Grace

10. Good News

Jordan may have reached a comfortable conclusion regarding his and Grace's relationship, but everyone at school insisted on 'shipping the two of them, no matter how many times Jordan insisted that they were hardly even friends. He was getting increasingly fed up with all the digs about his weird religious "girlfriend." Everyone teased him about it, friend and enemy alike. In fact, the only people in the tenth grade who didn't think Grace and Jordan were dating were Grace and Jordan themselves.

The added teasing served to make school the next day even more miserable than usual. One scrap of comfort was that Dylan didn't do anything especially nasty to him that day, aside from the usual kicks, which Jordan was getting especially good at avoiding. Jordan wondered if the bully was preoccupied with tormenting someone else.

He found out when Grace met up with him after school. She looked a little more flustered than usual, and there was a large, macaroni-colored stain on her shirt.

"Dylan accidentally spilled his lunch all over me," she explained briefly when she saw the question on his face.

"The jerk," growled Jordan. He caught sight of Dylan and his ever-present minions across the school grounds. "I'll rearrange his face." He started forward, clenching his fists, but Grace grabbed his arm and held him back.

"Are you crazy?" she hissed, "There's three of them! And it's not worth it. Just let it go."

"Awwww, look how cute they are when they fight with each other!" gushed a nearby-tenth grade girl to her friends. The girls laughed with high-pitched voices as Grace and Jordan hurried off, both of them red-faced.

***********************

"You know what I don't get about you?" said Jordan once the two teenagers had reached the Park Bench of Awkwardness. (By this point, it was becoming more like The Park Bench of Deep Discussions.)

"What?" Grace had changed out of her macaroni- stained T-shirt into a clean one and was busily setting up her drawing supplies.

"I don't get how you can put up with the way Dylan is treating you and still believe in God. "

"You mean, how could a good God let innocent people suffer?"

"Yeah," said Jordan, warming to his theme. For once, maybe he could finally corner Grace. "If you really believe God is so great and powerful, then how come he doesn't stop cruddy things from happening to people?"

"Well that, sir, is the ten-thousand-dollar question," said Grace. "Everybody asks it at some point, and there is no answer can completely satisfy us, because we are only human and we just don't understand exactly how God works."

"So you don't know," Jordan summed up.

"We can never understand God and suffering completely, but we can get pretty close," said Grace.

"How close?"

Grace frowned, bent over her sketchbook. "It all kind of boils down to love," she said finally, and Jordan could tell she was thinking carefully about each word. "I believe that God loves us so much that He actually became one of us... walked on the earth... suffered... and died." Her hand came up and touched the cross around her neck. "And because He did that, suffering means something. There's really nothing we can endure that He hasn't endured Himself. We can give it to Him, and He makes it something beautiful, powerful even."

"Powerful, huh?"

"Yes. He couldn't have risen if He hadn't died first. And then there's Heaven. No matter how hard your life is on earth, if you truly try to do the right thing, than Heaven will make up for everything. I can't wait to go there," she added, almost to herself.