A Time to Dance/A Time to Embrace (80 page)

“Jo . . . we already told ’em.” Denny’s cheeks were pink, and he wore an apologetic look on his face. “Her memory’s a little dim these days.”

Her hands flew to her hips. “It is not. Besides, I never told ’em the facts.” She turned to the others once more. “Me and Denny bought our tickets to Mexico.” Jo winked at Nicole, and a knowing look filled Nicole’s face. Whatever Jo was about to say, she’d obviously already shared it with Nicole. Abby made a mental note to ask Nicole about it later.

Jo whipped two small folders from her purse and held them up. “These are stamped and dated. Good for two one-way flights to Mexico the third of June.”

“One-way?” Matt took a step closer and scrutinized the tickets. “You’re coming back aren’t you.”

“Yes. Six months . . . a year maybe.” Jo slipped the tickets back in her purse. “Don’t worry, I can’t miss little Haley growin’ up.”

“We’ll come back to the States every few months for a visit.” Denny slipped his arm around Jo. “But we have to go.” He and Jo swapped a tender look. “It’s something we promised God.”

“By the way—” Jo tapped Kade on the shoulder—“Denny says you’ve been talkin’ to the pastor at church.”

Kade looked startled. “Uh . . . yes.” The look he shot at John and Abby was uncertain. “We’ve gotten together a few times.”

“Well, that’s not the point.” Jo waved her hand in the air. “The point is, maybe you’re thinkin’ about being a pastor. Are ya?”

“No . . .” Kade’s eyes grew wide. “Not really.”

“A missionary, then?”

“Not so far.”

“Well, that don’t matter.” Jo flicked her fingers over her head as though she were shooing away a fly. “Point is, we could use a strap-pin’ young lad like you down in Mexico for a few weeks in July.” She glanced at Denny. “Ain’t that so, honey?”

Denny nodded, clearly embarrassed by Jo’s approach. “That’s what the pastor said. They want a team of volunteers to put a new roof on the orphanage.”

Abby studied Kade and watched his confusion turn to curiosity. “Really?”

“Yes.” Jo slapped Kade on the back. “And it’s just a few weeks. Your football team won’t miss you for a few weeks in July.”

Kade asked several questions about the trip. When it was exactly . . . and whether some of his football buddies could come.

Abby watched in silent awe. A year ago Kade was heart-deep in the stench of pornography . . . and now he was considering a stay in Mexico to build a roof for orphan children. He’d been meeting with their pastor whenever he was home, and the change that had come about was amazing. Kade was tender and kind, more aware of spiritual issues. Walking daily outside God’s plan for his life had caused calluses on his soul, but they were gone now, all of them. God, Himself, had removed them.

Nicole and Sean joined the conversation, asking more about the orphanage and the types of children who lived there. John reached over and linked fingers with Abby. “Maybe we should go, too.”

Abby raised an eyebrow. “A footrace is one thing, John Reynolds. Building roofs in Mexico is another.” She looked at Jo. “Ask us next year.”

“Actually . . . it might be good therapy if—”

The door opened and Tim and Tara Daniels walked in. Jake was with them, a grin plastered across his face. He looked at John and the two swapped a knowing look. Abby knew immediately. The two of them were up to something.

“This a good time, Coach?” Jake moved in front of his parents and anchored himself near the foot of John’s bed.

John did a quick survey of the room. “I believe it is.”

“Hi, everyone.” Jake waved at the others.

Abby could sense a slight hesitation on Nicole’s part, but otherwise the group smiled and bid the boy hello.

“We won’t be long. Just wanted to be here for a couple announcements.” Jake nodded to his parents. “My folks can go first.”

Tim took a step forward and looked from Abby to John. “Tara and I . . .” He reached back for her hand. “We wanted to thank you for praying for us. We’ve . . . we’ve talked it over and decided we never should’ve gotten divorced.”

A quick giggle came from Tara’s throat. “We wanted you to be the first to know.”

“Other than me, of course.” Jake stood between his parents and flung his arms over their shoulders.

