Tough Call

When Olivia Parker shares her testimony at church about a painful season of doubting her faith, she has no idea the video will end up online. Her friend Zoe Grant shows her the comments piling up beneath it: some are silly, some are unkind about her outfit, but others come from viewers with real questions about faith who think Olivia is wise beyond her years. Olivia panics, protesting, "I'm unwise beneath my years." These are people's lives, and she is terrified of giving the wrong answers.

She turns to John Avery Whittaker for help, copying down his explanations word for word. Whit gently points out that the commenters want her perspective, not his, and offers books, Bible passages, and a promise to check her answers. Then he suggests something that rattles her: this might be a calling from God to mentor others. Olivia insists she never asked for a calling, but Whit reminds her that the Bible is full of people who didn't ask for theirs either.

Soon a commenter named JP14 sees right through Olivia's carefully crafted replies and asks for someone to be real with. Olivia agrees to a video call, and a girl appears wearing huge sunglasses and a beach hat, calling herself Jane. She explains that Olivia's honest testimony made her feel safe reaching out. Her secret spills out: she grew up in a devoted Christian home, goes to church three times a week, prays and reads the Bible, yet has never felt God's presence. She is not a Christian, nobody knows it, and she fakes it at church while wondering if something is wrong with her. Then she abruptly hangs up for dinner.

Olivia and Zoe puzzle over the mysterious caller until her habit of saying "super" gives her away. She is Jade Radnor, a girl they met at Camp What-A-Nut, and her father is Monty Radnor, pastor of the largest church in Connellsville and a nationally traveling speaker. When they call back, Jade admits everything and begs them to keep her secret; if word got out, it could humiliate her dad and maybe even cost him his ministry. Still, she is relieved that someone finally knows, and she invites Olivia to visit her church on Sunday.

Before the visit, Olivia buries herself in Whit's books on witnessing. Whit offers better advice: studying matters, but God has already given her two gifts for this moment. Her own story of doubt prepared her to help someone walking the same road, and the Holy Spirit will supply the words when she has none.

At Jade's enormous church, which began twelve years earlier with six people in a living room, Olivia sees protesters out front who object to Pastor Radnor's Bible teaching. She meets Jade's dad, who turns out to be warm and funny and invites her home for chili. Afterward, in Jade's room, Olivia urges her to tell her father the truth. Jade refuses, remembering the time she kicked a protester in the shins, landed in the newspaper, and had to face the look of disappointment in her dad's eyes. This secret, she is sure, would earn a far worse look. Olivia asks which is worse, a moment of disappointment or carrying the secret alone for years. Jade responds by sharing something she has never shown anyone: her private video diary, where she records her confusion about feeling nothing during her dad's joyful sermons. She also plays her favorite song, a hopeless tune she calls honest. Olivia, remembering how Satan once spoke into her own doubts, wonders aloud whether he might be stealing Jade's joy through those bleak lyrics, and suggests trading them for music and media that point toward hope.

Jade texts later that her attitude is improving, and Olivia dares to believe she has helped. Then disaster strikes. Zoe bursts in with terrible news: Jade's private video diary is all over the internet under the headline asking whether the megachurch pastor's daughter believes in God. Jade clicked a phishing email, and the protesters hacked her computer.

Olivia's mom drives her to the Radnor home, where Jade has locked everyone out, ignoring a dozen calls from her dad in Chicago and refusing to speak with her mom. Olivia talks her way inside with the offer of a hug. Jade is convinced she has destroyed her father's career, since he speaks across the country about Christian parenting. Olivia shares the biggest mistake of her own dark season: shutting out the people who loved her most. The worst thing Jade can do, she says, is try to face this alone. Trembling, Jade calls her dad, who says they will talk when he gets home, in about twenty seconds. He is already coming up the front walk, having flown home and abandoned his conference because, as he tells her, "This was more important."

Father and daughter embrace. He assures Jade she has ruined nothing; people have flooded him with supportive messages asking about her. What breaks his heart is that she tortured herself with this secret for years, thinking she couldn't come to him. Becoming a believer, he tells her, is a different journey for everyone, and he intends to walk beside her the whole way, answering any question she has. As Olivia slips out to leave them alone, Jade thanks her, saying she was exactly the right person to help. Olivia smiles at how her own hard journey prepared her for this moment: "Funny how God works that out, huh?"