Dieter beamed.

"I see no reason why it couldn't happen right away," he said. "With my parents, Sybille, and Elsa all here, there's no shortage of witnesses, and in God's eyes, it will be just as legitimate as if it had taken place in a church."

Jo felt her heart beat faster. "Oh, Dieter, I'll finally become your wife!"

She, Dieter, and Werner got into position, and the ceremony began.

"Dieter Baumgartner, do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do you part?"

"I do," Dieter replied, without hesitation.

"Martina Weber, do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do you part?"

"I do," said Jo.

"Then by the power vested in me, I pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride."

Dieter kissed her, and then Paul and Julia cried and embraced her and told her how happy they were to have her as a daughter. Jo's head spun when she thought about how quickly things had changed. Never in a million years did I imagine myself married at this age! What would Mom and Beth think?

But Mrs. March and Beth seemed impossibly far away.

"You're my aunt now, and you're only a year or so older than me!" Sybille's laugh brought her back to the present.

"Don't worry," Jo replied. "You don't have to call me 'Aunt Martina' if you don't want to."

"Oh, I'll be sure to do it every chance I get!" Both young women laughed.

The Bohmke's stayed and visited for a long time, and Sybille shared her story.

"Little Dieter was just six months old when his father was taken from us," she said. "I was so afraid! Here I was, hardly more than a child myself, and I was to be left to care for our child alone. Werner hugged and kissed me and said that if it was God's will, he would return to me, but letting him go was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I never cried so much in my life!"

"But surely your parents were there to help you," said Jo.

Sybille looked so stricken she regretted her words immediately.

"Papa's gone," she sobbed, blinking back tears. "He was sentenced to death and shot."

"I'm so sorry." Jo reached for the slightly younger girl and pulled her into am embrace. "I know what it's like. I lost my father, too." She remembered Elsa and pulled her into the embrace, too.

"So when were you and Werner reunited?" she asked.

"It was the most wonderful thing. A miracle!" said Sybille. "I was hanging up laundry one day and heard a voice very near me say 'You dropped this.' I was scared out of my wits and turned around to see Werner standing there, laughing and holding out a pair of my panties. I was beside myself with joy!"

"War is such a curious mix of happiness and sorrow," Werner observed.

"Thank God there is now peace at last, and the healing of our country can begin," said Dieter.

"Although the Soviets occupy Berlin, and we don't know what their plans for us will ultimately be," Paul added. "We may eventually have to move to keep our freedom."

"How did you hurt your leg?" Sybille asked Elsa.

"My apartment was bombed, and a heavy piece of furniture fell on it," Elsa told her.

Sybille's eyes grew wide. "You're fortunate to be alive!"

Elsa sighed. "I know I am, but I don't feel very fortunate."

"What about your family?" asked Werner.

"My parents were killed in an air raid two years ago, and my husband was sent to Stalingrad a year before that. I haven't heard anything from him since then."

"Now that the war is over, perhaps the Russians will soon let both of them come home," said Julia.

After Werner and Sybille left, Jo began moving her things from the bedroom she'd shared with Elsa into Dieter's bedroom. While doing so, her eye fell upon the notebook which contained the statement about sin and grace which had held such a haunting refrain for her when she'd seen it before.

"What does it mean?" she asked him.

"Simply that, although Christ's death paid the atonement for our sin, we are not given license to live as we please," he told her. "To do so would be to live in complete disregard for the tremendous price that was paid for our redemption. It's like this. Suppose you had a very rare blood type, so rare that only one other person in the world had it. Now, what if that other person fell desperately ill, so ill that only a blood transplant would save his life?"

"Of course I'd be willing to donate blood to him!" said Jo.

"But suppose his sickness was so deadly that all the blood in his body had to be replaced? This is an adult, not a child."

"Then it would take all my blood to cure him, but then, I would die." Jo was starting to feel very uncomfortable. What on earth was he getting at?

"Exactly." Dieter smiled, seeming oblivious to Jo's discomfort. "But suppose you agreed to the transplant anyway. Now, what if it was done, and the person made a complete recovery, but then wouldn't even say 'thank you' to your family for their great sacrifice?"

"I can't even imagine that happening!" Jo was so disturbed she forgot all about her previous discomfort.

"Yet that is exactly what we do when we accept God's offer of salvation, yet continue to live in sin."

"Wow!" Overcome, Jo wasn't exactly sure how to respond. "Now I'm gonna go around feeling like I'm walking on eggshells all the time, afraid I'll sin."

Dieter laughed as he pulled her into his arms. "Dearest Martina! God doesn't want us to do that. He wants us to live in joy and peace, confident that if we make a misstep or take a wrong turn, his loving guidance is there to gently correct us and steer us back onto the right path."

They stayed awake many hours, discussing that and various other issues, until they fell asleep in each other's arms, still fully clothed.