Her wedding day. Susanna had always imagined that the thought of those words would make her smile and ready to dance around the room. Then why wasn't she? People she didn't even know where buzzing around her tying her hair "just so", adjusting her dress and more than several were eyeing the sleeves that in their minds weren't long enough. After all it didn't entirely cover up her "scandalous elbows" as one woman had said snootily when she thought Susanna had been listening.

Shouldn't a wedding day have a girl surrounded by friends and family. Have her bubbling and warm inside, giddy even? Why then, did she feel as cold and numb, as a frozen heart?

Maybe it had something to with the fact that the dress was the only detail she had been allowed to pick for herself. And that had been because she had fought for it. The rest of the wedding, plans and details, all of it, was done by someone else. Her family nor her friends would be out there in the pews of the overly large, yet empty feeling, church building. They had not been invited. Her past life was ordered to be just that. In the past. Only a future of staying at a home that her boyfriend and his mother had chosen for them lay ahead for her. She would have to quit her job and become a ugly shadow of herself. A hermit that would only be there to produce babies, while her husband was off at work into the late hours, flirting away with anything that came within range that happened to look female. And maybe even some that weren't of the female sex? Susanna shuttered.

"What am I doing?" She whispered out the words in a desperate prayer. And for the first time in many months it was like God broke through the fog that her boyfriend had brought her into when she had fell under his spell. The trance and the lifelessness that she had come to know, and wimp like except, was shattered. She could see again. She life and the wall of lies that had been built around her.

God was speaking to her spirit again. And best of all she could hear him again! His words, his spirit, He was with her!!!! In that instant she knew what she had to do. It was like God was laying it all out for her.

Susanna could feel God smiling down on her, because all of the people had earlier been buzzing around her were gone. Waiting in the pews. For the bride to walk down the aisle. That wouldn't be happening today. Not by a long shot. She slipped the engagement ring off her finger and tossed it on to the nearby couch. "Thank you, Jesus." Susanna whispered up the prayer of thanks, then ran out of the room, then the front door of the church, not even thinking of looking back.

Only when Susanna had reached the nearby forest and was out of sight of the church did it dawn on her that she didn't have the faintest clue where she was. She had dozed off on the way to the church and had no clue where she was, she hadn't been involved in picking the location either. Another clue that she had been in the wrong thinking this wedding could be God's plan for her.

"I am not meant for this kind of love, Lord." Susanna whispered into the trees. Somehow the emptiness of this forest felt comforting to her, as insane as that might sound. Like even though it was dark and foggy here, at least she was not alone. And she would rather be literally in the dark and fog, then be living there emotionally.

So Susanna Stephens took off running through the dark moonlit forest. Dodging trees, leaping logs, all while wearing a wedding dress. She had no idea where she was going, where she was headed. She was just getting away. Leaving it behind. Letting God lead her and take her where He willed.

A couple of verses of Scripture whispered through her spirit from the book of Psalms.

30 As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the Lord is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him.

31 For who is God save the Lord? or who is a rock save our God?

32 It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect.

33 He maketh my feet like hinds' feet, and setteth me upon my high places.

Just when Susanna thought that the forest would never end, it did. Right in the roadway. She was no longer alone. Coming down the road was a set of headlights. Susanna's heart sped up was it the ones she was running from catching up to her.... or was it something or someone that was a part of God's plan?