A Time to Love by Al Lacy

Friday evening—a week beyond the wedding rehearsal—the Forrests were invited to go out to dinner with Ed and Frances Diamond. Linda was given a special written invitation from Frances.
    Nolan and Adrienne stood in their daughter’s room, dressed to go out, and Adrienne said, “You have to start sometime, Linda. You can’t be a recluse for the rest of your life.”
    “I can if I want. I’m not going out there where the public is, Mom. We might run into other people we know. Besides, I’m not hungry.”
    Adrienne looked at her husband. “I don’t think we should go away and leave her.”
    “I don’t either,” Nolan said. “When Ed and Frances arrive, we’ll tell them we’ve changed our minds.”
    “No, Daddy,” Linda said. “You two go on. I’ll be fine. I like being alone.”
    Nolan and Adrienne discussed it for a minute while Linda insistedthey go. Finally they gave in, kissed her good-bye, and said they would be home about ten o’clock.
    When Linda heard the front door close behind her parents and the Diamonds, she sat down in her chair by the window. Would this dead feeling never go away? Would she never have peace? Was she destined to live the rest of her life grieving over what her sister and fiancé had done to her?
    Suddenly she bolted for the door and ran down the hall toward the stairs, weeping. She dashed through the kitchen and out the back door, leaving it open.
    As she walked at a fast pace toward the harbor, a still, small voice kept saying inside her head, “My grace is sufficient for thee. My grace is sufficient for thee.”
    When she reached the harbor, she went to the very spot where she and Lewis had gone the night of the wedding rehearsal. She stood at the edge, and the wind plucked at her long auburn hair as she looked down into the deep black water some thirty feet below.
    Behind Linda, some distance away, a man in a blue uniform slid from his saddle and slowly made his way toward her. He was glad the slapping of the waves at the base of the ledge helped to cover the sound of his footsteps. His heart thudded against his rib cage when he drew close and reached out to grasp her shoulders.
    At the touch of his hands she let out a startled shriek.
    “Little lady,” he said, spinning her around so she could see his cap, uniform, and badge, “I’m just trying to keep you from jumping!”
    When Linda saw who it was, her heart pounded like a trip-hammer. “Oh! Officer Shanahan!”
    The graying policeman blinked, squinted, and said, “Hey, I know you! You and that young fella you were gonna marry were here just a few nights ago. Linda! Yes, that’s your name. He called you Linda. What are you doing here by yourself?”
    “The wedding didn’t happen, Officer Shanahan,” she said flatly.
    “Oh? Can you tell me about it?”
    While the wind blew and the waves washed against the shore, Linda told the officer her story. When she finished, he said, “So you were gonna jump in and end it all, weren’t you?”
    She looked at him in surprise. “Oh! No, sir! I … I’ve felt like I wanted to die and even said so several times, but I would never take my own life, sir. I’m a born-again Christian. I wouldn’t do that. I just came out here to get away from the house … and to pray. On my way here, I got real peace from the Lord. I kept thinking of that Scripture where the Lord told Paul: ‘My grace is sufficient for thee,’ and just about the time I reached the edge here, I broke down and cried, thanking the Lord for His sufficient grace. I’m all right, Officer. I’ll go home now.”
    “That ye will, lassy,” said Shanahan, “but my horse and I will escort you.”
    It was almost nine-thirty when Officer Patrick Shanahan and Linda Forrest turned the corner on her street. The horse carried Linda while Shanahan led him by the reins.
    Suddenly they heard a woman’s voice crying out hysterically as a buggy came bounding from the back of the Forrest house and hit the street.
    “Those