Trust Read Online Free PDF Page B

jobs, with their one or two or sometimes three kids, needy and clinging, or watchful and tough. And then, they always moved on.
    She wiped the tears away, gazing despondently at the cardboard boxes stacked in a corner, left by the latest sharer to depart. Would their owner really come and pick them up, as she had promised? Probably not. They hardly ever did.
    The harp music ended in a plangent swoon of notes. Angie knew she should get up; she should do the dishes, or the washing, or her overdue taxes, but she felt too weighed down to move. She rested her head on the arm of the couch and let herself be swept away on the current of sorrow.
    Were those footsteps on the verandah? She sat up quickly. Most likely the woman who had just moved out. A knock at the front door. Angie snatched up a couple of tissues, blew her nose hard and blotted her eyes. Would her visitor know she’d been crying? Too bad. No one cares anyway .
    But when Angie opened the front door, she saw not her former tenant, but a slim man in a checked cowboy shirt with pearled press studs, holding an acoustic guitar in his right hand and smiling politely. ‘Gabriel!’ she said, astonished.
    He brushed a long curl shyly back from his face, not moving closer. ‘Hello, Angie – I’m glad to find you at home.’ His smile intensified. ‘Pastor Tim’s wife gave me your address, but it was the Lord who told me I should come here tonight.’
    ‘Oh! I’m — I —’ She was gesturing him in with a sweep of her hand. ‘Please!’
    His eyes were such an unusual colour, a lovely pale green that made Angie think of water and glass and other cool things, and also reminded her that her own eyes were hot and probably swollen from crying. She stole a quick look in the mirror: her eyes weren’t too bad, but her hair – like a bird’s nest! Embarrassed, she tugged her fingers quickly though it.
    ‘Can I get you something?’ she asked. ‘Coffee, tea? Herbal?’
    ‘I have a song for you, Angie,’ Gabriel said. ‘Something our saviour wants you to hear.’ He was already tuning his guitar, one foot on the rung of a wooden chair, and Angie noticed for the first time that one of his boots was built up much higher than the other. From an accident, she wondered, or had he been born with one leg shorter than the other? She felt a rush of pity.
    ‘Here you are,’ he said, as though offering her a gift. ‘This is called “Hold On To You”.’ His voice, beautiful, rich with feeling, rose and flowed into every corner of the room.
    ‘I thought I’d been left alone
    Thought I’d no one to call my own
    Thought they were just my footprints
    Lonely in the sand …’
    Angie’s hands clutched each other, fingers intertwined before her breastbone, as she listened so hard the delicate whorls of her inner ears seemed to be tingling. He knows just what I was thinking. He knows me so well!
    Gabriel sang verse, chorus, another verse. Angie felt the words flowing straight into her heart. His eyes were closed; his face wore an expression of rapt absorption she’d only seen before on the faces of men while they were having sex. Or praying, she amended hastily.
    His eyes opened and held hers.‘Sing with me, Angie,’ he said.
    She gasped. ‘Oh! I can’t!’
    ‘Yes, you can. I heard you singing at Faith Rise; God has blessed you with a wonderful voice. A gift.’
    The words thrilled and won her. Line by line, he led her through the chorus:
    ‘I will hold on to you
    And to your soul, it’s true
    Hold, on, to you.
    You’ll sit right by my throne
    You’ll never be alone
    Because I’ll … hold on … to-oo you …’
    Tears sat ripely in Angie’s eyes, but these were not the sorrowing tears she’d shed earlier: these were tears of joy.
    Gabriel put the guitar aside. ‘I feel the presence of the Lord Jesus, right now, here in this room,’ he declared. Raising his right arm high, palm up, he closed his eyes. ‘Precious Lord …’ Angie bowed her head as he thanked God