“Rob, do you have Sunday's sermon ready yet? I need to add the title to the bulletin I just typed.” Micah stepped out the back screen door onto a small patio lined on both sides with red and yellow tulips.
“Not yet,” Rob responded, looking up at his wife from where he stood by the back fence. “But I'm working on it.”
Micah dried her hands on the dish towel she held and walked toward him. “It looks more like you're working on that gate.”
“But I'm thinking all the time I'm hammering,” he answered with one corner of his mouth curving into a playful smile. “Quit worrying.”
“It's Saturday afternoon. You rarely run this late with a message.”
He placed the hammer on the ground and held out a hand, which Micah instinctively reached for, smiling back at him. “Sermons are kind of like manna from heaven,” Rob stated. “God will give me this one when I need it.”
“And if He doesn't?”
“Sounds like I need to preach a message on faith—to my wife, at least.” Rob pulled her gently into his arms. “Don't worry so much. It can't be good for you or the baby.”
Micah's hand moved to rest against the abdomen that had yet to show any signs of the child within. “I can hardly wait, Rob. Less than seven months, then we'll see his little face.”
“His?” Rob questioned before kissing Micah's forehead and releasing her. He leaned down to retrieve his hammer. “Why are you so sure it's a boy? Just think, Micah, we could have a little girl with your green eyes, all that lovely auburn hair and my plea-bargaining abilities. She'd be able to talk us into anything.”
Micah laughed softly. “I don't even like red hair,” she admitted, tugging on a long strand of her own curls.
A frown crinkled Micah's forehead. “Plea bargaining. That's the first legal term I've heard you use in a while.” Then she asked the question that had weighed heavily on her heart during the past few hectic weeks at the parsonage. “It's been nearly two years, Rob. Are you sure you don't miss it? I mean, the law and everything that goes with it?”
Rob's laugh was quick and sincere. “I miss seventy thousand dollars a year, and the ministry offers me the undeniable opportunity of missing that income all my life.” But his amusement faded when he glimpsed the concern in his wife's cautious gaze. “But, no, Micah, I can't imagine ever missing being out of the Lord's will. It's a lonely place…in more ways than you can imagine.”
“Thank you,” she said in little more than a whisper. Then she leaned forward to kiss his cheek lightly.
“For what?”
“For thinking the way you do. I don't know why you love me so, but I'm thankful that you do.”
“I'll love you forever, Micah, for a thousand different reasons.”
She smiled and touched his mouth with her index finger. “Forever can be a very long time, you know.”
“I'm counting on it,” he responded and tugged on her hand. “C'mon. Come inside with me. I'm going to kiss my wife the way I want to…without the neighbors for an audience.”
“Hmm,” Micah commented. “Maybe that sermon will have to wait until later.”
“Much later,” Rob assured her as they walked, together, toward their back door and into the life and the love they would share. Forever.
* * * * *