All That Really Matters (McKenzie Family Romance #1)

by Nicole Deese

“Silas, you speak like you’re . . . I don’t know, like you’re some kind of dignified aristocrat from the 1800s. Like a duke. You speak like a duke.” “And have you heard many a duke speak?” She raised her chin. “No, but I have read many a duke’s dialogue. Which is basically the same thing.”

Miles stopped popping chocolate-covered raisins into his mouth and stared at me. “You do realize that kidnapping the residents isn’t a standard mentoring practice.”

Yet I knew from experience that serving others was a sure-fire way to shift an off-kilter focus to a new perspective.

I couldn’t hold back the truth of who I was for one more second. Because confessing had to be better than the guilt pumping through my veins right now and poisoning my heart.

And no matter how desperately I want to be more than just a pretty face with an addictive personality . . . the truth is, the only person I wanted to help when I first came here was me and me alone.”

“But more often than not, the best rescue plan we can offer someone we care about is our support for each step they take forward.”

‘God has uniquely shaped gifts for every one of His uniquely shaped people.’ She’d tell me it was okay that my gifts didn’t fit inside the same box as my family’s gifts did. But as a kid, that was pretty hard for me to understand. It still is sometimes.”

Because I was no longer the practiced smile and perfectly made-up face I was two months ago. Nor was I the selfless leader I’d tried and failed to become. I was a woman lost to the in-between, an identity divided between two versions of herself she could no longer accept. Because neither was complete.

I may not know who I was . . . but at least I was starting to understand who I wasn’t.

“Love lives in the hard places with us because that’s what sets it apart. That’s what makes it love.”

Rarely did I sit in the tension between my plans and God’s, between my wants and His, my way and His. Instead, I’d become an expert at throwing all my best efforts at problems bigger than myself and finding detours of escape without ever stopping to ask for guidance.

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.