Chapter 32
“Sage, sweetheart,” Mrs. Mitchell said the next morning as Sage sat at the little mirror telling herself it would be okay. Hair down, minimal make-up, the blue and green watercolor dress she’d worn two weeks before gracing her body. How could one be so incredibly nervous about something as simple as church?
“Yeah… yes?” She faltered on the word, swallowing down the panic.
“We have oatmeal if you want breakfast.”
“Oh, boy,” Sage breathed less than excited about the food choice, then she called, “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Gazing at herself, she closed her eyes and willed the panic down. “You told him you could do no jewelry. You told him that would be all right.” So why did she feel like she was stripped naked and about to be burned at the stake for violating some critical rule? “You can do this, Sage. You can do this.”
Luke got to the church early, but of course, he didn’t beat the Mitchells. If ever Sage had felt on display, this would be it. There was no running from the situation, no way to mask it from the congregation. Surely they all knew by now, but if they didn’t before, they certainly would by the time they left. His heart dipped at the knowledge that she would be in full Sage Hollywood mode this morning. Bracing himself for just that, he walked into the lobby and nearly stopped breathing altogether. Whoa. She was not Sage Hollywood, and he was pretty sure no one in the church was going to miss that fact.
She stood next to Mrs. Mitchell by the fireplace, shaking hands with those who came in greeting. She looked like a regal princess—100 percent poise, charm, and graciousness. Zero percent fake. Amazing didn’t even come close.
From next to Mrs. Mitchell, Sage saw him come in, but she didn’t know the protocol for the situation. Should she wave to him? Indicate that she had seen him? Pretend like she hadn’t? As Mr. Conrad stepped over to Mrs. Mitchell, Sage took the opportunity to catch Luke’s eye and smile. She ducked because the gleam in his eyes told her he very much approved.
Just then the outside door opened, and four faces she loved walked in. Not one of them, save for Ryder looked at all happy about being there. One look and Ryder pushed past Luke to come over to her. Heedless of who saw or why, Ryder put his arms around her and hugged her to him. With no trouble or hesitation, Sage returned the hug.
“Hey, there, big guy,” she said. “How’s it going?”
“They said you hadn’t left. I’m so glad you’re still here.” He backed up. “Can you come play ball again today?”
Sage’s heart broke for the fragile hope in his eyes that she was required to crush. Reaching up, she tousled his hair. “Probably not today, but maybe next week sometime.”
“Okay.” Ryder scuffed the toe of his shoes into the tiles.
“Hi, Ryder,” Mrs. Mitchell said, and he greeted her.
It was clear when Sage looked up that no one else in her family would dare to make the trek across the lobby to say hi. Not that she expected anything different, but it hurt knowing everyone in the whole room saw her for the outcast she was.
“We should be going in soon.” Mrs. Mitchell leaned over to her, lowering her voice to the point of nearly nothing. “We’ll sit up front.”
Up front? Sage barely kept herself standing. She had to be joking. She was joking, right? Somebody say she was joking!
Firmly tucked away by Trent as they made the final preparations for the service in the back, Luke’s gaze snapped to her and Mrs. Mitchell when they walked in and all the way down to the front. How Sage didn’t melt from the gazes turning her way and the whispers that accompanied them, he would never know. Still, she kept her head up and her steps measured.
“God,” he prayed softly, bending his head when she sat down in the front pew, “You and I both know she needs You. Please, please be with her. Don’t let any evil near her. Guard her heart from believing what the others say.”
“Ready?” Trent said, indicating the back pew, and Luke thought as he sat that he would far rather be back here than up there.
“Yeah.”
Breathe, Sage. Just breathe. It was astounding how difficult that was. Even as the woman came forward to read, Sage willed the panic and anxiety down. Somehow she had never envisioned being the cracked tea cup on display for everyone, but somehow, that’s exactly where she had ended up.
The woman opened the book and began.
“From 1 Peter, Chapter 5. ‘Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
The Amen stuck in Sage’s throat, and it was impossible not to squirm. Breathe, Sage. Breathe.
A moment and the pastor stood. He read a short reading from John and then closed the book, preparing for the sermon. In the back Luke’s prayers for her continued.
