow up and get older, and probably every time something bad happens, you may want to blame God—you might get mad at him, and that’s okay. Tell him how you feel. I promise he can take it.
But I’ve learned that in those hard times, if you can hold on to him instead of pushing him away, it makes you stronger and more fearless than you ever thought you could be.
I hope you pray. A lot. I hope you go for long walks and hash out your feelings with Jesus. I hope you hold on to what you know in your deepest soul to be true—that he loves you, that he’s got a plan for you, that you are fearfully and wonderfully made.
And that he’s right there for you, no matter what.
Love,
Mom
The words stared at her—Mom’s handwriting, an instant source of comfort. She’d all but forgotten this letter. She was surprised she hadn’t torn it out and thrown it away.
She was angry with God, and she had been for a lot of years. She blamed him for her mother’s death because who else was there to blame?
Now, sitting in this car, staring at this house, holding this article, she faced an unknown future—one she wasn’t sure she wanted.
But if what her mother said was true, God wasn’t unknown. He was proven. He made promises and he kept them.
Then why didn’t you keep my mother safe?
The words hit her square in the chest.
He was God. Couldn’t he have made it so the car hadn’t started and they’d never left the cottage in the rain that night? Couldn’t he have stopped the car from hitting that tree? Couldn’t he have kept her mother’s heart beating?
If he could do anything, why hadn’t he done that? Why hadn’t he saved the one person who meant more to her than anyone else in the world? Why had he left her so alone?
“I’m mad at you,” she said out loud to the empty car. “I’m mad that you took her from me. She was the only one I had, and you took her. Why?”
Tears welled in her eyes, but she pressed her fists into them, refusing to cry. She stared at the words on the page, wishing her mom were here. Wishing she could ask for clarification, not only on this letter, but on so many of them.