Part 29 (1/2)

”What if Tim doesn't feel the same way?” Ryan had asked. He hadn't been checking his chances. Rather, he had been amazed at the possibility. He had wanted to know how far she'd carry her commitment, how long she'd wait if her husband no longer loved her and refused to change.

Sorrow had filled Kari's eyes as she answered him, and he was immediately pierced with regret for asking. ”I won't give him a divorce, Ryan. I can't.”

I can't.

Those two words grieved him most now as he turned left onto the highway and headed home. Their time on the beach together the other night had showed Ryan how she still felt about him. It wasn't that Kari didn't want the life she might have shared with him had they stayed together.

She simply couldn't. Her word, her honor, her relations.h.i.+p to G.o.d, her decision to love-all that meant too much to her to risk throwing away. That was just the kind of person she was.

Suddenly Ryan realized where he needed to be that cold Monday night. He turned his truck around and headed for church. Bible studies met there during the week.

The sanctuary would be open for at least another three hours.

Five minutes later he slipped into a back pew and let his eyes adjust to the partial light. In the distance he could hear the m.u.f.fled sounds of people talking and occasionally laughing. He leaned his forearms on the back of the bench in front of him, hung his head, and tried to understand how he'd made such a mess of things with Kari back when he was playing football.

What's wrong with me, G.o.d? I loved her. Why didn't it work out? In response, Kari's words filled his heart once more. ”Love is a decision ... a decision ...

a decision.”

If that was true, he should have decided to call Kari every day after his accident, even if he was distracted and worried about 257 his injury. He should have decided to pursue her until his intentions were clear. He should have decided to give his love for her as much priority as he gave his football career.

He thought about the way Kari demonstrated her love to Tim, the way she was willing to stand by him even when a part of her hated the man for what he'd done to her.

Ryan fidgeted, lifted his head, looked around. Maybe G.o.d was trying to teach him something about love. Something Kari had already figured out, but Ryan never quite had.

He thought of his life, the coaching, and time he spent with his family and friends. He was pretty sure those things were spurred by love. But only love as he knew it.

Kari's love-the kind of love that could go back to a man like Tim Jacobs and pray that G.o.d heal their marriage-that love was something altogether different.

He reached for a Bible from the back of the pew in front of him. If love truly was a decision, then right here, right now Ryan wanted to get a better understanding of how that could work. Most people Ryan knew were better versed in Scripture than he was, but even he knew where to find the love chapter. He flipped pages to the thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians and began to read.

The first three verses could mean only one thing. Whatever else a person did, whatever other sacrifices or acts of kindness or talents that person demonstrated, the entire sum of them meant nothing if he or she wasn't motivated by love.

That made sense. Ryan kept reading.

Verse four was where it started getting good, giving specific definitions of what love was and what it wasn't. The checklist: love is patient, kind, does not envy, does not boast-shed little new insight at first. But then his eyes ran past something that seemed newly written there that afternoon, as if it were intended for his eyes alone.

Love is not self-seeking.

He leaned back hard against the pew, thrust back to those days when he and Kari were not exactly together, the early days 258 of his football career. She had spent that time waiting for him with a selfless patience. Much as she was now waiting for Tim to come to his senses.

”Wait for me, Kari. When I'm not so busy, I want to be with you. Really.”

Ryan felt a leaden anchor settle in his stomach. Had he actually said that to her? The memory of his words tasted bitter, as if they'd never fully digested.

He looked at the verse and read once more the part that said love is not self-seeking. That was it, wasn't it? His love toward Kari had been genuine by worldly standards, but it had been completely self-seeking by G.o.d's.

When I'm not busy, I'll call you, and I'll decide when the time is right? That's really what he had been saying. But why hadn't he realized it before?

Ryan read a few more verses. In his mind, he started ticking off all the things, according to the Scripture, that love did. It always protected ... hoped ...

trusted ... persevered. Persevered. That last word hit him square in the face.

If he had persevered in his love for Kari, he would have asked her why she backed off, why she seemed uninterested in him after his accident.

Perseverance? Ryan stifled a sad chuckle. He hadn't come anywhere close. Sure, Kari could have asked him about the woman in his hospital room. But she had persevered for years before the accident and finally walked away only when it appeared Ryan had given his heart to someone else.

His spirit heavy within him, Ryan read the rest of the chapter and slowed down around verse eleven. A growing sense of hope began to fill his heart as the words soothed away his sorrow and frustration: When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

That's the difference, he thought. He had been nothing but a child back in his football days-at least in thought and 259 understanding. Now, though, he had a chance to do something he'd never done before.

To love Kari the way G.o.d wanted him to love her. To honor her without any thought for himself.

Tears stung at his eyes as the realization took root, because to love her now after losing all hope of being with her would be more painful than anything Ryan had ever done before. But it would be love. Real love. Grown-up love. After all the years of desiring Kari, of wanting her and believing she'd be his wife one day, Ryan knew there was no time like the present to truly love her.

The way he should have loved her back then.

He didn't have to ask G.o.d what loving Kari would mean now that she had gone back to Tim. The Lord had already whispered the answer to him as clearly as if he were sitting beside Ryan in the cool, empty church.

Without hesitation Ryan eased himself onto his knees, wincing slightly as his left kneecap absorbed his weight. Football, he thought wryly. It had taken the best years of his life, ruined his chances with Kari Baxter, and in return left him with a permanently damaged body.

The Scripture verses on love came back, and he corrected himself. Football hadn't taken those things; his own self-seeking actions had. He exhaled slowly and pictured Kari climbing out of his truck, walking away for the last time.

I still want her, G.o.d ... that's something you'll have to help me with. But right now, please ... please, just give me the strength to love her the way you want me to.

Love her as I have loved you, my son.

Ryan nodded silently, closed his eyes, and did the one thing that proved he had a new understanding of love-a G.o.d-given understanding. With a full and sincere heart he begged the Lord to show Kari and Tim a way to make their marriage work.

Quiet tears slipped down his face as he continued to pray. So this was how painful love could be. Painful enough for Kari to 260 stay in a faithless marriage. Painful enough for him to give up all claim to the woman he loved.

Painful enough for Christ to give his life to save people from their sins.

Ryan slowly shook his head, moved to the core by a new depth of understanding.

So this was love. The kind of love G.o.d had for his people, the kind of love Kari had for Tim.

Ryan stayed there for nearly an hour, ignoring the ache in his heart and his knees as he prayed for Kari's marriage. When he left the church that night, he realized that something deep and profound had happened back in the sanctuary, something that would forever change the way he felt about Kari, but also about his own ability to love.

He thought about the professional coaching offer that had come to him the day before, one that would take him a thousand miles from Bloomington and Kari and the marriage she was trying to save. The offer was a fluke, almost unheard-of for a high school coach, even one who had spent years in the pros. Then again, perhaps it was a divine reprieve, a gift of grace.

The job would require him to relocate in February, well after the football season was over. But at first Ryan had balked. His cabin was here, his ranch, his familiar community. He had deliberately chosen to come back here when he left the Cowboys. It would always be home.

But now ... in light of his commitment to release Kari fully, his leaving Indiana might be the best thing for both of them. A way of ill.u.s.trating a love that was no longer self-seeking.