“Dominion,” Pastor Steve said slowly. “Strange word. An old word perhaps. We don’t use it much anymore, and we think we know what it means. ‘Domin’ is Latin for master or lord, and as we remember, in the Garden of Eden, Adam was given dominion over all that God had created. The problem with this word is we tend to think of it in the world’s terms so that a master or lord is over whatever is being dominated.
“But you cannot take Scripture and slice it up, and say, ‘It means this.’ You have to look at it as a whole to understand the fullness of what God intended. So if Jesus is the new Adam, and Jesus was there at creation and all things were made through Him, then He is rightly our Lord and our Master. In fact, you can’t see it, but in the reading that Eilene read, the words ‘Chief Shepherd’ are capitalized, clearly indicating it is referring to Jesus who is our shepherd and our master. Those two images come together in the Person of Jesus Christ.” Pastor Steve laced his fingers in front of himself. “They are not two facets of Jesus. They are intertwined, and when we view them as such, we begin to see just what God is calling us to.”
He shifted and took hold of the podium. “You see, Jesus Christ is at once our Shepherd and our Master, but here’s where you have to be very careful. Jesus clearly does not consider Himself a Master in the world’s sense. He does not take the position of dominating when He exercises authority over those in His dominion. Instead, He is like a Shepherd, caring for the flock, guiding the flock, defending the flock. The flock does not serve Him, rather He serves the flock.
“You see, most religions of the world are designed with the god at the top and everyone else serves that god. Jesus Christ came and He absolutely flipped that paradigm on its head so that those who would have dominion over something become the servants, not the one served. To become a master in Jesus’ model, the elders of the church become those who willingly lay down their lives and become humble examples for those in their charge.
“Notice here what Peter, the one who would help to establish Jesus’ church says, ‘humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.
“My brothers and sisters in Christ, we are to recognize that God has dominion over all, and He is on our side. He wants your life to count for something, to mean something. He is working for that to happen. Think about it. The God of the Universe is on our sides, and He wants to have dominion over your life—not so He can lord it over you, but so He can be your Shepherd, your guide, your protector from the enemy who seeks to devour you. Yes, in this life we suffer. Yes, in this life there are trials, but God Who is our Master, Who is our Shepherd, is right here with us to bring us through those trials so that He can perfect us, confirm us, strengthen us, and establish us as a part of His Kingdom, yes in Heaven but even more so, here on earth.
“Accepting Jesus as your savior is a great first step, but then you’ve got to decide what do to with that. The next step is to learn to walk with Him in humility and grace. You’ve got to reach your roots down into Him, into His love for you and His strength and wisdom, and then you reach out to your world and bring Him wholeheartedly into the situations where there is suffering and hopelessness and oppression. Those situations where the enemy thinks he has a foothold or a stronghold, where darkness has taken over. You step into those situations and you let God Who is working through your life begin to be the light in that darkness. Having Jesus in your life is not a license to lord anything over anyone. It is a calling to learn to shepherd those in your care, to be a Jesus-model master to those He has entrusted to you.
“This is not a small calling. It is not a calling to take lightly or to let get lost in the hurry of life. It is sacred. In fact, it is so sacred that if you really understand it, it will truly drive you to your knees because you know you cannot accomplish it on your own. But God set you in dominion over your piece of this world, His world, as a steward for those and of those who are your responsibility, and He will perfect that which He has given to you. He wants to perfect it, He longs to perfect it in His love. And He will… if you will let Him.”
After the service, Sage waited with Mrs. Mitchell as she talked to each and every member who stopped to talk with her. Over and over, her hostess introduced her, and each time Sage noticed how the person would put the pieces together, react without reacting and then smile in deference to Mrs. Mitchell. It hurt that she was dragging her hosts down, but she could think of nothing to do other than shake the offered hands and be as polite as possible.
However, the other thing that she began to notice as they got to the back and out to the lobby was how thoroughly Mrs. Mitchell seemed not to be at all bothered by the situation or by Sage or by the confused and knowing looks they received. Seemingly perfectly at ease with all of it, Mrs. Mitchell neither made it look like an act nor like a chore. She seemed genuinely kind without even a hint of embarrassment or apology.
Of course, her family didn’t make any attempt to acknowledge her, but the free-flowing acceptance of first Mrs. Mitchell and then of the Pastor himself almost made her feel as if she belonged. She was helping Mrs. Mitchell straighten the front desk when Luke came bounding down the steps, and she couldn’t stop the smile.
