All That Really Matters by Nicole Deese (new books to read TXT) 📕

teen on that list, but I . . . ” And then, although I had no reason to pause, no reason to hesitate, I was suddenly out of words. Because my ears had heard it that time. The I in a sentence it had no right to be in. Because my answer wasn’t only pointing to my lack of resources, it was pointing to my lack of faith. My lack of control. My lack of a calculated outcome.

These twenty-two kids who stood before me, these twenty-two kids who’d been beaten by life’s hardships and trampled on by traumas I couldn’t even imagine, were all willing to believe in the God who made the impossible possible. And why wouldn’t they? Each of them was living it now. Each of them knew where they’d be without this house. Without this hope. Suddenly, their ask was so much bigger than a vision board or an off-the-page goal. Their ask was about lives being rescued and souls being saved from the prowling darkness of a world I’d only glimpsed from the safety of my cushy existence.

Not anymore.

“Molly?” Silas’s tender voice drew my eyes up to his. “What do you think? Can you help them share their stories?”

The irony of the same man who’d once scolded me for posting a video from his lobby now asking me to link a video of his residents to an online fundraising campaign wasn’t lost on me. Just like this moment. Just like this giant task before us.

And now, for an entirely different reason than when I’d first walked into this room, my heart began to pound and my palms began to sweat. I didn’t know how it would all work out or if we’d even raise enough for a single mattress to be added to one of the cottages, but I did know what my answer had to be. Because I finally understood the question being asked. It wasn’t about what I could give or what I could offer or what I could create in my own strength.

The real question, the bigger question, was about what God wanted to do with that waiting list of hurting kids—an answer, I realized, He’d never intended to come through my efforts alone.

Joy and determination rose within me. “I think I have no grounds to say no, especially since your online followers now outnumber mine by a hundred percent.” Laughter bounced off the walls. “Let’s do this.”

38

Molly

If ever there was a need for a good under-eye concealer, it was today. Only there was no time for makeup routines or hair styling or any form of my usual Mandatory Recording Day Protocols. Filming had to begin within the next ninety minutes if we were going to be able to record, edit, post, and promote in time to get any kind of traction for our Bridge The Gap fundraising campaign. The night had been short and the morning had come early, and there were currently sixteen residents waiting for either me, Glo, or Clara to review their notes on what The Bridge had provided them during their time in the program.

While they had been preparing last night for their short on-camera testimonials today, I’d been researching with Val. She’d video chatted with me until the wee hours of the morning, propped on a soggy Chinese take-out box, providing moral support through my phone screen. What I wouldn’t give to have her here with me in person today! Val was quite literally the savviest woman I knew. Even still, when you only had hours to research how to fundraise using social media . . . the results were limited at best. After we’d exhausted our efforts and our go-to resources on Google, the answer of how to pull this off had never been more clear: We needed a miracle sent on a two-day express from heaven.

“Molly?” Glo waved me over to the pretty garden area where she and Diego worked to set up the lights and tripod on the stage the way I’d instructed. “Can you explain about the angles again? Should the sun be in front of the interviewee or behind them?”

I opened my mouth to answer her, only to hear my name being called from somewhere behind me by Amy. The number of nervous tears that had already been shed this morning was at least five times greater than the cups of coffee I’d consumed.

Amy marched toward me, waving her notes in the air. “Monica and I have identical lines planned for our interviews—is that allowed? Does one of us need to change our testimony?”

“I’m sure there’s a way we can tweak one of your lines to be a little diff—”

“Hey, Molly! I don’t have a shirt without a logo on the front. Can you just, like, put one of those fuzzy stickers over my chest for the interview?” Devon strutted out of the guys’ Bunkhouse, showing off his six-pack with what I was certain was a perfectly timed escapade, given the group of seven young women who stood not too far away from him.

I took a breath and held out my palms like a seven-year-old who still believed invisibility was a thing that could be achieved.

At that moment Silas stepped in front of me, gripping a to-go coffee cup with my name scrawled across the front. Goodness, how I loved this man.

“Okay, everyone,” he said. “New rule. From this point on, if any of you has a question for Molly, you can run it past me first. We’re on a tight production schedule today, and every delay costs us valuable time. Everyone understand?”

They answered with a unanimous “Yes, sir.”

A mix of relief and renewed hope filled me as he offered me the coffee. “I thought you could use this.”

I beamed up at him. Ever aware of our audience and their prying eyes, I lowered my voice. “You make a strikingly handsome bouncer.”

A slow smile crept over his face. “I aim to please.”

Devon, who was standing just a few yards away, didn’t let the moment go unnoticed.