sarah

Her tone changed from shocked to curious. __ow was it? Was it_ different?__arah bit her lip, ashamed to be gossiping but feeling the strong urge to tell. __es,__he confided. __e__ nothing like John. Nothing like him at all.___eally? What was different? Did he_?_ Grace waved a hand as though erasing achalkboard. __h, forget it. I shouldn__ be asking this. But,_ again her voice lowered, __s he tattooed everywhere?__arah knew it was wrong to talk about him like this, but her inner schoolgirl took over and she nodded, eager to share details. __e__ beautiful _ like a stained glass window. And he__ really good with his _ mouth._ She raised an eyebrow, giving Grace a significant look.Her friend gasped and giggled. __ut isn__ it weird? Touching him?___kin is skin, Grace,_ Sarah chided. __he tattoos are only on the surface, you know.He__ a man._ A sexy, vulnerable, intense, attractive, responsible, sweet, gentle and loving man.

And one day, God would send another baby, a baby promised to a girl who didn't even have a husband. But this baby would bring laughter to the whole world. This baby would be everyone's dream come true.

Best Friends. And I thought of what she had done all the millions of times I cried to her, collapsing at even the slightest wounding of my heart or pride. So I reached over and pulled her to me, wrapping my arms around her, and held my best friend close, returning so many favors all at once....

Let the preacher tell the truth. Let him make audible the silence of the news of the world with the sound turned off so that in the silence we can hear the tragic truth of the Gospel, which is that the world where God is absent is a dark and echoing emptiness; and the comic truth of the Gospel, which is that it is into the depths of his absence that God makes himself present in such unlikely ways and to such unlikely people that old Sarah and Abraham and maybe when the time comes even Pilate and Job and Lear and Henry Ward Beecher and you and I laugh till the tears run down our cheeks. And finally let him preach this overwhelming of tragedy by comedy, of darkness by light, of the ordinary by the extraordinary, as the tale that is too good not to be true because to dismiss it as untrue is to dismiss along with it that catch of the breath, that beat and lifting of the heart near to or even accompanied by tears, which I believe is the deepest intuition of truth that we have.

I tried to close my ears to the strange worshipful chanting and fix my mind on God, but the Egyptians_ idolatry weighed down my weary shoulders and brought tears to my closed eyes.

For a brief moment the previous day, I__ felt a flicker of kinship with him because of my own barrenness, but he brandished his brokenness like a sword, ready to cut anyone who displeased him because someone in Pharaoh__ household had once cut him.

I'm getting the impression that women, in any form, scare you."He shrugged. "They're the more violent species. And unpredictable. I'd rather take on a wild boar. You can't shoot women.

But once in a while, you pick the right thing, the exact best thing. Every day, the moment you open your eyes and pull off your blankets, that's what you hope for. The sunshine on your face,warm enough to make you heart sing.

It's the person that calls you up because they're eating at __ur favorite spot,_ and it made them think of you and miss being there with you. That's a friend, to me.

Ugh. I do not miss being your age." Sarah muttered, retracting her hand and wrinkling her nose. "It's like all teenagers have hormones coming out of their ears.

When her voice cracked and tears started spilling down her cheeks, I panicked. I wasn't good at consoling people at the best of times, but even a trained therapist would have struggled in my shoes. What could you possibly say to a girl who'd dug for hours trying to rescue her family after they'd been buried alive?

Yeah, it's a kodak moment. Quick, take a picture.Sarah scoffs. I stick my tongue out at her.

You are not responsible for the murderous rampage of an alien psycho, okay?

The people inside were in intense worship; it seemed to Sarah like they were in another world or something. The pleasantness in the atmosphere drew her in. She felt welcomed, even though she had not been invited; noticed, even though she had not been seen; loved, even though she wasn__ known; and even though it didn__ make sense to her__t didn__ have to.

Like I, of all people, didn't know better than to lead a total stranger to the point where they could hurt me most, knowing how easily they'd be able to find their way back to it.