Grave Shadows by Jerry B. Jenkins, Chris Fabry Page A

“but he’s probably parroting stuff he’s heard from his parents.”
    I put my fork down and wiped my mouth. “I’ve been there when he writes his column. He doesn’t even pass it by his mom before he sends it to the paper.”
    “I’m just saying some of the stuff is probably from a sermon he’s heard.”
    Mom’s face turned red, and it was her turn to put her fork down, but she kept quiet.
    Sam looked back and forth between Leigh and Mom, then asked Dylan to pass the mashed potatoes. If I hadn’t taken them from him, they would have landed in the green beans.
    Randy broke the silence. “I don’t know. I think the kid’s working out what he thinks about God in the middle of something really scary. Gotta admire that.”
    “I’m sure thinking about God taking him to heaven will comfort him,” Leigh said. “I just don’t think it’s true.”
    “Why not?” Randy said.
    “God’s supposed to love everybody. Why would he give cancer to a kid? Why would he let those kids die the other day in the trailer fire we saw on the news? Or a mom and her daughter in a plane crash?”
    That shut everyone up. Dylan looked at us like there was a bomb under the table, and to be honest, it felt like it.
    Leigh finally put her napkin on the table and went to her room.
    “I didn’t mean to upset anybody,” Randy said.
    “Not your fault,” Sam drawled. “Truth is, there’s a lot more going on than you know.”

Chapter 47

    Here I’d asked God to make me a good friend to Jeff, and now I’d yelled at him and blown it.
    “Sorry,” I said, “I shouldn’t have said that.”
    “No, no, don’t be sorry. Be angry all you want.” He sat up. “You know how long it’s been since anybody got mad enough at me to be honest?”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “My parents, teachers, everybody tries to be so careful. Drives me crazy. I can be a jerk, but everybody’s feeling so sorry for me that they don’t say anything. You don’t know how good it feels to have someone actually get mad.”
    “You should spend more time around Ashley,” I said, and we both laughed.
    Jeff sighed. “People try to keep stuff from you when they should just go ahead and say it. Like, I know why the doctor said I could go on this ride. He doesn’t think I have much longer, but would he or anybody else tell me that? No.”
    I felt bad for keeping the trophy room secret from him, but I had promised his parents. He talked about school, people at church, and friends who talked down to him, like having cancer meant he couldn’t think anymore.
    “Know what?” he said. “The one I’m really mad at is God. I try not to, but the truth is, when you boil it down, he let me get cancer.”
    “Humph,” I said. “I always thought that God must trust you a lot to let you go through this.”
    Jeff flinched. “What do you mean?”
    “Well, he knew you believed in him. He must have known how you would react. He trusted you to go through it.”
    Jeff frowned. “That’s a thought. He’s the one giving me the strength. That’s funny. I’m mad at the one giving me strength.”
    I hadn’t meant to be profound. It just slipped out.

Chapter 48

    I’d been praying for Leigh for a long time. She’d been upset about her mom and little sister dying, and I knew she blamed God, even though she said she didn’t believe he even existed. I left the table and went up to her room, which was like walking into a lion’s den—a lion who didn’t make her bed and was painting her toenails.
    She rolled her eyes. “You’re not going to make this any better.”
    “I just wanted to apologize,” I said. “I didn’t mean to make you mad.”
    She shrugged and kept painting. “It’s not just you. Everybody’s buying into God these days. Taking the easy way out.”
    “The easy way out?”
    “God’s a crutch. You don’t have to deal with problems—you put them on God. If things go bad, it was his plan. He’s up there pulling the strings and we’re