“Hey, you about ready?” he asked, clapping his hands, a light of excitement in his eyes.
Although Sage’s nerves weren’t anywhere near his excitement, she lifted her shoulders and looked at Mrs. Mitchell. “Do you need anything else?”
“Oh, no. Of course not. Go on. And tell Alyssa happy birthday for us.”
Sage looked back at him. “Then I guess I’m ready.”
With a smile, he reached over and took her hand although there were still others milling about. Heading to the door, he waved at the pastor.
“Have her home at a decent hour,” the pastor said with a smile.
“Will do.”
And together, they broke out into the sunshine beyond. Sage loved this space in life. Just being with him was always so easy. He helped her in and came around to get in himself. However, before he started the car, he angled his gaze over to her.
“How was that?”
Sage let her eyes go wide. “Intimidating.”
He laughed and took her hand again. “You did great. Oh, and I love the outfit.” With a wink he started the car and off they went to their next overwhelming adventure.
Luke had thought the day would be mostly low-key, but when they walked into the kitchen, worry slapped into him. His mother was cooking, her best Sunday clothes still on, calling instructions to Hannah and Priscilla who were in the living room.
“The streamers are in the pantry,” his mother yelled. “Top right corner. Use the white and pink ones.”
“Hey,” Luke said in concern.
“Oh, Luke. Thank goodness.” His mother clanked a lid on something. “Can you help your sisters? I was going to decorate the table and the living room, but the cake was late and now dinner’s behind. Your dad got called out on a job. He was going to help me.”
“I don’t see them!” Hannah yelled.
“Top right!” her mother yelled back. “By the red and black ones from your graduation!”
At Luke’s elbow, Sage cowered, and although Luke had been a part of the craziness his whole life, he knew she hadn’t. He took her hand. “We’ll go help them.”
“Thank you.”
Following him, hoping no one would yell at her, Sage fully understood the panic when they stepped into the living room. A huge bouquet of balloons verily blocked the doorway, and it looked like a pink clown had thrown up in the room itself.
“Wow,” Luke said when he saw the place.
“We don’t need any critiques,” Priscilla said in the middle of a sea of fuchsia pink tissue swirls.
“I don’t see it!” Hannah yelled again from the back hallway, making Sage jump.
“It’s right…”
“I’ll get it,” Luke said and let Sage’s hand go to help his sister.
Standing there, she felt both in the way and completely useless.
“Ugh! If I never see pink again, it will be too soon.” Priscilla arched her neck and rolled it around her shoulders.
“Do… do you need some help?” Sage asked, not at all sure that her help would be welcome.
“How are you with tissue paper?”
“Uh. Good?” Sage ventured one small step over to the piano where Priscilla was seated. Gingerly folding herself onto the floor, she picked up one of the packages stacked there. “What’re we doing with these?”
“Mom wanted them hung from the ceiling with the streamers going out from them, but I don’t think we’re even going to get them pulled apart at this rate.”
“She said to the right, not behind,” Hannah said. “Besides how was I supposed to even see it back there?” Coming into the room, she stopped short when her gaze snagged on Sage, now sitting in the middle of the floor studiously separating the accordion-like tissue paper. “Oh. Hey, Sage.”
“Hey,” Sage said barely looking up.
“URGH!” Priscilla moaned. “This stuff is impossible. I ripped another one.”
“How hard can it be?” Without pretense, Luke sat down right next to Sage and grabbed a pack.
“Maybe you should help Hannah,” Sage said without really looking up. “This stuff is kind of delicate.”
“Delicate? I can be delicate.” He ripped into a bag.
“Yeah,” Priscilla said, standing. “Good luck with that. I’ll help Hannah. You two can have fun with that stuff.”
“Gee thanks,” Sage said, pursing her lips together willing the paper not to tear.
“Now how do you do this anyway?” Luke asked. He flipped the thing over and then pulled the two small pieces of cardboard around. “Oh, cool.”
“Leave it to Luke to be excited by something like that,” Hannah said as she climbed the ladder, pink streamer in hand. “Here?”
“Looks good.” Priscilla handed her some tape.
