Chapter 8
Jessica worked
hard all morning on the house. She
cleaned and moped and swept and dusted – it seemed like the whole house was in
a fog with dust flying everywhere. But
she didn’t mind. Her heart was in
it. But actually, her heart was in
cleaning because the cleaning would be her key to get to go to church. Jessica wasn’t sure why she wanted to go to
church so bad, but she did. It could be
that there were old memories that connected church with her grandmother. Jessica was only five years old when her
grandmother died. She still remembered
the funeral service and the talk that her grandmother’s pastor gave.
“That
pastor was a real fireball,” Jessica’s mother had said in the car on the way
home that day. And he was. When he talked, it seemed like he knew God in
a personal way. It was as if they were
best of friends. Jessica had a best
friend in Gloria, but somehow, she longed to have God as a best friend
too. May be that was it. May be it was that Jessica had a best friend
named Jesus that she just never met.
Anyway, Jessica was determined to go to church with Gloria tomorrow and
find out. Just the thought of going to
church was thrilling. Oh, it would probably
not be as exciting as Jessica imagined, but then again ...
“Our house
smells like a hospital room!” James exclaimed as he burst through the
door. James had finally come home. He was so hungry that he had to come back to
the house to get something to eat. He
would make his stay brief. He had to get
back to important things, like video games at his friend’s house.
Jessica
stopped him cold. “Wipe those shoes
before you come in here!” she cautioned.
James screeched to a halt and gave his shoes a rub on the rug by the
back door. He would have argued with his
older sister, but he was too worried about getting out of the house, and fast!
“Don’t we
have any bread?” he asked looking in the refrigerator. He grabbed some cheese and went to the
cabinet. James found a pack of crackers
in the back and grabbed them. Crackers
would just have to do. He gathered his
cheese and crackers and ran out the back door calling, “See you later.” Jessica wasn’t sure who he had addressed his
words to. She didn’t think James did
either. It was just his way of letting
anyone and everyone know that he was out the door and on his way to an
afternoon of freedom.
By the
afternoon Jessica had finished her cleaning.
She had a load of clothes in the dryer and another in the washer. There was a final pile of white clothes on
the floor waiting their turn for the washer.
Jessica went upstairs to her bedroom for some peace and quiet. She liked her room. It was her space – a special place to call
her own. It was her hideout from the
rest of the world. Jessica absentmindedly
straightened her books and papers on her desk.
They were already neatly arranged, but Jessica liked to rearrange
things. She sat down for a moment lost
in her thoughts. “I wonder what the Sunday
school teacher is going to teach about tomorrow?” she thought. “I know a lot of the Bible stories, but I don’t
know the details of them. I just know
the basic ideas of them.” But then Jessica
thought emphatically, “Tomorrow I am going to learn everything about at least
one of those stories. And I can’t wait!”
No comments:
Post a Comment