Page 41 of Divine Temptations

Not to test me.

But to heal me.

I looked down at Dixie, who was smiling up at me like she’d just cracked the code of the universe with her missing tooth and her polka-dot headband.

I smiled back, and for the first time since I arrived at the camp, it didn’t feel forced.

I looked out at the kids. At their trusting, open faces, and I thought:

What if God doesn’t want me to choose between Him and Jake?

What if He brought us together for a reason?

The woods were alive with the thick, sticky hum of cicadas. That relentless summer buzz that made everything feel a little too hot, a little too still, like the world was holding its breath.

The camp had gone quiet hours ago. Kids tucked into bunk beds, counselors probably half-passed out in their own cabins, dreaming about bug spray and s’mores.

But I couldn’t sleep.

I was sitting on the edge of my bunk, elbows on my knees, staring out the window at the moonlight slipping between the trees like silver ribbons.

And all I could think about was her.

Dixie.

With her wild red pigtails and her serious little voice. “So that means love is always a good thing, right?”

God, that question had split me wide open.

Why are kids always right?

Maybe because they haven’t been taught to hate yet.

They haven’t learned shame. Haven’t been broken down by years of sermons preaching fear disguised as righteousness. They just feel things. Purely. Honestly.

Love is love for a kid. They don’t care what it looks like.

They just know.

And I think I finally did too.

Jake.

Jake, with his smart mouth and soft heart. The man who held me like I mattered. Who never looked at me like I was broken or shameful or something to be hidden.

He was the only thing I could think about. Every second. Every breath.

And suddenly, I knew.

God didn’t make mistakes.

If He didn’t want Jake in my life, He never would’ve let us crash into each other like that. Never would’ve lit the spark that caught fire and burned away every lie I’d ever been told about who I was supposed to be.

Jake wasn’t temptation.

He was grace.

And I wasn’t wasting another second pretending otherwise.