Whatever you're facing...
Heaven Can Begin Now

My pension in Geneva was a large third-floor apartment on rue Charles Bonnet, home to eight female students from five nations. The landlady, Madame Brulhart, was a tiny, excitable woman who called us "mes enfants" and rapped briskly on the bathroom door if the tub water ran too long.

John's pension was half a mile away on rue Calvin. We'd been told that Geneva in the fall would be rainy, but the sun was out when he parked his bicycle outside Mme. Brulhart's one Tuesday morning shortly after university classes began.

"This may be the last sunny day," he said. "We can make up European History, but we might not have another chance to bike out and meet the country people."

We missed a lot of European History that September, as one cloudless day followed another, but we got to know Alpine villages, ruined castles, and each other. "It's the last sunny day!" John would call up to my window as he balanced his bike at the curb. And we would set out, with a baguette of bread, a wedge of Gruyere cheese, and a pad of paper. We talked to dairymen and pig farmers, cheese makers and wood-carvers. I was exploring a new country, a new culture -- and for me something even newer. I was discovering what it was to wake in the morning and fall asleep at night with a single person on my mind.

Years later, reading about Christ -centered lives, I understood how someone could "pray without ceasing." It wasn't a question of effort. They were in love; they couldn't help themselves.