Love Song by Sharon Gillenwater

Author:Sharon Gillenwater [Gillenwater, Sharon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christian Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Sharon Gillenwater
Published: 2013-11-23T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

When Wade pulled into the Community Church parking lot Sunday morning, Andi surveyed the building and the people as they greeted each other with smiles. She had spent a great deal of time during her junior high and high school years inside those walls, talking, laughing, and sometimes crying with many of the same people.

The church had a different minister, a man in his mid-thirties. Both Dawn and Wade thought highly of him. Although Andi would have enjoyed seeing their old pastor, she decided it was good he was no longer there. He knew her too well. He would have looked into her eyes and seen the things she had seen, the roads she had traveled.

By the time Wade parked and turned off the engine, the butterflies in her stomach had stirred into a panic. “Are you sure they’ll let me through the door?”

He smiled in understanding. “Relax, they’ll be thrilled to see you.”

“I don’t know about that. I suspect some of them think I’m some kind of brazen hussy.”

Dawn leaned forward from the back seat and squeezed Andi’s shoulder. “If they do, they will keep it to themselves. One of Pastor Marshall’s first sermons was about not judging others. The next one was on gossip. We’ve never had too much trouble with either one, but we don’t have any now. Besides, if somebody gives you trouble, Wade will hang them from the rafters by their thumbs.”

Andi smiled in spite of her apprehension. “Hope you have a tall ladder.”

Since Andi’s first visit was bound to cause a stir, they had purposely arrived when church was scheduled to begin. Ray and Della were saving space for them in the pew, and they slipped into their seats as the song leader announced the number of the first hymn. Excited murmurs flew around the auditorium, a low hum not hidden by the scraping of the hymnals against the wooden racks as they were drawn from the backs of pews or the rustle of paper as the church members searched for the right page.

The book was new, but as Wade opened it to the first song, Andi was thankful to see it was an old hymn, “Standing on the Promises”, with which she was familiar. According to Dawn, they still sang hymns each week, but also choruses and praise songs, many taken from popular contemporary Christian music. Dawn had taught her some of them, but Andi had worried that if they sang something she didn’t know, people would realize how very long it had been since she had set foot inside a church building.

She relaxed slightly and sang the song from her heart, being careful, however, to moderate her voice so she didn’t overwhelm those directly in front of her. She was surprised to discover how much of it she still knew from memory.

At the end of the song, the pastor told them to turn and greet one another. Miss Atkins and Mr. Garner sat directly in front of them. Andi almost did a double-take when the undertaker turned around to say hello.

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