The Wonder of Your Love - By Beth Wiseman Page 0,47
this? It’s lovely.”
“Danki. Mei sohn did.”
Katie Ann put the card holder back on the shelf, wondering how old the woman’s son was. By the time Jonas was old enough to help Katie Ann with a shop, she figured she might be too old to take on such a project. The woman excused herself to tend to another customer, and Katie Ann scanned the shop until she found Eli, who was carrying Jonas, and Wayne.
Her eyes stayed glued on Eli as she watched him tenderly shift Jonas from one shoulder to the other. But the longer she stared at him, the more she saw Ivan, and as the image of Eli returned, she reminded herself that no matter how wonderful Eli might seem, trust would not come easy for her.
And as hard as it was to trust Eli, she was having an equally hard time trusting God’s plan for her life. She prayed the same amount of time that she always had, but she knew her communion with God was not the same. To hear Him, to know Him, and to understand the wonder of His love—one must trust Him completely.
“See anything you can’t live without?” Wayne asked as he and Eli walked up to her. She cleared her thoughts and shook her head.
“No. But they have some finely crafted goods here.” She smiled, focusing again on Eli with her precious Jonas. “Want me to take him?”
“Only if you want to. I think he’s happy looking at the manlier items in the back of the store, like the workbench.” He winked at Katie Ann before he looked back at the baby. “Aren’t you, Jonas?”
Katie Ann couldn’t help but smile at the tender tone of voice Eli used with her son. “Are you fellows ready?”
“Ya. Jonas is hungry.” Eli grinned, and Katie Ann laughed.
“Jonas is hungry? Did he tell you this?” She glanced at the clock on the wall and knew it would be time to nurse him soon. And her stomach was growling more than normal for this time of morning.
Eli held his head close to Jonas. “Ya, I’ll tell your mommy that you’d like some pancakes or maybe an early lunch. I think the Englisch call it brunch.”
“Give me mei boppli before you confuse him with all your silliness.” She gently eased Jonas from Eli’s arms.
They were almost out of the store when Eli stopped and took a final look around. “I always wanted to own a place like this. Maybe something smaller, but still like this.”
He smiled at Katie Ann, but she stood motionless. God’s timing had never seemed more off.
MARTHA JOTTED DOWN the details of her surgery as the nurse on the phone rattled them off.
“Are you sure I can’t eat breakfast? Because I’m not going to be in a very good mood when I show up at your hospital at seven o’clock in the morning hungry. I have cereal and a muffin every morning at six thirty. I really don’t like to miss my breakfast.”
She rolled her eyes when the woman insisted that she couldn’t have breakfast that morning, nor could she eat anything the night before after midnight. Surgery was scheduled for the Wednesday after Thanksgiving, and even though her appetite had been declining, Martha didn’t like to be told when she could eat.
“Fine.” She forced herself to thank the woman for calling, since she was working on being nicer. If her time was coming, she wanted God’s most recent memories of her behavior to be good ones.
After she hung up the phone, she got comfortable in her chair and thought about Katie Ann. She sure hoped that girl was having fun with Eli, and she wished there was some way to get that man to stay longer. She’d plotted and planned in her mind, but every time a lie for the good of all concerned came to mind, she was reminded that God was watching and her time was drawing to an end.
She arched a brow and glanced up. “I won’t pull any tricks to get that man to hang around, but, Lord, I sure hope You can see Your way clear for him to stay. He needs to fall in love with Katie Ann and take care of her and that baby.”
She picked up the newspaper and flipped the pages until she came to the obituaries. Using a red pen, she circled the ones that were nicely written and drew an X across the ones that didn’t do justice to the deceased. She wanted