“Oh, rats.” Luke stopped his work just as Sage got hers finished, fluffed it and set it aside. She grabbed another package as she glanced over at him, a torn piece now lying next to him.
“I told you. It’s not as easy as it looks.”
In minutes she had a second one done. She fluffed it and grabbed for another package.
“How do you do that?” he asked, and she fought not to laugh when she saw the anti-creation he was laboring over.
“You’ve got to go side-to-side and then back again.” She demonstrated as he watched shaking his head.
“That’s what I was doing.”
“No. You’ve got to do it evenly.”
“That looks like a sick ostrich,” Hannah said of the thing in his hand as she hung a streamer right over them.
“Thank you very much,” he retorted and held his work up. “There.”
Sage wound her lips under her teeth and fought not to say what she was thinking. A dead ostrich would be a step up from that thing.
“Wow. Do not put him on decorating duty at my wedding,” Priscilla said.
“Wedding? I didn’t know you were getting hitched.” Luke looked up at her. “Who’s the sucker?”
She reached down and whacked him with a full roll of streamer right on the top of the head.
“Here, darlin’,” Sage said as nicely as she could, using the endearment he always used with her. “Why don’t you help hang the streamers? I’ll get these.” She took the thing from him and lifted her eyebrows as she turned it around and around trying to figure out how to fix it. “Yikes.”
Hannah’s cell phone beeped, and standing on the ladder, she pulled it out. “Oh, man, they’re going to be here in 20 minutes.”
“Turbo time.” Luke jumped to his feet and took the streamer from Hannah. “Here, shorty. Give me that.”
“Ha. Ha.” But she didn’t have much of a choice, and with that all of them went into pink-decorating overdrive.
Even Sage was amazed when both the living room and the table looked perfectly perfect pink by the time Luke’s little niece and her family came through the door at noon-thirty.
“Happy Birthday!” they all called, and hugs went all around.
The young woman Sage decided must be Kara had sandy-blonde hair just a shade or two lighter than Luke’s. She was short like Hannah and obviously pregnant once again. Two kids for Luke to spoil. Sage smiled at that. If it was a boy, he could teach him to play baseball. Lucky kid.
“This is Sage,” Luke said after picking up Alyssa and giving his sister a hug. He stepped over to Sage, and when she looked up at him, with Alyssa in his arms, she wanted that to be her future so badly it made her heart jerk.
“It’s nice to meet you, Sage,” Kara said, a smile lighting her eyes.
“You too.” And then before she had the chance to prepare for it, Luke put his arm around her, and nothing in the world had ever, ever felt so right.
“Okay. This one is from your uncle Luke,” Luke said later as they all sat around the living room, Alyssa in the middle opening presents. His father had shown up right before dinner which was, of course, fabulous. The only way it could have been better was if Maddie had been able to make it. Graduate school two states away would do that to a person.
He smiled from his seat next to Sage on the couch as he wound an arm around her. She had been right at his side all afternoon, and he had come to the conclusion that his family was liking her almost as much as he did.
“Oh, Luke,” Kara said as she helped her daughter pull the little vest out. “It’s gorgeous! Where did you get it?”
Alyssa hopped up and down for her mother to put the item on her, and when it was on, it was, in fact, abundantly adorable.
“Sage made it,” he said, and every person in the room stopped to look at them.
“You made this?” Kara asked.
“Well, not made-made.” Sage shrunk next to him. “I just added the lace part.”
“It’s so cute,” Priscilla said. “I have the most adorable Godchild in the whole world.”
Spinning one way and the other Alyssa modeled it for them all.
“And this,” Luke said, leaning over and snatching the little box from the table to hand it to his sister, “is from Sage.”
“Oh, Sage,” Kara said.
“I…” Sage turned disbelieving eyes up at him.
“What?” He shrugged. “It was your idea.”
Sitting in her mother’s lap, Alyssa opened the small present and squealed when the little butterfly headpiece came into view.
“Oh!”
“It’s perfect.”
“Oh, Sage.”
Luke let the back of the couch catch him as he pulled Sage to him. “Told you they’d love it.” And right there with everyone watching, he pulled her closer and kissed her head.
She angled her gaze down and then picked it back up. “I hope you like it.”
“Put it on me. Put it on me. Put it on me,” Alyssa chorused, and they all laughed.
Luke grinned. “I think she likes it.”
