Bill's Blog

I suppose it’s time that I resume the story of Sheree and me. A few of you have been terribly impatient!  Granted, it’s been almost 2 years since I last added a chapter, but there’s no need to be snippy.  If this is the first you’ve seen of the Beauty and the Bill blogs, you’ll need to go back to the beginning. If you need to see one of the other chapters, you’ll see the topic guide on the right side of the page.  Click there and you’ll be able to access any of them.

After only a few months of dating his first girlfriend, Bill learned that she’d be moving away to Georgia.

Sheree had interviewed and accepted a job as a Youth Minister in Canton, Georgia.  In three weeks, she’d be gone.  Sheree’s heart broke–she knew that she’d one day marry Bill, but she knew that she needed the redemptive experience of the new job.  She hoped that Bill would intervene, confess his undying devotion, and ask her to stay.

He didn’t.

The thought frequently crossed Bill’s mind.  He knew that he wanted Sheree to stay.  He knew that he deeply cared for her.  Yet Bill wouldn’t ask her to reconsider her move.  Ever unsure, Bill still didn’t see a permanent future with Sheree.  He didn’t ask her to stay, he reasoned, to be fair to her.  He thought it unfair to Sheree–asking her to stay for him, but not sure of his intentions with her.   So as much as it pained him, Bill endured Sheree’s final three weeks in Arkansas, being as supportive for her as he could.  Yet he never suggested that she reconsider.

In only a few short months, Sheree had become the primary person in Bill’s life.  It was her face that first entered his mind in the morning, and the last to leave at night.  The emptiness of Sheree’s absence weighed heavily on Bill, even before her departure.  On her final day in Arkansas, Bill, along with several members of the Canton congregation, helped Sheree pack the belongings of her Penthouse suite.  [How could only one person, so young, have so much stuff?!  The BIG U-Haul truck . . . stuffed to the top.]  With everything finally packed, the others politely left Bill and Sheree alone in the still, empty suite.

Bill understood–achingly–the emptiness of the suite.

Young in love, yet out of time together, Bill and Sheree embraced as they sat on the barren carpet.  They bid their good-byes, kissed farewell, and she left.  Nonetheless excited about her future, Sheree cried as she left Little Rock behind her.

So did Bill.