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Lord, is everyone else right? Are we too different to share love and a life together? His questions lined up like so many sections of a barbed wire fence, separating him and the woman he loved.
    At that moment, in the distance, a fighter plane roared down the runway and lifted off the ground. In seconds it was rushing toward the heavens, blazing fast and unstoppable.
    Just like Lauren.
    No matter what he wanted for the two of them, she was determined to go her own way, do her own thing. She continued to write for Time , surrounding herself with a way of thinking that left her suspicious of the U.S. military, and often downright antagonistic. He sighed and looked at the nearby mountains. God … only You can help us now. With You, something could soften her views, help her become less suspicious. Or maybe soften mine. Whatever it takes to help us find our way together. Make it a miraculous change. Help us both see the truth.
    His prayer ended, and he felt a blanket of peace settle around his shoulders. He wasn’t going to give up yet, not when he’d asked God for a miraculous change. Because with the Lord working in their lives, anything could happen. She could finally understand why he believed so strongly in peace through strength, and he could find compassion toward the articles she wrote.
    Yes, with God, all things were possible. Wasn’t that what the Bible said in the book of Matthew? And if all things were possible with God, then a relationship with Lauren could still be real and right and good. The changes could happen a little more every day. Or all at once, if God willed it. Then they might discover the happiness and love they both wanted. A life together was possible, it had to be. God wouldn’t have brought them back together only to have everything end in misery and frustration. Shane smiled to himself and began walking once more toward his office. He would keep praying, and one day they would find common ground.
    Why, with God they might even find happily ever after.

 
    T HREE
     
     
     
     
    E mily couldn’t believe so much could happen in a single week. She finished classes and finals at Wheaton College, confirmed her scholarship and housing at Pacific Lutheran University, packed her things into two suitcases and four boxes, and finally set off for the Northwest. Now she was at her new university in Tacoma, about thirty miles south of Seattle, unpacking her box of photos in a new residence hall on a new campus, and wondering if she was crazy for agreeing to the change.
    The photograph at the top of the box was surrounded by two layers of bubble wrap, and Emily eased it open. She looked down at the image of her grandparents, the two people who had raised her and loved her and encouraged every dream she ever had — whether it was excelling on the soccer field or finding her parents. Because of her grandparents’ support, she’d seen all her dreams become realities — even this one. The goal of spreading her wings and trying life on her own.
    She studied the picture for a moment. No surprise that so much had taken place in a week, not when she remembered all that had gone on in the past six months. Her papa was diagnosed with cancer, and at almost the same time, she’d done the impossible: found her parents. Her dad had been working as an instructor at the Top Gun facility in Fallon, and her mother was a writer for Time magazine. Their reunion had taken place in December, the same week Papa lost his battle to cancer.
    Emily sat the photograph on the small nightstand near her narrow bed. The residence halls at PLU were not much bigger than her walk-in closet back at her grandparents’ home. She removed the next picture from the box — a more recent shot of her parents taken at the airport after her grandfather’s funeral.
    “I still can’t believe it, God.” She dusted the frame and set it on the nightstand next to the other. “You amaze me.”
    Her roommate already had her things set up. Pam King