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memory flooded his mind, he pushed out his lips. “That first moment I walked into the Methodist Church and saw you singing in the choir, I was smitten. When you sang it was like God was speaking to me. And when you’ve heard God talk, or sing in this case, you aren’t satisfied with a just any girl. I wanted the girl, and that was you.”
    Carole shook her head incredulously. “You heard God speak through me?”
    “Oh, Carole, I see Him in you everyday. The way you reach out to help others. The concern you show for your parents or even that brat of a kid who lives next door. The way you put up with us living in an old, drafty rented house, driving that beat-up Chevy. The love you show for me in your eyes and even in your touch. I’m not sure I really knew there was a God until I met you.”
    “George, do you mean that?”
    “You know that passage in the Bible you’re always quoting,” he softly replied. “That one about helping those who have less than we do.”
    “Matthew 25:35–40?” she asked. “The verses about reaching the least of these?”
    “Yeah, that’s it. I watch you live that every day. In fact, if it wasn’t for you, I’d feel sorry for myself all the time. But you always make me realize that even though we don’t have much, we are somehow rich in so many ways.”
    He smiled as he thought back to the ad he’d read last night, “Now, we don’t have a Packard. That’s what you really deserve.”
    “No, I don’t.” She laughed. Then, shaking her head, she added, “We are rich today. No doubt about that.”
    His words now spilling out like water over Niagara Falls, George added, “Carole, I mean it, I lived on instinct, not faith, until you came into my life. When you came to me my whole perspective changed. I stopped worrying about what I didn’t have. I was just lucky to have you.”
    “Then the Lord did bring us together,” she solemnly assured him. “And if you see all that in me, He must have given you vision problems in the process.”
    She grinned. Then her voice became low and took on a much more serious tone, “When I was little, Mom told me to pray that God would bring a special man into my life. Well I started when I was six praying that prayer. And He did!”
    George was suddenly so overcome with emotion he’d almost forgotten why he was at the hospital. The only thing on his mind, in his heart, or in his eyes was Carole. She was the whole world. Nothing else mattered. He was leaning down to kiss her when the door swung open and a fast-talking, short, energetic nurse belted out, “Anybody here want to hold a baby?’
    Twisting in the chair, George sat paralyzed as the woman quickly crossed the room and gently pushed Rose toward the completely unprepared new father. Instinctively, he opened his arms for the white-draped bundle and whispered, “I’m not sure I know how to do this.”
    “As long as you don’t drop her,” the nurse explained, “there’s not really a wrong way. Just cradle your arms, and I’ll place her in a spot right beside your heart. One look at your face tells me she already owns that anyway.”
    It was with unbridled excitement coupled with trepidation that he took the baby. He couldn’t believe how tiny and perfect she was. He’d never felt so overwhelmed or so humbled. His eyes misted and his throat closed up. As Rose rested there in the cradle formed by his left arm, George gently traced his index finger along her forehead and chin.
    “So what do you think?” Carole softly asked while laying her left hand on his shoulder.
    Never taking his eyes from the tiny life they had created together, he said, “Can we really do this?”
    “I think you already have,” the nurse joked.
    He forced a grin, but in truth he was suddenly deeply troubled. What kind of father would he be? Could he really keep this little girl safe? Could he really find the wisdom to guide her steps through life? Could he always be there when she needed him? Before this