Chapter 14
Jessica
and Gloria got up to leave the Sunday school classroom for the church
auditorium. As they left the room, the
teacher was at the door saying goodbye to each student.
“Thank you
for coming this Sunday, Jessica,” she said.
“I hope you will be back next week.”
“Oh, I
hope so too,” Jessica said. And she
meant it. She didn’t want to miss any
more Bible stories. They were so interesting. But there was something inside of her that
Jessica couldn’t understand. She was
glad to be at church, but she felt like something was missing on the inside of
her. She felt hollow – like something
wasn’t there that needed to be there.
Jessica felt like she was missing something inside of her that she didn’t
even know she was missing. When they had
a few moments, she was going to ask Gloria about it.
The girls
walked upstairs and through a side door into the main auditorium. The room was all abuzz with people greeting
one another. There was laughter and
talking all around the big room. Jessica
and Gloria made their way toward the back of the auditorium and found an empty
row. Jessica was excitedly looking all
around drinking in the whole new experience.
She saw James as he came in the same side door. He was looking around searching for a
familiar face. Gloria stood and waved to
James to get his attention. When James finally
saw Gloria waving, his eyes lit up. He
waved back and hurried up a side aisle toward the girls. As he slid into the seat beside the girls,
Jessica noticed that he had a Sunday school paper with him. It was a folded story lesson with a picture
on the front about the Prodigal son.
Jessica
asked, “Did you have a story in Sunday school about the Prodigal son?”
James
looked surprised and said, “Yes we did!
How did you know?”
“I saw
your paper,” Jessica said. “It had a
picture of the Prodigal son on it. We
had the same story in our class.”
Gloria had
just attracted Jessica’s mother’s attention, who had just come into the
auditorium from her Sunday school class.
Jessica’s mother waved to the kids and began to make her way through the
crowd toward them. Several ladies shook
her hand before she made it back to the row where her children were
waiting. She sat down and straightened
her dress just as a friendly lady came up to the row.
“Hi there,”
the friendly lady said. “Do you mind if
I sit with you during the service?”
Jessica’s
mother smiled and said “Hello again.
Sure, let me scoot over a bit.” With
that Jessica’s mother waved her hand and had all three of the kids slide down a
bit to make room for the friendly lady.
The two women continued to talk as other folk were finding their seats
and getting ready for the church service. Jessica realized that her mother and the
friendly lady must have met during Sunday school. Jessica was glad that her mother didn’t have
to sit there in church alone. Jessica
had Gloria with her, and it was good that her mother had a friend to sit with
her as well. Jessica thought for a
moment that James didn’t have anyone to sit by him, but then she remembered, “it was James.” James didn’t need anyone to sit by him. James
didn’t need anything or anyone. Or did
he?
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