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Scott had spent nearly the past year wondering what it would be like to sit across from Susannah at a restaurant and watch her eat.
Now, after months of impatient waiting and painful separation, he finally knew. She had a little dimple in her cheek. He had noticed it in her senior picture but couldn’t have guessed the way it became more pronounced when she chewed. Her hair was even softer than he’d imagined. It took all his self-possession not to reach out and stroke it.
He was lost in her eyes, the gentle beauty that flowed from her expression, the tenderness that graced every move she made.
She caught him staring and paused with her fork in the air. “What do you keep looking at?”
“You.”
She blushed deeply, and he loved her for it.
“I could watch you eat every day of my life.” He hadn’t meant to say it that way. He was just trying to be honest. “I mean ...” He started to stammer an apology but gave up and finally just said, “It’s really nice having you here.”
She smiled softly. “I know what you mean.”
Her words emboldened him. He knew he was about to make a fool of himself, but he couldn’t help it. “Susannah?”
“Yes?” Her eyes were so wide. So full of love. Not the romantic, passionate love he bore in his heart for her. Pure, selfless love. The kind of love that allowed her to put her life permanently on hold to care for her sister. The kind of love that sustained her through her mother’s death, keeping her sensitive and gentle in spite of all the grief she’d suffered.
He cleared his throat, clutched his Diet Coke as if it might give him strength, and said, “There’s something I need to tell you.”
He paused, half expecting her to stop him. Half expecting her to protest that it was too much, too soon.
She remained quiet. Waiting with that soft, serene expression.
“It’s about us. About you and me.”
Her lip quivered once, but her voice was steady when she said, “Ok.”
Now that he started, he wasn’t sure he could finish. He took a gulp of soda. Anything to steady his nerves. “Well, months ago, almost a year now, I asked you to start praying about our relationship. You remember that?”
“I remember.” Her eyes were still so full, so trusting, but now he caught a glimpse of something else too. Hope?
“And I told you that I was going to pray about it too. See if maybe God had plans for us to deepen our relationship, if maybe it might lead to ... if over time it might slowly develop into something more.”
She nodded. It was all the encouragement he needed.
“I’ve never stopped thinking about you.” The words poured out of him now, like water spilling over a dam. “You were right when you told me we had to call it off. As hard as it was, I realize that was a step you had to take, a sacrifice you had to make. You’ve done so much for your sister, and I can only imagine how much grace and love and strength it takes to do what you do. And maybe you think that nobody sees you. That God’s just left you there to take care of Kitty for the rest of your life, and you’ll never get noticed or thanked or appreciated for it. But you’re wrong. No, don’t interrupt me. I know you don’t do it for the applause or the recognition. That’s just what makes you who you are. It’s what makes me ...”
He stopped himself short.
“It’s what makes me admire you so much. But it’s more than that.”
He leaned forward. Was there any way to make her understand? Open up his heart and show her the love he had for her? Did she realize? Could she ever guess?
“I’ve loved you almost since the first day we talked on the phone. Maybe now’s not the best time to admit something like this, but I can’t help it. I’ve spent the past four months without you, wondering what might have happened between us, and I know that if I don’t tell you everything that’s on my heart right now, I’ll never be able to forgive myself.
“I love you. I’ve never stopped loving you. When I think about the future, when I pray about God’s plans for me, everything feels dark unless I’m thinking about you. A few months after we met, I asked you to pray about our relationship, to start asking God if it’s meant to progress beyond friendship or romance, and I told you that I’d be praying too. Well, I’ve prayed. For the past half a year or more I’ve hardly prayed about anything else. And every time I told God that I was going to give you up, every time I asked him to help me cut you out of my heart, you came back again. And now you’re here, and we’re together. Neither of us planned it this way. We could have gone the entire conference without ever bumping into each other, but God led us together.”
His heart was pounding. He wondered if Susannah could hear it from her seat.
“I know it wasn’t a mistake. I know it wasn’t an accident. And I know at first you said we couldn’t be together because you had a duty to take care of your sister and I had a call to serve God as a missionary. But being a missionary is more than where you live. It’s more than how much you travel. You felt years ago that God called you to the mission field, and now you’re confused because you can’t leave Orchard Grove. But you don’t see what I see. I see a woman who spent a year working at an assisted living home, praying with the sick and the elderly, spreading the gospel there. You remember that man you baptized in the shower because he’d asked Jesus into his heart and his family didn’t want the chaplain to visit? Or your co-worker, Tiff, the one you kept telling me was so hardened by life but who’s now saved? God’s been using you as a missionary for years, and you don’t even know it.
“I wish I could give you my eyes so you could see what I see when I look at you. You are the most compassionate, gentle-spirited person I know, and I’ve met all kinds of believers over the years all across the globe. But there’s none as sweet or as giving or as selfless as you, and there’s none I would rather spend the rest of my life with.”
After he got this part out, he dared to glance up. It wasn’t the tears streaking down Susannah’s cheeks that he first noticed or way her lips trembled.
It was the love and joy that was shining in her eyes, the love and joy that answered his question before he found the courage to ask.
Slipping onto his knee, he took her hand in his. “I can’t show you any ring because I left it back in Massachusetts, so you’ll have to use your imagination. Susannah Wesley Peters, will you be my wife?”