Topaz Heat (Christian Romance) (The Jewel Series) by Hallee Bridgeman

room.
    Sarah smiled. “I know what you mean. Next week, chapter four. And, did we want to try to do something together next weekend?”
    They spent five more minutes arranging plans to meet for dinner on Friday night. Sarah made the notation in her phone then finished packing up her materials. She waved good-bye to a couple girls leaving and turned to erase the prayer requests off the white board.
    “Sarah?”
    She looked over her shoulder. “Yes, Lisa?”
    The young brunette’s eyes filled with tears. “Do you have a minute?”
    Sarah dropped everything and turned fully around, putting an arm around Lisa’s thin shoulders. “Of course.” She led them to a table and pulled a chair out, guiding the marketing student into a chair. “What’s wrong?”
    Lisa toyed with the ring on her right finger, spinning the diamond around and around while she struggled to speak. “I’m so confused.”
    Sarah leaned forward and put a hand on Lisa’s knee. “About what?”
    Lisa swallowed. “When I was home this summer, my parents had a big Fourth of July party, and there in front of everyone, my boyfriend proposed to me.”
    Sarah smiled. “I noticed the ring, but you wear it on your right hand and you hadn’t said anything.”
    A tear spilled out of Lisa’s eye and ran down her cheek. “My parents love him. He graduates from college this year and will start law school. He’ll go work in his father’s firm when he’s out of school.”
    “So what’s confusing you?”
    Lisa took a deep shuddering breath. “He’s not a Christian.” She pushed away from the table and stood. With long, nervous strides, she crossed the room and looked out the window, down to the parking lot a floor below. “My parents aren’t, either, for that matter. I was saved last year when Miriam brought me to church with her. Everything inside of me was screaming to tell him, ‘No’, but our families were all there and I felt pressured into saying, ‘Yes.’”
    Sarah followed her, looking down and seeing the cars coming into the parking lot in a steady stream. “Have you talked to him about God?”
    “Some.” She shrugged. “Not a lot. He becomes kind of patronizing about it. Like this is a phase I’ll get over when I finish school.”
    Sarah nodded. “I see. Have you prayed about it?”
    Lisa wrapped her arms around herself. “I have. If we’d been alone, I would have told him that I couldn’t marry him unless he came to know Christ. I know that the right thing to do is to end the engagement. I wear the ring only because I’m terrified something will happen to it before I can return it. I want to do it in person instead of over the phone or mail. I’m just counting down the days until Thanksgiving break until I can get this burden off my shoulders.”
    Sarah felt her eyebrows wrinkle. “So why are you confused?”
    “There’s this guy,” Lisa started, then stopped. Sarah felt her heart tug, felt a little panicky about the way the conversation was going. What did she know about men? Her boyfriend was apparently still married.
    “What guy?” Sarah said.
    “He’s in the choir with me. He’s so nice, and he loves God so much. He’s a seminary student.”
    Sarah ran through the faces in the choir and decided she knew the man to whom Lisa was referring. “And?”
    “And he wants to take me out. Only, my parents would totally not approve. He’s not…”
    The flush on Lisa’s cheek and the way she left the sentence hanging gave Sarah all the clues she needed. “He’s not a future attorney whose daddy is paying his way through law school?”
    “Exactly. He’s a seminary student on scholarship who bags groceries six days a week so that he can eat. And before that, he had a really hard time in high school and ended up quitting school. He was in a grunge rock band for a few years before he came to know Christ. Now he’s turned his life around and wants to preach.”
    Sarah thought that maybe Lisa needed to do some reflection.