“Of course.” Tara smiled at Jake and then turned back to the rest of them. “Tim and I are getting married the first Saturday in June.” She looked at Abby, tears welling in her eyes. “We want you and John to stand up for us. Be our best man and maid of honor.”

“Right.” Tim nodded. “Because it wouldn’t have happened without you two.”

“Isn’t that awesome!” Jake gave a high-five to Kade and Sean, John and Matt. “My parents are getting married!”

“Oh, you guys.” Abby moved around John’s bed and hugged them, first Tim, then Tara, and finally Jake. “That’s wonderful. Of course we’ll be there.”

Who would’ve ever thought a year ago—back when she and John were determined to divorce—that God would not only save their marriage and make their love stronger than ever, but that He’d use them to reach two people like Tim and Tara.

John’s eyes danced and he pointed to the fish balloon. “In honor of your engagement, Tim, I think you deserve my balloon.” He grinned at Tara. “I mean, what a catch!”

Everyone laughed and then Jake waved his hands. “Okay . . . quiet . . . it’s Coach’s turn.”

A strange feeling bounced around in Abby’s gut. Coach’s turn? What was this about? And why hadn’t John told her he had something to say?

“Dad?” Kade gave John a curious look. “You have an announcement?”

John shrugged as best he could with the brace in the way. His lopsided grin told Abby all she needed to know. Whatever he was about to say, he and Jake had this part planned out. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Go on, Coach. Tell ’em.”

“Okay.” John straightened himself once more. “Jake and I did a little talking the other day, and he told me next year’ll be his best ever. I mean . . .” John angled his head, a grin playing on the corners of his mouth. “He’ll be a senior and all.”

“And for the first time I’ll be really listening to Coach . . . you know, doing whatever he asks me to do . . .”

Abby held her breath. Could he be about to say—?

“So I decided to revoke my resignation.” John lifted his hands and let them fall to his lap. “I’m going to coach next year, after all!”

The room erupted in a chorus of congratulations and hugs, high-fives and laughter. Jo slapped her leg. “That settles it. The Marion High athletic director—what’s his name?”

“Herman Lutz.” John grinned.

“Right, that’s it. Lutz. Well,
he
gets the fish balloon. I’ll take it into his office myself and hand it to him. ‘What a catch, buddy!’ I’ll tell him, ‘It’s your lucky day because you just got John Reynolds back as coach!’”

Again everyone lit into conversation, guessing at the team’s record next year and making predictions about how well Jake would do. Abby tuned most of it out and leaned against the hospital wall. Her eyes found John, and she saw that he wasn’t listening either.

Instead they held a private conversation with their eyes. A dialogue where Abby told John how proud she was that he’d stood his ground and won, that he’d been willing to take a second look at the coaching job at Marion and realize it was where he belonged. And John silently thanked her for standing by him. Not just through the difficult days last season, or the horror of his accident, but during his wheelchair days and the anticipation over his surgery. And even now, when he was choosing to take time away from her once more to do the thing he loved.

“I can’t wait.” She mouthed the words, enjoying this private moment while the rest of the room celebrated loudly around them.

“Me, either.” He held his hand toward her and she came, linking her fingers with his and feeling his love with every fiber of her being. “You know what, Abby?”

“What?” They were still whispering.

“It’s going to be the best season ever.”

Abby smiled and squeezed his hand. They had come so far, through so much. Yet now she was back where she’d started so many years ago. Looking forward to September and the warm glow of stadium lights on the face of the man she loved more than any in the world. Being caught up in a series of Friday night games, the way she’d been since she was a small girl.

The summer lay ahead of them, and with it no doubt dozens of small miracles. Haley would come home, and John would be up and walking again. But right then and there, Abby was consumed with one tantalizing thought.

John Reynolds was going to coach again.

Abby could hardly wait for the new season of their life together to begin. John was right . . . it was going to be the best ever.