“Seriously,” Hannah said as they all sat around talking later. “Mom never knew.”
Kara laughed from her place in the chair their mother had brought from the back bedroom. “I think Mom’s the one who likes pink.”
“And green,” Pricilla said. She looked at her sister and they both said, “Green!” and busted up laughing.
“I really don’t see how this is so funny,” their mother said, and Sage felt sorry for her.
“So, if you don’t like pink,” Sage said, “what color would you paint it?”
And just like that, the girls went into a painting color frenzy.
“You do know this means I’ll be stuck painting the rest of the summer,” Luke said, ducking to her.
Sage laughed and put her hand on his thigh. “Well, at least you’ll finally be good for something.”
“I love your family,” Sage said as they drove back to the pastor’s house long after the sun had gone down.
He smiled over at her. “I think the feeling is mutual.”
“It’s so weird because they don’t agree about everything, but you know they’re going to work it out. They really care about each other.”
“That’s what being a family is about.”
She smiled sadly. “Not where I come from.”
On the front porch Luke kissed her, telling her if his mother got paint, he was coming to get her the next morning. Sage laughed, half-hoping his mother would in fact show up with ten gallons or more. After one more kiss, she told him good night and let herself into the house.
It was dark in the front part, but in the living room, she found her hosts. Both on the couch watching some talent show and arguing about who should have gotten what score.
“So, how was the party?” Mrs. Mitchell asked a half-second after Sage came in the doorway, the argument forgotten, and somehow Sage heard underlying notes in that question she had never noticed before. She wasn’t asking just to ask or to find some fault with Sage’s use of the day, she was genuinely interested.
Feeling just two steps on the right side of completely safe, Sage sat down in the chair, fully prepared to bolt if either of them so much as looked at her funny. “Great. Everyone but Maddie was there. Alyssa was darling. They’re such a great family.” She sounded wistful even to her own ears.
A second, a glance, and Mrs. Mitchell turned down the volume on the television. “You okay?”
Another second and Sage put her head down. She hadn’t realized she was holding the thoughts in so tight a rein. “I guess it just makes me wonder, you know? I never really thought that kind of family was real, like it was just some fantasy. But they’re real. They’re not perfect. But they don’t hold that against each other either.” She shook her head. “Even the parents. It’s like they’re all a team, working together. Like we got there today, and poor Mrs. Baker was trying to cook, and Hannah and Priscilla were putting up the decorations, and we just… helped, and they let us, and we all worked together and had fun even though we were all freaked out that we might not get it all done in time. It was really nice.”
She was talking, trying to sort it all out as she did so. Finally she stopped and looked up. “I’m rambling.”
“No.” Pastor Steve sat up. “I think you’re learning. Keep going. What else have you noticed?”
Thinking for a second, Sage smiled. “Well, they include everyone. Even Kara’s husband, Chris, who’s really quiet and kind of shy even. It’s like he’s him, and everyone’s okay with that. They don’t get mad if he doesn’t join in, but when he does, they include him.” She squinted into the thoughts. “It’s like you’re part of something that’s real. It’s not fake at all, none of it. It’s kind of like…” Sage trailed off as she looked up at them and thought better of saying that.
“Kind of like?” Mrs. Mitchell asked gently.
“It’s kind of like what I feel when I’m around you,” Sage said, looking only at Mrs. Mitchell and knowing this was probably revealing far too much about her thoughts about them and the situation. “Like today, at church.”
“How so?”
“You talk to everyone, and I’m sure there are people you don’t like or people who have been like mean to you or something. I mean, I know what they think of you for…”
Neither of them looked shocked or even concerned.
“For?” Pastor Steve finally said.
Sage played with her fingernails. “I know what they say about me, what they think about me, and I know what they’re probably saying about you for letting me stay here.”
A second and completely unbelievably Mrs. Mitchell smiled. “I learned a long time ago not to base my feelings and my actions on what others might think about me. They are going to think and say and do things that I have no control over. What I do have control over is where I’m standing in life, where I choose to be, who I choose to be, who I choose to help, and how I choose to help them. If they want to say something about it, that’s their deal not mine.”
For some reason, Sage wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that from the pastor, from Mrs. Mitchell, it was a surprise because she sounded so firm about it.
