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“Good. Now sit, and I’ll make coffee,” she says as we push into the kitchen. While she sets her Bible and notebook on the stainless steel island, I take a seat at it, watching as she moves around my kitchen like she’s been here forever.

Now that’s an amazing thought. Forever doesn’t sound so bad if Sadie is there.

She begins to hum, and I lose myself in the melodious sound. At least until my attention catches on the Bible. There’s a piece of paper sticking out of the pages. Curious, I open to that page and pull the text closer.

On the page, she’s written a few notes.

We trust in God even when we’re in the furnace because we know He’s there, too.

We trust in God when things are good because we know that He is the One who gives all good things.

We trust in God during the storm because only He can calm the waves.

God is with me through this.

God will see me through this.

God will guide me through this.

I read those last three lines over and over again, feeling her hope come through even though it’s merely written words.

Would my life have been any different if I’d been raised to believe in God? If I’d been told about Him so I’d had faith to cling to during my darkest hours? Or would I still be as cynical as I am? As broken as I feel?

I gently move the piece of paper to study the actual text in the Bible that she’d bookmarked.

“Nebuchadnezzar was so furious with Shadrack, Meshach, and Abednego that his face became distorted with rage. He commanded that the furnace be heated seven times hotter than usual. Then he ordered some of the strongest men of his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and throw them into the blazing furnace. So they tied them up and threw them into the furnace, fully dressed in their pants, turbans, robes, and other garments. And because the king, in his anger, had demanded such a hot fire in the furnace, the flames killed the soldiers as they threw the three men in. So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, securely tied, fell into the roaring flames.

But suddenly, Nebuchadnezzar jumped up in amazement and exclaimed to his advisers, “Didn’t we tie up three men and throw them into the furnace?”

“Yes, Your Majesty, we certainly did,” they replied.

“Look!” Nebuchadnezzar shouted, “I see four men, unbound, walking around in the fire unharmed!”

I sit up in my seat, processing what I just read.

Three men thrown bound into the fire so hot that it killed the soldiers who even got close to it.

Blinding pain at my back.

The stench of burning flesh.

Was that fire even as hot as this one? Yet these men were walking around in it, a fourth with them? “Where did the fourth man come from?”

She turns toward me as the coffee begins brewing. “Huh?” But then her gaze lands on the Bible, and she smiles. “Ahh, the furnace. God delivered them from the flames because they had complete faith in Him. They refused to worship the statue of the king and said that God would deliver them. They told the king that even if He didn’t, they would still never worship the king’s gods or the gold statue.”

“So, it was God in the fire.”

She smiles. “It’s an incredible story. From them to Daniel in the lion’s den.”

“Lions?”

Once again, she smiles. There is no judgment in her gaze over the fact that I have never studied the Bible or really heard any of the stories, just a bright joy at the fact that I am asking questions.

Because I can’t help myself.

I’ve always been a logical person. I study facts, timelines.

And her story has been rattling around in my mind ever since she told it to me.