“I saw you and Bentley dancing,”
Luke said as he leaned against the doorframe of his daughter’s room; the only
thing he’d ever painted pink. Aurora looked at him in the mirror of her vanity.
“You
don’t mind, do you, Daddy?” she asked nervously.
“I
mind,” he sighed with a smile and came to sit down on her bed. “I don’t want
him to hurt you.”
“He
won’t.”
Luke
remembered calling that type of faith naïveté when he first met Scarlet but she
had proven to him that it was not blindness but determination. It often caught
him off guard how much Aurora was like Scarlet. “How do you know that?”
“Because
he is a good man. Just like you.” She said it as easily as breathing and
clearly had no idea of the gravity of her words. They poured life into his
heart. He loved that she was so much like Scarlet. Both of them spoke their
mind with ease, lending life and light to whoever heard them.
“I’m
not doubting that he’s a good guy, but he is only nineteen,” Luke pushed her
hair back from her face.
Aurora
laughed. “Daddy, you just contradicted yourself. He either is or he isn’t.
There’s no halfway. Not in my book, anyway.”
“Your
mom would say the same thing.”
“And
she chose to believe in you.”
Luke
knew she was right. Scarlet could have chosen a different man, could have
chosen not to let him love her.
“I’m
choosing to believe in Bentley,” Aurora said with quiet resolution.
“She’s
fallen for him so quickly, Lord. Please help her to guard her heart.”
“Just
be careful, angel. A real man will prove himself through his actions, not his
words.”
“Bentley
didn’t say anything tonight, he just asked me to dance,” Aurora said with a
mocking smile.
Luke laughed. “I
meant in the future,” he stood behind her in the mirror so he could see her
beautiful face.
“May
I ask you something?” she looked up at him.
“Of
course.”
“How’d
you prove to Mom that you loved her?”
Luke
didn’t answer for a minute as he thought. He knew he didn’t prove his love to
Scarlet as much as he should. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how many
years they spent together, he would never be able to love her the way she
deserved to be loved because he was a fallen man. Thank You for grace, God. Thank You that You love her enough
for the both of us. Help me love her better.
“I
try to put her before my own needs,” he began. “I make her a priority in my
life, whatever that takes. I’ll clear time in my calendar to specifically and
purposefully spend time with her and listen to her, to let her immerse me in
her world so that I can be a part of it. Your mom wears her heart on her
sleeve. She loves sharing her heart with me and I have to be very deliberate
about making sure that I allow her to do that by opening myself up to her. It’s
not always easy to love her but it is always worth it. When I asked her to
marry me, I promised to strive to love her as Christ loves her. I send that
prayer up daily. She is the most important thing I have in my life and I will
do everything I can to ensure that she knows that.”
“Daddy,
do you love me?” Aurora asked, longing to be loved the same way. Luke picked up
her hairbrush and began to brush out her long blonde curls. When he was done,
he kissed the top of her head and said,
“With
all that I am.”
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