Author’s Note

P
ARALYSIS IS A DEVASTATING CONDITION.
I
N OUR COUNTRY
today, the foremost cause of sudden paralysis in people is a gunshot wound to the neck or back. Car accidents follow as the second most common cause. The technology and treatment described in
A Time to
Embrace
are futuristic and not yet in use. However, according to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, even at this very moment, the field of spinal surgery is enjoying an “explosion of new surgical techniques” designed to reduce or reverse spinal cord injuries.

In many cases these new surgical techniques are still in need of financial support and testing before they can be implemented. Some are years or decades away from working the way they worked on John Reynolds. I chose to allow Coach Reynolds to be an early benefactor of such new surgical techniques to demonstrate what I pray and hope will one day be a reality for anyone who has fallen victim to this devastating type of injury.

A Word to Readers

D
EAR
R
EADER
F
RIENDS,

Thank you for traveling the pages of Abby and John’s story . . . through their seasons of grief and gladness, joy and pain. This is my second book with these characters, and as such I have come to care for them a great deal. And to learn from the lessons they have taught me.

The most important may very well be this: life is made up of seasons.

You don’t have to be married to a coach to recognize the fact. Some months we’re busy and distracted, others we can barely concentrate for the consuming thoughts of love that fill our hearts. Love for our spouse, our families, our Lord. There are seasons of joy and seasons of pain, seasons of grief and those of growth. Of heartache and hope.

If you ventured with John and Abby through the first part of their story—
A Time to Dance
—then you know the celebration they experienced at the end of that book. After very nearly giving in to their own separate desires, after making plans to divorce, they allowed God to rescue them.

I’ve talked with dozens of couples who have been through what John and Abby experienced in the first book. Couples who loved each other and intended to stay together a lifetime, only to find their marriage, their love, their oneness derailed somewhere along the road to forever.

God tells us in Scripture that He will never let us be tempted beyond what we can bear, but that when we’re tempted, He will provide a way of escape.

That is always true, even when our marriages begin to crumble.

Of course, too often one or both spouses is not willing to look for that escape route, not willing to hear the voice of God above the voice of their own desires. But when both people will follow God’s way of escape and put away their differences, the result is something more beautiful than you could dare to dream.

If you’ve read my other novels, you know that we have six children, the youngest of whom had heart troubles as an infant. Little Austin was born with a defective aorta, the main artery out of the heart.

In what was a very delicate surgery, doctors removed the bad sections of Austin’s aorta and replaced it with a piece of artery from his left arm. The whole thing seemed unbelievable to me and my husband.

“What if the patch job doesn’t take?” I asked the doctor after the operation.

“Oh, it’ll take. In fact the area where there was trauma and healing will actually be stronger than the unaffected sections.”

I thought about that for a long time and marveled at the truth there. Where there was trauma and healing, that section would be stronger than any other.

And so it is in our marriages.

Trauma will come to most relationships. Disagreements, differences, arguments. Even sometimes betrayal. God knew we’d stumble along the way, so He gave us His Word wrought with advice on how to handle it. How to make points of trauma, places of healing.

And come out stronger in the end because of it.

Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

Love is patient.

Love is kind. . . . It is not easily angered.

Be completely humble and gentle.

Love covers over a multitude of sins.

Bear with each other. Encourage on another.

Yes, God knows what it is to be wronged. Remember the first Good Friday? There He was with His closest friends, each of them making grand promises of loyalty and commitment, when suddenly a troop of soldiers appeared.

What did Jesus’ most faithful followers do? They ran.

And that’s the same thing we’re tempted to do when our marriages don’t go the way we expected, but we’d do well to follow Christ’s example. Not only did He forgive His friends, He embraced them. When He appeared to them in the upper room after that glorious Resurrection Sunday, He comforted them with no thought of the wrongs they’d committed against Him.

When I finished
A Time to Dance,
many of you wrote to me wondering what happened to Abby and John . . . how they were able to work their reconciliation into an everyday life without falling prey to the problems that plagued them at first.

It was then that I realized the lesson of trauma and healing. The couples I know who have found glorious restoration in their marriages, almost always do so in a way that makes their relationship better, stronger, more loving than ever before.