“I’m not making excuses.”
“Aren’t you?”
Was she?
“Do you think God would have let Moses stammer in front of Pharaoh? Do you think He would have told Moses to do this great thing and then left him alone to flounder?”
She averted her eyes. “No.”
“That’s right. No. Because God doesn’t call the equipped, Amber. He equips the called.”
Hebrews 13:21.
Her lids lowered, and she lifted her face up to the sky. Opened her heart back up…this time as an offering. When had she lost sight of that simple truth? It was never about any of her merits or lack thereof. God didn’t care if He had pulled her out of the lowest of places and washed her clean, or if He’d only had to help her up when she stumbled and scraped her knee. He didn’t compare her journey to anyone else’s, and neither should she. Like Peter, she’d taken her eyes off the Lord and sunk. But now she wanted to be like Isaiah.Here I am, Lord. Send me.
“You know, I think the princess who used to live here was surprised at what God called her to do as well.” He glanced at her with a half-smile. “If you think you’ve had a hard time of it because of your gender, you should imagine what it was like for her five hundred years ago.”
Amber followed the lines of the castle parapet, the curve of the turrets. She tried to picture what life would have been like, living in a castle like this at a time like that. She’d taken Church History 305. Learned about the hardships and struggles during the Protestant Reformation and Counter-Reformation periods. Germany gave birth to new ways of spiritual thinking through men like Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli, Hubmaier, and Simons. But therewereinfluential women of the Reformation, too, although less famous. Luther’s wife, Katarina, Anna Bullinger, and Jeanne d’Albert, queen of Navarre.
But what of this princess? Amber had never heard of a woman of royal heritage taking part in the transformation of religious thought during that time. Not in this region. But history was often male-centric, so that didn’t surprise her.
The draw she felt to the castle, however, did. A connection that went soul deep. It didn’t make sense, but she found she didn’t really care. She’d always remember this place. A consecrated altar. If she didn’t think her actions would be frowned upon, she’d gather twelve stones and stack them atop each other, an example from the Old Testament.
She turned to Michael. “What happened to this princess and the man she hid? Did anyone find him? Did they…” Separation of church and state didn’t exist in the Holy Roman Empire. If a person didn’t worship the way the ruling state demanded, legal and often fatal consequences were enforced. Martyrs of conviction and faith.
“From what I read, she was able to keep his presence a secret for a time—long enough to learn about grace through faith and receive a believer’s baptism.”
“And then?” Amber pressed after he hesitated.
He met her gaze. “And then they were both drowned for their convictions.” He paused. “But we both know God takes things that look like failure to our eyes and uses them for His purpose. The princess’s father, so shaken by his daughter’s stand, examined her beliefs and soon accepted them as his own. Because of her sacrifice and willingness to stay faithful, light was able to come to this region during the Reformation.”
Beauty for ashes. Blessings instead of mourning. Praise instead of despair. How would God use Amber’s own faithfulness?
Michael picked up a seed pod from a nearby tree and twirled it in his fingers. “Now on to the other thing we need to discuss.”
“There’s more?”
He let the pod go and watched it spiral to the ground. “Yeah, though I’m more than tempted to call up Trent and have him talk to you about it.”
Amber bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing as Michael’s face flushed. If she needed a guy pummeled for some reason, he’d show up. Talk about boy troubles due to matters of the heart? Well, not something they taught in boot camp. Michael adhered to more of a strong-and-silent code of conduct.
“You don’t have to worry. Nothing that paparazzo said was true.”
“We aren’t worried about that. No one who’s ever met you would be worried aboutthat.”
“Hey!” She pushed on his shoulder.
One single brow rose in response.
She laughed. Okay, yeah, she did kind of have a reputation, and being seduced by a good-looking athlete wasn’t it.
He ran a hand along the back of his neck. “Thing is, we all saw the pictures.”
“What about them? They weren’t compromising or anything.”
His chin dipped. “Telling, is more like it.”
“Telling? Really?” It was her turn to raise a brow. “What exactly did those pictures tell you?”
