She gave a faint smile. “I’m trying not to let my thoughts run.”

Samuel closed the Bible carefully.

She sat opposite him then, folding her hands together. “I know what the Bible says,” she said. “I know what we’ve learned. But sometimes when the world says the exact kind of thing we’ve talked about for years… it feels strange when it actually starts sounding close.”

He understood her meaning. There was a difference between believing prophecy in theory and hearing the language of it echo through current events.

That was where trust was tested—not by having no questions, but by choosing where to carry them.

Nathan looked up suddenly from the floor. “Mom?”