“Do you remember what Steve preached about today?”
Slowly Sage nodded. “About the master stuff and the shepherd stuff.”
“That’s right. See, I’ve learned that Jesus has called me to be a master and a shepherd too. I have a flock, the people at church that we minister to and my family and the people we work with outside the church like those who come for the meals. All of them are who God has given me to work with and to let Him work through me with them. So in a sense, I have dominion over them because God has given me those people as the ground I am supposed to tend for Him or with Him while I’m here. And so that’s what I do. I let Him love them through me. It’s not always easy, and without Him it would be impossible. But with Him, I’m learning more and more that people just want and need love. They don’t need my judgment or criticism. Their loads are heavy enough without me adding to it.”
“I never thought about it like that—like I have dominion over anything,” Sage said. “I always thought everyone had dominion over me. I mean isn’t the man supposed to do that?”
They looked at each other as if to ask who should answer that.
“Each of us,” Pastor Steve said, “is given areas to tend, things that only we can tend. Jane has hers. I have mine, and we each support and help the other with tending what we’ve been given.”
“You work as a team.”
He nodded. “Yes. Not that that’s always easy. She has her moments.”
Jane’s mouth fell open, and she hit his arm.
“See what I’m saying?” he asked and pointed at her, but he laughed and then put his arm around her. “We make a good team.”
His wife smiled and snuggled closer to him. “Yes we do.”
“So I have dominion over things in my life?” Sage asked, digging deeper. “I don’t just have to be dominated?”
Next to her husband, Jane laughed softly. “I prefer to take the dominated thing out of the equation. I prefer to say that I have people that God sends me to love, they are my flock, if you will. And together,” She took her husband’s hand. “we do our best to guide and keep and help and bless and love each and every one of them.”
Suddenly, Sage began to understand. “That’s why you took me in.”
A second and they both nodded.
“Your dad loves you very much,” Pastor Steve said. “He wanted you safe and well taken care of while he works some other things out in his own dominion.”
Sage put her head down. “He didn’t even say hello today.”
Pastor Steve pursed his lips. “I know, and we’re going to talk about that.”
“It scares me,” Sage said softly. “I don’t even really have a home right now.” She sniffed and ran her hand under her nose. “I think I’m the richest homeless girl in America.”
“For what it’s worth,” Jane said, “we’re all just lost little sheep until we find the Shepherd. It’s not the things or the money or even the people on this earth that define our identity. It’s God. Until you get Him, whatever you have will never be enough. Once you’re with Him, whatever you have—a lot or a little—will be plenty. I know that sounds crazy, but I can so remember growing up in the trailer park. I felt like I had nothing back then, that I was nothing, and then…” She picked her hand up and put it on her husband’s thigh. “God sent someone to my pasture who finally convinced me that because I was worth something just because I am a Child of the King, and none of that other stuff even matters. The truth is, once I accepted that, I was free. I was free of what my friends thought, I was free of what the world said about me, I was even free to marry this man who takes such good care of his flock, that I am so blessed to be a part of.” She leaned over, and he smiled and kissed her.
Pastor Steve’s gaze came over to Sage. “Sage, you are a Child of the King. He is the ultimate Shepherd of your pasture. The question is, what are you going to do with that? Are you going to brush it off and not treasure it, or are you going to embrace it and start living like it?”
“So today,” she said, strength, courage, and understanding building in her, “when we were at church, you stood by me because…”
Jane shrugged. “Any Child of my Father’s is worthy in my book.”
“And when you took me to sit up front, you weren’t embarrassed?”
“No.”
“Even though…”
“Sage, honey.” Jane sat forward. “If I was going to withhold my love and esteem from everyone who didn’t deserve it, there would be no one to give it to. We’re all sinners. We’ve all done stupid things and had stupid things done to us. The point is, my God is bigger than all of that. He can make all things new, and I know, whether you see it or believe it or not, He is working in your life, He is asking you to come to Him, to believe that He’s offering you Himself and through Him freedom. Not so you can do whatever you want but so that you are free to cling to Him and never let go because you see that His way, His love for you, works.”
“You know,” Sage said slowly, quietly. “I thought I was being punished getting sent here.”
They both smiled.
“And what do you think now?” Pastor Steve asked.
“I think I’m glad to be part of your pasture.”