The Dates We Kept

When one fall calendar divides a ministry team, two guarded hearts must decide whether love can make room for both grief and grace.

Mara Ellison believes order is a form of service. As operations director at Covenant Grove Community Center, she knows a carefully planned season can protect volunteers, serve families, and keep the ministry from unraveling. Daniel Reyes, a widowed volunteer coordinator and devoted father, knows every square on the calendar carries a real person behind it. Some dates cannot be moved without reopening wounds.

At a mid-year staff and volunteer retreat, Mara and Daniel are asked to plan the fall schedule together. What should have been a peaceful weekend of prayer, planning, and potluck desserts becomes a tender test of patience, honesty, and faith. As disagreement turns into understanding, and understanding into something neither of them expected, they must learn that God's timing is not always efficient, but it is always merciful.

• A clean, faith-filled love story with gentle emotional depth
• A widowed single father learning that hope does not erase the past
• A capable heroine discovering that surrender can be faithful stewardship
• A warm community-center setting full of volunteers, prayer cards, coffee urns, and quiet acts of service
• Themes of grief, rest, second beginnings, and trusting God's timing