The McRae Series 01 - Twelve Days Sam and Rachel

wanted so much right now. She needed so much.
    "Want to sit here and tell the big guy?" Father Tim asked.
    "The big guy?" Rachel laughed again. "We haven't exactly been on speaking terms lately."
    "Not since you lost your baby," Father Tim said. "I won't pretend to think I know how that felt, because I don't. But I asked you one question back then, and you weren't ready to hear it. I think maybe you are now."
    "What's that?"
    "There are some things you can only take on faith, times when that's all we have to fall back on. I want you to look in your heart. Deep inside. You've been a part of this church your whole life, and I think that still means something to you. But I know, too, that real faith comes in times like this. When we're tested. It's not until we ask ourselves the really hard questions that we know whether or not we truly believe," he said. "So I want you to think about this. Where do you think she is, Rachel?"
    "My baby?"
    "Yes. In your heart, don't you know that she's with God, and she's fine? Because that's what true faith is. Knowing. I think in your heart, if you dig down deep, you'll see that you know that you don't have to worry about her. I know it's terrible that you had so little time with her here, but she'll be yours again one day. Do you believe that?"
    It was a question Rachel usually avoided at all costs. Where was her baby? Had she simply ceased to exist? Or was she out there somewhere? Sometimes she had nightmares that her baby did exist somewhere, that she was crying and she needed Rachel and Rachel simply couldn't get to her.
    So usually, she tried not to think about it at all.
    But she'd been raised in the church and grown up on the stories of the Bible.
    Stories? Or something real? Was this all there was to this earth? Only what she could see and touch? She didn't believe that. She couldn't. Was someone watching over her and everyone else? Some order to what sometimes seemed chaos? Some master plan?
    "There are so many things I don't understand. Things that made me so angry."
    "I know. Me, too."
    "You?"
    "I'm as human as you are," he said.
    "But—"
    "Now we're talking mysteries of the universe, Rachel. I don't have those answers. I struggle with them myself. Are there things in this world I'll never understand? Yes. Do they trouble me? Yes. Do I get angry at times and even ask God what in the world He thinks He's doing? Yes. Even I do that. But I still believe. I believe in Him and His innate goodness and His guiding hand in my life and in yours. I think you believe in all that, too."
    Rachel looked back up at the stained-glass window, at beautiful golden light streaming out of heaven and Jesus' open arms, waiting, just waiting.
    "Think He's going to wink at you or something?" Father Tim asked.
    Rachel smiled through her tears. "Does He wink at you?"
    "No. I stopped asking Him to. I stopped asking for proof or for any kind of a sign. That's the faith part, Rachel. The hard part. Sometimes you have to take it all on faith, because that's all you've got. Not just faith in God. Faith in yourself, too. Faith in the people around you, the people who love you. Sometimes you have to make that leap. Reach out to the people you love, the people who need you. Believe that things are all going to work out somehow."
    "I don't know if I remember how to do that," she said.
    "Of course you do. You took the children into your home and you've taken them into your heart."
    "That was an act of pure selfishness."
    "It was an act of faith. At worst, something you did because you needed them and had faith that they could help you. At best—which I choose to believe—something you did because they needed you, too, and you believed you could help them. And it looks like it worked out just fine."
    He gave her a handkerchief, and Rachel dried her tears.
    "Think about it. And if you need to talk some more, I'll be here." Father Tim nodded toward the image of God. "So will He."
    "Thank you," she said.
    "My pleasure. I've been waiting for you."
    "All this time?"
    He nodded. "I knew you'd come back sooner or later."
    "Faith?" she suggested.
    "Of course. I always knew it was somewhere inside of you."

Chapter 13

    Sam was about to go out of his mind.
    Rachel had been gone for an hour and a half. It was below freezing outside now, and he had a houseful of kids. He couldn't go look for her.
    And he was scared. Scared in an illogical way of what she might do. Scared he might lose her forever. It was the kind of