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Ten Months Later
Zoë-Grace woke up early in the morning and lay there in the bed for a few minutes, thanking God for a brand-new day and the new mercies He promised would accompany it. She spent a few minutes in the bathroom and emerged wearing a pair of black yoga pants and a T-shirt. She picked up her phone, her Bible, and a large towel, and donned a pair of slides before easing the glass doors open and stepping out onto the patio. The doors closed and locked, she stepped over the low wall that separated her hotel room from the lush green lawns and made her way toward her favorite place in the world: the gardens of the Hotel Floribundísima in Santo Domingo de Heredia, Costa Rica.
She put her earphones in and cued her favorite playlist as she moved at a leisurely pace towards her favorite arbor on the far side of the gardens. Conscious of the early hour, she refrained from singing out loud as she walked. There was so much to be thankful for. God had truly blessed her, and if He never did another thing for her, she could still find reason to spend the next 10,000 years thanking Him for all He had done.
As she neared the arbor, she noticed that there was someone seated on the bench under the vines.
The man seemed to be praying, his hands clasped in front of his chest. She’d know that posture anywhere. Not wanting to disturb him, she took a seat on the closest bench and opened her Bible so she could do her daily reading. She had committed to reading a chapter from the book of Proverbs every day, and since it was the sixteenth of the month, she turned to that chapter. When she read the last verse, she couldn’t help but laugh out loud. She looked up to see if she had disturbed Isaiah. He had turned toward her, and his smile could have lit up the darkest night.
He moved quickly toward her. “Good morning, beautiful.” He sat beside her and gave her a gentle kiss that set butterflies loose in her mid-section.
“Good morning,” she said, her adoring smile no doubt matching his own.
“How is the love of my life on this amazing morning?” Isaiah wanted to know.
“Wonderful. It’s shaping up to be a great day.”
“The very best! What had you laughing out loud a minute ago?”
She lifted her Bible.
“Oh, the Word of God is funny to you?” He puckered his brow, but she could tell he was amused rather than perplexed.
“I just read Proverbs sixteen, verse thirty-three.”
“Which says...?” he prompted.
She opened the book to the page marked by her finger. “It says, ‘We may throw the dice, but the LORD determines how they fall.’ It reminded me of something you said to me after we won the lottery. Something about God allowing our ticket to be drawn even though my greatest hope and expectation was that it would not be drawn.
“So many people would have said our chance of winning was just the same as everyone else’s. Looking back, it was anything but chance in that sense of the word. When we won that jackpot, God was giving us an opportunity. He was giving me the chance to learn to trust Him by consulting Him about what to do with the winnings. A chance to open a community center that may never have been opened otherwise. A chance to feed people who may never have been fed in the pandemic. To incubate businesses that may never have been birthed. He gave me a chance to provide a workspace for people who didn’t even know they would have needed to be working from home—or the center, as the case may be—and a place for students to learn when it was unfathomable only months before that they would be out of school for two years. He was giving me a chance to make a big difference in a small community.
“And yes, He was also giving us the chance to get to know each other. For me to get to know Aunt Ruby and the Fairweathers. For me to learn from them about fasting and about forgiveness. For me to resolve my issues with my mother and move past my grief over the way in which I lost my father. So much was riding on that ticket that was drawn—the dice, if you will, that fell.”
Isaiah grasped her hand and wove his fingers through hers. “He was giving me a chance to lay a foundation that would help me get saved.”
“And that’s the greatest miracle,” Zoë-Grace affirmed.
He nodded and continued speaking, “He was giving me a chance to understand that money isn’t everything. The only thing that truly matters is submitting to His perfect will for our lives.”
They both smiled and sat in silence for a while.
“You know they say it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding, right?” Isaiah asked, a bemused look on his face.
“So I hear, but I don’t believe in luck. I believe in a God who has a good plan for each of us. And I’m sure His plan is for us to have a great wedding this afternoon, and a great marriage for decades to come.” Zoë-Grace grinned.
Isaiah looked at his watch and got to his feet. He reached out a hand to help her up. “Speaking of weddings, I think we should make our way back to our rooms so we can get this party started. Whose idea was it to have a two o’clock wedding, anyway? If it was scheduled for ten, we’d be married by noon and already on our honeymoon by two.”
She fluttered her eyelashes at him. “You’ve waited for me for years, Cap’n. You can wait another few hours.”
They held hands as they made their way through the gardens and back across the lawn to Zoë-Grace’s room. They stopped just beyond the low wall bordering the patio. Zoë-Grace turned to face Isaiah, both her hands ensconced in his. “This is your last chance to get away.”
He grinned. “That’s one chance I won’t take.”
And with that, he leaned toward her and gave her a kiss that held all kinds of promises she was sure would be fulfilled that night and for the rest of their lives.
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