Hear the Bells Ring

by Donna Poole

The old country church was tired. But it was a good kind of tired, the kind you feel at the end of the day when you know you’ve done your best, even if your best isn’t as good as someone else’s mediocre, and you go to sleep contented.

When you love someone, you always wish you had something better to give. Sometimes the old church felt like the old man who’d been married to his beloved wife for fifty years and had no money to buy her a gift. So, on Christmas morning, he sat empty handed next to the decorated cedar tree he’d cut from his field, tears running down his face, head bowed, work calloused hands clasped between his knees.

Compared to the big churches, what did this little church have to give? It well remembered a guest speaker who’d stood behind its pulpit years ago talking about church growth. “If you want a church that’s going to grow,” he’d said, “three things matter. Location, location, location.”

The white frame building had sighed and slumped a bit on its concrete frame. Location? It stood at the corner of two dirt roads surrounded by fields, corn one year, beans the next. No busy freeway passed withing miles of it. Tractors rumbled slowly by; Amish wagons with the brisk clip clop of horses passed, and sometimes a teen on a four-wheeler zoomed up a dust cloud.

It had long ago given up its dream of becoming a huge church to give glory to the one it loved most, the Lord Jesus. But the last two weekends had been special.

On a Sunday after church the people had piled into the new fellowship hall for a Christmas party. The old country church had never thought it would see the day it would have an addition to hold that much love, laughter and food. It was a good day, a very good day.

The very next day the old church was full again, but not for a party. This time there were tears mingled with laughter, sobs with songs. The people were celebrating the life of a woman who had come to the church for well over half a century. The service was a gift to her memory, a gift to her family, and a gift to the one the old country church loved most, the Lord Jesus.

At the end of the service a little girl who’d had a special friendship with the women who’d died went to the back with her big brother to ring the church bell. “We’ll have a minute of silence,” the pastor said. “Listen to the bell and think of Judy.”

How many times through the years has the old church bell rung out over farms and fields with news happy and sad always calling people to remember the two things easiest to forget, the shortness of time, and the length of eternity?

After the memorial service the people once again piled into the new fellowship hall where the hospitality committee, with the help of the other church ladies, had organized a wonderful meal for the grieving family and friends.

“This is the first time we’ve been able to have a funeral dinner of this size at our church,” the pastor’s wife said to the women’s daughters. “I’m so grateful for this addition. I thank the Lord.”

“I do too,” one daughter said.

“Remember when the church was so small we didn’t even have bathrooms, only an outhouse?” another daughter asked.

They all laughed. The pastor’s wife said, “Yes, and none of you kids had to use the outhouse when it was cold or rainy. It was a miracle every winter! But come spring, every kid in the church had to go out to the outhouse at least once!”

The old church heard and smiled. It too remembered the day of no inside plumbing, then just one bathroom, the one the pastor’s wife had wanted to cross stitch a sign for, “One for all, and all for one.” Now there were two bathrooms, soon to be four. God was good. The church was happy, not because it was getting city fancier, but because it could better serve the one it loved most, the Lord Jesus. When the last person left the funeral dinner, the old church thought it heard the Lord whisper, “Thank you for loving my people.”

Then came the next Sunday and the Christmas program. There weren’t many children who attended the little church, but the ladies in charge of the program came up with a wonderful one. The small choir sounded good to the people in the pews and to the old church. And the two senior citizen angels did a wonderful job. The old church loved hearing them read a poem and the Scripture. It felt happy when the angel called out with joy, “Glory to God in the highest!”

The old church wanted that more than anything. Glory to God in the highest.

Yes, it had been a busy couple of weekends, and the old church was tired. A good tired. It would rest now. Next Sunday would be one of its favorite services of the year, the candlelight service, where everyone who wanted to participate would sing, or play an instrument, or read a poem, or a story. It hoped Carole would feel well enough to be there and read, “A Cup of Christmas Tea.” That was tradition.

No, the little church couldn’t offer the Lord Jesus big cantatas or huge programs, but it could give itself, and that it did well. Before it fell asleep, the little church remembered the end of the story about the old man who’d been married half a century and had no gift to give his wife.

She’d come out of their bedroom, wiping sleep from her eyes, and hugged him. “Are you crying, dear?” she’d asked, looking worried. He never cried.

“I don’t have a gift for you,” he’d said, head still bowed.

She’d lifted his chin and looked into his eyes. He’d seen the surprise there. “Why, honey, you’ve given me the best gift of all, your love. I don’t want anything else.”

And he’d known it was true. If she only wanted love, he had plenty of that to give, more every year.

And the little church on the corner of two dirt roads had love to give in abundance to the one it loved the most, the Lord Jesus. It would be its Christmas gift to him, every day of the year. Ring out that news, old bell, ring! Ring out on that corner until Jesus comes again!

The end

***

These blogs are now available in book form on Amazon:

Backroad Ramblings Volume One: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Two: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Three: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Four: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

I have six other books on Amazon as well, four fiction books in the “Life at the Corners” series, and two children’s Christmas picture books.

Please follow me on Facebook at Donna Poole, author