Christian Friends by Carol Daugherty
Christian Friends! (Part 1)
The previous story explained about the move from Alabama to Florida in search of a place where a woman and her family could feel at home. This is the rest of the story.
For the past two Sundays she and her family, brood of youngin’s, attended the First United Methodist Christian Friends?
The life she had had these past twenty years was not exactly what she had hoped for. The people in her hometown still treated her like an outsider and only when she approached them did they speak kindly to her. But stories arose about her without her knowledge. Stories about how she was lying about how much money her husband made and, “what do you think she is doing with all that money?”…”is she planning on leaving him?” “I wonder if she is considering herself single now that he is gone?” These were questions people were saying when they thought she was not listening. She loved the quant little town and the beautiful old Methodist church…if she left would she find another? Is a town only made up of buildings? Or can a town be made up of good, caring people? Just like Ernest Hemingway, she and her children packed up all they had and within a week’s time left that quant little town to find some answers.
Her brother and sister-in-law begged her to come to Florida to live where she and her children could be closer to her side of the family. Two weeks after she moved in she started looking for a church to attend. She drove through the town and saw a building she, at first, mistook for the town seat. The building turned out to be a First United Methodist Church. So, on the third Sunday after her move, she headed out to attend the service. She sat in her car watching the people going in and was not sure why they were not going in the front door. So with her children in tow, she followed the crowd into the small side door and up the stairs. She emerged from the staircase into something out of a story book. High carved ceilings painted in a pale blue; a large, stained-glass window of a dove with an olive branch sitting in between polished pipes that stood majestically behind the choir loft; beautifully carved wood chairs for the Minister and Choir Director to sit in. One of her sons tapped her on the shoulder. She turned to him and he pointed up to a balcony with a beautifully carved wooded railing! It did not take much to talk her into sitting up there for the service. The service was wonderful, the choir was amazing, and the building was magnificent: everything a church should be except for one thing…how would the people treat her and her family?
To be continued…