Sisterchicks Say Ooh La La! Read Online Free Page B

unless I signed it, I no longer was welcome to hang out with the Kroeker clan. That’s why I pulled back from you. I thought all of you felt the same way.”
    “No. No!” I couldn’t stop shaking my head. “Amy, no.”
    She dabbed her tears with the edge of the bedsheet. “Lisa, I should have talked to you about this right away. I can’t believe I didn’t. I told my mom what happened, and she said that since all your brothers had moved out by then and you were the only one living at home, I shouldn’t do anything that might alienate you from your mom.”
    “But Amy, I’ve always felt alienated from my mom. I still am.”
    “Oh, Lisa, I am so sorry.” Amy reached over and grabbed my wrist. “We have to start over, you and me. This is our fresh start. From now on you and I have to be there for each other, no matter what. No more isolating ourselves for anyreason! No prom dates or mothers or … or … typhoons can come between us.”
    She gave my wrist a firm squeeze. “Promise me, Lisa. Promise me we’ll start over. I’ve never found another friend like you. We’re sisters, you and I. We never should have been apart the way we were. We have to stay in each other’s lives from here on out. Promise me.”
    “I promise.”
    For the next forty minutes, baby Jeanette slept in my arms while Amy and I opened our hearts to each other. Amy’s bed always had been such a lovely place for telling secrets and making vows. That day, on her hotel bed, was no different.
    Amy eagerly told me about how she had met Mark when, as a college student, she went to a campus Bible study. He was the faculty sponsor.
    “If you can believe this, your mother’s salvation paper actually started my first conversation with Mark.”
    I winced, but Amy laughed. “No, it was a good thing. I kept that paper in the back of the Bible you gave me. The second time I visited the Bible study, I pulled out the paper and asked Mark questions about each verse your mom had listed. Mark patiently explained how Christ had made a way for me to come to God. I saw it all in the verses. I was being offered the chance to receive forgiveness and to enter into a new life, eternal life, through Christ. I hadn’t understood that before. A light went onfor me, and I believed. I received.” She was beaming.
    I sat very quiet, listening. How strange to know that now I was the one hiding in the shadows while Amy was the one walking boldly in full light. Growing up I’d been told our family and our church possessed all the truth while Amy, her mom, and her grandmere were in the dark. We were told to pray for them. I dearly wanted Amy, who was now so full of life that she was brimming over with babies, to pray for me.
    “So, see, Lisa? Everything your mom was trying in her own way to give me came to me at the right time. As a gift. From Christ. I know now that’s what your mom wanted all along. Salvation. In the end, her less-than-tactful approach didn’t hurt me at all.”
    “But it hurt us,” I said.
    “Yes, for a little while. But look! We’re back together now. At just the right time.”
    Amy smiled softly, and I felt my curled-up spirit unfurl for the first time in ever so long. I took a deep breath.
    “Mark says there are no maverick molecules in the universe. Everything works together according to God’s design. I don’t hold anything against your mother, Lisa. I really don’t. I hope you don’t, either.”
    In that moment I didn’t. I couldn’t. All I could do was receive. In the same way that I tenderly held tiny Jeanette in my arms, I realized God had been holding me as a baby believer for many years. It was time to grow up. This timein my spirit. And once again the journey would be alongside the one and only Amelie Jeanette DuPree Rafferty.
    Oui!

I mark that afternoon
in the hotel room with Amy as the beginning of my adult faith journey. So much changed that day. I tossed out my list of potential boyfriends along with my list of