Something, or Someone, must have really wanted me to hear the sermon today.

I tried to talk to Joe Stonebridge, the youth pastor, about my problem after the regular service. I’d sort of made an appointment with him before we all sat down in our pews, touching him on the arm as we passed through the nave and asking if I could speak to him privately after the service.

“Sure, Pete,” he said. “See you about 12:45?”

I nodded, then I took a seat in a back pew in the right hand corner of the sanctuary. The room collected more people but was still half empty during the announcements and hymns.

This was our new church with the stained glass windows on the west side, the high ceilings with the brown beams showing, and the baptismal tank up behind the stage where you could only see it when they removed the screen. The dais was raised like a stage all across that end of the room with a piano on the right and an organ on the left.

Our old church had been made of adobe and wood, covered with stucco, and still sat diagonally across the intersection from the new one. I’d been younger than Molly when Pastor Bernie (his last name) had come to town and used his skills in construction to start building the new church.

Pastor Eduardo Bernie was a bit older than my parents, a dark, stocky man who framed houses and built garages when he wasn’t in the church. He preached on miracles that Sunday and how we are not supposed to be able to understand them. “That’s why they’re called miracles,” he said more than once.

Okay, I thought. Was what happened to me a miracle? It sure wasn’t something I understood, so it qualified on that point. More than once during the sermon, I felt tears trickling down my face. I was glad I had chosen to sit in a corner away from my family or anyone else.

Even so, I felt like I had a bullseyes painted on my forehead. Pastor Bernie nailed his message into my brain with his closer. “You don’t have to understand the miracles in your life. All God wants is that you should accept them.”

Stunned, I hardly moved while the service ended. I must have sang the closing hymn with everyone else but I don’t remember doing so. I just found myself standing there in the pew with the hymnal in my hand. I put the book back in the little rack and moved toward the aisle.

I felt dazed. Could I have gotten a more direct message from a celestial power? The only way to read the message seemed to be that I had been granted a miracle and I should just accept it. Even if it was a miracle I had not wanted…? What if Lazarus had not wanted to be brought back to life?

I’d already arranged that my sisters would ride with Mom and Dad to the Red Dragon restaurant where we usually ate lunch after church so that I could have my meeting with Pastor Joe. Still standing at the end of the pew, I just waited till almost everyone else had left the sanctuary.

Mom and Dad and my sisters passed me standing there and I nodded at something Dad said to me, even though I didn’t really hear him. I felt sandbagged. Why had I wanted to come to church today? We didn’t normally average even as much as once a month, partly because Dad often worked on Sundays.

Something, or Someone, must have really wanted me to hear the sermon today.

*

I went out to the church’s entry and stared at the bulletin board announcements. Evening prayer service Sunday and Wednesday. Women’s Missionary Council Monday at noon. Men’s Business Lunch Meeting Tuesday. Youth services Thursday evening. Biking Retreat Saturday afternoon.

I noted the distinction between the meetings on Monday and Tuesday. Different things were expected of men and women. I shook my head. There were two other signs in the entry: Men and Women, directing people to the appropriate restroom. More head shaking.

I found the dusty back steps to Pastor Joe’s office above the ground-floor bathrooms deserted. A light shone at the top of the stairs though, and I realized the church youth leader was at his desk waiting for me. I hadn’t known for sure what I planned to say to him when I made the appointment and now…. Well, I couldn’t say I was more confused than before. In fact, some things seemed clearer. Not any easier, though.

I trudged up to what had once been planned as a choir loft before being enclosed to make an office under the brown ceiling beams. A tiny air conditioner made the space livable during the summer and heat from the downstairs seemed to keep it warm enough in the winter.

Pastor Joe must have heard me climbing because he called out. “Pete? Come on up. You want a soda? I have my own little refrigerator up here.” He chuckled.

“No, sir,” I said as I reached his open door. The only other room at the top of the stairs was a storage space. “I’m fine. I’ll be going to lunch with my family when I leave.” I still didn’t know what I was going to say to him, but I had made the appointment so I owed him for making time for me.

Pastor Joe was a lean man, a bit taller than average with ginger-blond hair receding into a widow’s peak, even though he was only in his mid-twenties. He sat behind a sort of makeshift desk, really a folding table covered with books and papers and a portable typewriter. He wore rimless glasses, perhaps for reading since I didn’t usually see him wearing them.

He peered at me over the lenses, a smile almost on his lips. “You look troubled, Pete,” he said.

I looked away from him. This had been a terrible idea. What in the world would I say to him? “I guess I am,” I muttered. Then repeated that looking directly at him to take the sting off my rudeness.

“Do you want to tell me what the trouble is?” he asked.

“I guess I do, Joe.” He’d already gotten most of the young people of the church to call him by his first name by immediately correcting them. “But I don’t seem to know how.”

He gestured at a chair and I stumbled a bit as I sat down. I felt awkward enough already, I didn’t have to prove it.

“Do I need to begin guessing?” he asked with a grin.

“No, no,” I shook my head.

“Will it help if I tell you I’ve probably already met someone with a problem very much like yours?”

I sighed. “I very much doubt that,” I said, smiling a bit wryly myself.

He nodded, apparently willing to accept my own assessment of my problem. “Does it have to do with school?” he offered.

“Well, yes. But it has to do with everything.”

Joe waited, but I stayed silent. After a moment, I saw his chest move in what looked like a silent chuckle. “Pete,” he finally said. “I’m pretty sure it can’t be as bad as it probably looks to you.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I nodded. “You’re probably right.” I stood up. There was just no way I was going to be able to tell him I was the victim of an unexpected and unwanted miracle.

I retreated toward the door, mumbling my thanks and an apologetic goodbye.

He called after me as I started down the steep stairs. “Pete, my door is open when you do want to talk about it.”

“Thanks, again, Joe,” I called back up to him. I took the outside door at the bottom of the stairs and looked out over the nearly empty parking lot. Jake’s red truck sat there waiting for me. I started toward it, my empty stomach complaining a bit even though I didn’t really feel like eating.

I climbed into the cab and started the big engine up. The folks were probably ordering a Family Feast at the Red Dragon already. I needed to relax so I could enjoy a meal with them.

My problems were still my own and I still didn’t want to think about them.

Better to concentrate on winning football games.