Stacy finished off the final sip of mocha in her cup and stared at Daryl.
“So, what do you think of the resurrection?” she asked.
“I’m pro resurrection,” replied Daryl.
Wrong answer.
Daryl could tell.
He’d gotten the last seven or so questions wrong.
Not wrong enough for Stacy to stop asking.
But wrong enough that Stacy could probably tell he wasn’t really a Christian.
She kept digging. Hoping.
“What do you think about the Trinity?” Stacy ventured.
“I can’t believe some people of faith even question it.”
“For me, it’s always been one of the tenets that I have to accept by faith. I don’t really get it.”
Daryl wasn’t sure what the natural way to talk about doubt around a true believer was. And Stacy was absolutely a true believer.
“Sometimes I have questions too,” tried Daryl.
“Yeah?” Stacy’s ears perked up.
“But I try to submit them all to God and rest knowing he has it figured out.”
Stacy lit up.
Bingo. Finally, a right answer.
“That’s so encouraging to hear, Daryl. You’re right, at the end of the day we have to leave it up to him.”
The night before, Daryl had stayed up until three in the morning listening to sermons from Stacy’s church’s YouTube channel. The Christian vernacular was foreign to Daryl, but he knew he needed to know how to use it, at least to some degree, to get Stacy to go on a date with him.
Stacy and Daryl had met a couple months earlier after one of their mutual friend’s invited them to join an intramural volleyball team. Stacy had invited a few people on the team to go to her church. Daryl jumped at the chance.
Now, sitting in the church’s coffee shop, Daryl asked Stacy to go on a date: “Would you be interested in getting dinner sometime? I know a little Italian place with the best Bolognese.”
Stacy looked around to see if anyone else was listening, then leaned in close to Daryl: “I would love that. I’m free this Friday or Saturday.”
Two years later, they were married.
Daryl didn’t tell Stacy he wasn’t a believer until his deathbed.
Lying in his beige hospital room, David confessed, “Living a lie was worth every day I got to spend with you. And I just never stopped. Every day it kept being worth it.”
Fifty years of Christian marriage.
Poof.
Stacy fainted.
A nurse came and helped her out of the room to get assistance.
When Stacy returned to the room a half hour later, Daryl had already passed.