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her eyes and screamed, "Help me, God! I don't know what to do."
    For the next thirty minutes she stayed anchored to the chair. She heard him searching through the closet and pictured him finding his suitcase. She listened to the sound of dresser drawers and closet doors opening and closing, and finally he appeared in the living room once more.
    He had a suitcase in each hand, the overnight bag hanging from his shoulder.
    She felt like a dazed accident victim. "Don't go."
    Again the words seemed strangely out of place, as if they were coming from someone else. Tim was in love with another woman and wanted a divorce. He'd become the crudest man he could ever be. He'd broken their wedding vows and done the one thing that would give her a scriptural excuse for ending their marriage.
    But despite her anger and grief, despite the shock that still shook her body, she knew one thing for certain: She didn't want 33
    a way out. She didn't want to give up on her promise to stay no matter what, to love no matter the cost.
    Her anger subsided. "Stay." Sorrow and fear smothered her voice. "Work it out with me. Please."
    Tim hesitated, and she almost thought he might change his mind. She looked deeply into his eyes and willed him to hear her heart. Come on . . . don't give up on us. ...
    "Good-bye, Kari. I'll call you tomorrow; we need to talk about the legalities."
    He took one step toward the front door. "You can reach me at work."
    Kari stood. She thought of a dozen things she wanted to say and do. She wanted to walk up and slap him across the face, spit at him, or kick him in the leg.
    She wanted to punch a hole in the wall or collapse in a heap and have a complete breakdown-the one only God was holding at bay, the one she was certain to have in the hours and days and weeks ahead.
    Instead, she looked at Tim as he walked out the door and said just one thing.
    "I won't give you a divorce."
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    She slept on the couch, crying so hard she thought her ribs would break.
    Countless times Kari considered going back to the woman's apartment, finding Tim, asking him if it weren't all a bad dream. Begging him to tell her it wasn't true, that he wasn't in love with one of his students, determined never to come home.
    But in the end she stayed on the couch.
    The truth was so real it was suffocating. Sometime around three o'clock in the morning, her heart began skipping about in irregular patterns. Sweat broke out across her forehead and she felt flushed. Kari recognized the symptoms. She was having an anxiety attack.
    Small wonder.
    She turned on the table lamp and reached for the Bible she kept beneath it. Show me something, Lord ... give me peace. I can't make it through the night.
    Flipping through the pages, she settled into Psalms and began skimming verses, looking for promises of peace or vengeance or at the very least, deliverance.
    Her eyes scanned Psalms 48 and
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    49, and then from deep in the sea of pain her feet hit solid ground.
    It came in the form of Psalm 50:15: Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me.
    Nothing about what Tim had done was honorable; in fact, she was deeply ashamed for him, for both of them. But here in God's Word, among all the other promises that would always be true, was one that seemed written just for her. To think that God would not only deliver her but also give her a chance to somehow honor him in the midst of this disaster. It was enough to make her heart Śrate return to normal and the flushed feeling fade.
    Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me.
    "Help me, Lord," she whispered into the night. "I'm so lost."
    She closed the Bible, flipped off the light, and lay there repeating the verse in the dark, believing the promise within. It was the only thing that got her through the rest of the night.
    In the morning, when she remembered that Tim had left her for another woman, when the reality of that settled around her