The Christmas Switch by Zoey Marie Jackson

Author:Zoey Marie Jackson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2022-08-02T19:58:27+00:00

Chapter Twelve

God was giving him a spiritual workout. For two days—forty-eight hours—he sweated while he waited, all the while marveling at Gabby’s mustard-seed faith. His little princess never stopped smiling. Instead, she would ask in the morning and evenings if Ryder had heard from her mom, and he would tense when he told her that he hadn’t, expecting Gabby to fall apart.

But she only tilted her head and said, “God’s going to do it. Because I asked Him.”

Every time she said that, her quiet confidence punched him in the gut. Ryder could only nod and say, “Yep. He will.”

On the evening of the second day, Gabby sat at the kitchen table with her legs tucked under her. She was coloring in her Disney-princess coloring book when she made the usual inquiry about her mother calling, and he gave his typical response. But this time, she narrowed her gaze and looked at him like she was seeing his thoughts. “Do you believe that she’s going to call, Daddy?”

He stepped back. “Um. Well, she might be busy.”

Gabby’s face fell. Picking up her crayon, she said, “That’s why she hasn’t yet. Because you don’t believe it’s impawsible.”

“You mean possible.” His mouth popped open at her perceptiveness. She was five, but her thinking was that of someone twenty years older. “Of course I think it’s possible.” It was only logical that Brittany would reach out eventually.

“But you have to belief,” she insisted, getting to her feet and walking over to him.

“I do believe,” he replied, putting emphasis on the word.

“Then, can you pray, Daddy?” she asked, putting a hand on her hip like she was grown.

I have been praying, he wanted to say. But had he really prayed with the kind of faith required? “Okay, honey, I will pray.”

He held her hand and prayed to God to ask that He allow Brittany to call. As soon as he ended the prayer and Gabby had returned to her coloring, his cell phone rang. Hope filled his chest when he looked at the screen. But it was a number he had identified as spam. Defeated, he allowed the call to go to voice mail. He slipped the phone in his back pocket and exhaled, feeling silly for thinking God would come through that fast.

Did God view his prayers as spam calls? A nuisance? An annoyance? A disturbance compared to even more important prayers?

He squelched those questions and recited Matthew 7:9 under his breath. “Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?” God wouldn’t do that, and he would keep repeating the Scripture until it became his truth.

Later that night, after he had tucked in Gabby and gotten into his king-size bed, his cell phone rang. It was facedown on his nightstand, and Ryder almost let the call go to voice mail. Almost.

The mustard-seed hope refused to die.

Even though his eyes burned, Ryder picked up the phone, yawned and uttered a sleepy, “Hello?”

“Ryder?” the voice asked.

“Brittany? Is that you?” He shot up, wide awake, and threw off the covers.

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