Grandpa Chuck never let me get too close to Meredith. He just took my supplies and went to her room to take care of her. He advised me to wait in the living room.
During my time I used it to look around. In a wall leading to the kitchen was their family picture. It was Meredith when she was probably seven or eight. She was carried up in her dad's arms. She grinned so wide her eyes were nothing but slits. Her dad, dark-haires and fair-skinned, looked just like her. The picture looked like a photograph from a hundred years ago.
I shifted to another photo and it was Meredith with her mom this time. Her mom had the same dark brown hair as hers. She also had the same bright brown eyes. She held Meredith in one hand. They looked like they were in a supermarket. The surroundings were dark due to the camera flash.
I smiled. Meredith looked like her childhood was pretty happy. And she still is even without her parents.
God is amazing, I thought. I moved on to another picture of Meredith as a baby being carried by Grandpa Chuck, who looked way younger in the photo. They stood behind a fence. Behind them were cows and chickens. They were in a ranch, I realized.
When I heard footsteps behind me I turned. Grandpa Chuck was walking towards me, his hands on his hips, staring at the old photographs on the wall.
"Do you guys have your own ranch?" I asked.
He nodded. "Raised Meredith there till she was sixteen. It was really hard to come into town... but she said she wanted to show Jesus in a bigger area. She wanted to challenge herself."
When I heard that I was stunned. For a seemingly sweet girl like her, I never thought she was that strong--taking on a town that knew no God. She was out there, doing her best to share her smile, her faith. And she didn't do so out of convincing or obligation.
She completely did it out of love.
I smiled wistfully on the pictures. "We don't deserve her."
"We?" Grandpa Chuck asked.
I nodded. "Us. The whole school. We take her for granted. She's amazing. All of you guys are amazing. I can't express it in any word of how lucky we are to have you in our town. This place has been stale for too long."
"You got that right," the old man grunted. "But you're not lucky, Charlie. You're blessed. Everything is intentional. It was God who knew what you needed. He knew all you needed was Him."
I smiled. "I knew there was something more, I just didn't know what it was. And... Meredith helped me see that."
"She's a blessing to everyone. Especially her family."
I nodded. I ran a finger down the dusty frames. I blew it away and put my hands in my pockets. Grandpa Chuck patted my shoulder.
"Want to see her?" He asked.
I nodded.
Meredith's room was pretty much how I expected it. Pink walls, a dresser decorated with different kinds of daisies, a bedside lamplight, and a table right beside her headboard.
She lied down with the covers to her chin. She kind of looked like a little kid being tended by nurses in a nursery. She had a book in front of her, I tilted my head to see it was a Bible.
"Meredith," Grandpa Chuck said.
She set down the Bible and grinned at us.
"You've probably looked worse," I said.
She nodded with a grin. "I have. One time, my pet pig back in our farm wrestled me into the mud bath. I smelled like a pigsty for weeks!"
Grandpa Chuck and I laughed. Meredith giggled sheepishly, and then she coughed. Grandpa Chuck let her drink some water.
"How are you feeling?" I asked when the old man went out of the room to get some more aspirin.
Meredith sighed. "Pretty okay... Grandpa is a great nurse. He's actually a vet. He says I'm his favorite sheep to take care of."
"Sheep?" I smiled.
"It's what the Lord calls His children," she explained, her eyes lit up, "In Psalms chapter ninety-five verse seven: For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you hear His voice."
I sat down the beanbag chair a few feet beside her bed.
"How is Nurse Emily?" She asked.
"She's really worried about you. She said if it wasn't for her job, she would've been here and took care of you herself."
She giggled. "She's so sweet."
I smiled.
And then time passed us by so silently, the awkwardness followed. I sat on that beanbag chair tapping my foot nervously and waiting for Grandpa Chuck to get back inside.
"So, about yesterday," Meredith broke the still silence.
"Yeah?"
"Why'd you run out like that?" She asked. She looked hard at me, as if she didn't see any of this was awkward. "I honestly thought you didn't see me that time, but then you didn't come to me after last period."
I blushed. I couldn't look at her. "Yeah... just... it was just me and my messed-up thoughts."
"If it's okay, could you tell me what's wrong?"
"I thought... all of this..." I started, "I thought this was all going to be a phase."
She furrowed her eyebrows. "All of this?"
"Yes. This," I looked at her now. "About God, helping people, peace, Christianity..."
She stared at me. She didn't move.
"But I realize now it isn't."
She raised her eyebrows, but she didn't look surprised. "And how so?"
I straightened. "Because all of this... is not a phase. It's faith. It's God. And He is real. He's real and He's moving. And just like the Bible verses I see on the church sign and on your sticky notes, He has something new everyday. He is full of surprises. You will never get enough of Him. And so you will never be done with Him. You could spend forever and still be trying to crave more and more of Jesus. That's what He is. He's everything and more than we could ever ask or think."
I looked at her straight this time, my heart pounding. "I know Jesus is real. I know because I see Him... in you."
Meredith stared at me, her eyes wide. And then slowly she smiled. "That's the thing with God. He's not temporary. And so He is worth risking your image, your popularity, your baseball... He's worth risking your all."
I smiled.
"What made you think it was a phase, anyway?"
"I heard Calum say it. And then I started to feel like it might be true."
She shook her head. "Stop letting your feelings predict what you're going to do. Feelings are just feelings. Most of them aren't really true."
She then grabbed something from the drawer beside her. A sticky note. She wrote something on it with her felt pen.
For we live by believing and not by seeing. ~2 Corinthians 5:7
I smiled. "Thanks."
She grinned. And then she leaned back on her headboard and started to read her Bible again.
"Uh, Meredith?" I asked.
She looked up at me.
"Why do you always use sticky notes?" I asked.
She smiled.
And I knew I was going to know more about her the next few minutes or hours or days.