Chapter 1

The weather-beaten old porch swing swayed, gently, back and forth as Lorielle Parker sat thinking of other things. Her great aunt’s back porch in Norristown, Pennsylvania, (near Philadelphia) might be in need of paint, but the picturesque scene was still awesome. The porch overlooked a small yard with a high picket fence. It was a sunny, clear October day, blue sky and puffy clouds. The trees of the neighborhood were adorned with red, orange, gold, yellow, brown and green leaves. Every once in a while a few leaves from the neighbor’s silver maple tree would swirl and float down around Lorielle. But she was too preoccupied with her thoughts to take much notice.

I’ve been here more than a month already, she mused. I’ve got to find a church. I just don’t like Aunt Ada’s church. It seems too stuffy and old tradition to suit me. She thought, wrinkling her nose in disdain. I’m looking for a lively, happy church with lots of young people and children and, of course, a pastor who preaches all of the Bible. I am going to hunt one tomorrow morning, she decided, feeling quite resolute. Having made her decision, she stopped swinging and stood up. But before going into the house, she savored one last, long breath of the autumn air and spent another minute admiring the fall foliage.

One last glance in the mirror, after dressing carefully the next morning, produced a look of approval. Lorielle liked how her new powder blue suit looked with her pale yellow blouse. Happily, she anticipated her new adventure of finding a church. The feeling of independence was a brand new feeling for her and it was exhilarating. While she combed her long flowing cherry blond hair, her thoughts went to Aunt Ada and caused all her bubbly joy to disintegrate. I wonder what Aunt Ada’s going to say. I hope she won’t be offended. We’ve been getting along fairly well. She even seems to be starting to like me. I don’t want to ruin things, but I just can’t go to that stuffy church. She pulled a face at the girl in the mirror.

After breakfast, while they were still sitting at Aunt Ada’s white, wooden kitchen table, Lorielle approached the subject of going to another church. “Aunt Ada . . . ah . . . Umm.” She dropped her eyes to her plate. “I’m not going to your church this morning. I’m going to look for one with more young people in it.” She made herself look squarely at her aunt.

“I hope that’s all right with you.”

Aunt Ada peered at her over her spectacles, a look of surprise on her old wrinkled face. “What’s wrong with the church I go to? You go to church to worship God, not to visit young people.” Lorielle hated these clashes of interest. She had gone through years of feeling combative, now she wanted peace and harmony.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Ada, but I want to find a more lively church. Please don’t be mad. I can still drive you to your church and if I’m not back in time to pick you up, I know someone will run you home. Okay?”

Glowering, Aunt Ada clamped her mouth into a hard line and said no more. Lorielle almost lost her nerve. But then she remembered how quiet and dull her aunt’s church was and she knew she had to assert herself.

Lorielle dropped Aunt Ada off at her church and tried to shake the feeling that she was being mean. Cruising along the streets, scrutinizing church buildings, she marveled. “Sure are plenty of churches to choose from. There seems to be one on every corner, practically.” She left Norristown behind and was enjoying the scenery on a rural road when she spied a church that looked interesting. Swinging her car into the spacious parking lot, she read the cream colored sign, Christian Fellowship Church. The building was the new, low, spread out type, sided with warm brown perm-stone. All the trim including the double front doors and steeple were the same cream color. The signposts, the area around the double doors, and the cross-mounted on the steeple were cedar. “I like it! Its not all scrunched in and piled on top of itself like a lot of buildings around here. I’ll bet young people go here.”

Lorielle found a space not too far from the doors and struggled out of the car. This darn foot! She thought after having more trouble than usual getting her left foot, her clubfoot, to settle on the pavement at the right angle so that she could put her weight on it. Immediately, the Lord checked her on her negative thinking and she corrected it. “I’m sorry Father. I thank you that I can get around as well as I do and thank you that I can walk and drive a car.” She marveled how just a little adjustment in her thinking could make her feel so much better about everything.

“It sure is beautiful here,” she declared, breathing deeply of the wonderful cool, clean morning air and at the same time admiring the red, orange and gold leaves on the little trees planted all along the center of the medial strips in the head to head parking lot. Her eyes lifted to the mountains far off and the clear blue sky with white cotton clouds. She stood thus and enjoyed a moment of exhilaration before entering the church building.

(Continued...)