It’s a Sunday morning moment I’ve come to expect like the certainty of the rising sun.

I look forward to it, really.

She charges through the double doors from the foyer into the the sanctuary thrashing her walker. Though it’s designed to aid her steps, it seems no more than a pesky obstruction to the day’s Mission: Critical.

“Helllooo,” she calls once she’s barely past the threshold.

“Good morning to you,” I shout back, though we’re nearly arm’s length away. I made the mistake one morning of not responding, lost as I was in my work in the media booth. I thought she’d spoken to someone else.

She hadn’t.

She let me know.

I haven’t missed a Sunday morning greeting since.

Now, when she comes in before the rest of the Sunday School crowd and makes her way to the library to reload her books for the week, I always stop dropping images and text into their boxes and turn to visit. And I make sure I have my poker face firmly in place. Because I never know what’s coming next.

A few weeks ago, it went something like this:

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“It’s me, Lyla. Just like always,” I smiled.

“Oh. Well. It’s just that you look so . . . strange.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll get a haircut this week.”

And then the next week:

“Who are you?”

“It’s me, Lyla, just like always.”

“Always? Are you always here? What time do you come here?”

“Usually around 7:30 or so.”

“Why? What do you do in that little space so early in the morning?”

“I’m getting the slides ready for the music and Pastor’s sermon this morning.”

“Oh. Well. It’s just that you look so . . . strange.”

“I know. I’m working on that haircut.”

By last week, I’d worked out the haircut thing and didn’t have to introduce myself. She stopped her march to the library abruptly, pausing to look at the screen where I still had a slide hanging to remind parents to pick up a devotional booklet for their young kids.

“Oh dear. I’m afraid I haven’t read mine lately,” she said, shaking her head. “You know, I can’t seem to do it.”

“Well,” I said, “it seems to me that you have it all right where you need it.” And I tapped my chest.

She leaned her frailty hard into the walker and hung her head. “Oh, I just don’t know anymore.”

::

I watched her shoulders slump, and remembered this sweet but feisty character. Once when I was on the church’s staff she recruited me as her co-conspirator to break into the pastor’s office to retrieve a telephone number she was sure he had. She pressed me when I reported back after my covert operation that I’d glanced at his desk and didn’t see it.

“Well, did you look in his desk drawers then?”

“No, I didn’t think I should,” I said.

“Good. I wouldn’t have either. But I wanted to know if you would.”

And I thought back to the time we brought her apples from our tree because I didn’t know what to do with them and baking brought her so much joy.

We had no idea she’d be calling hours later insisting that we come to her apartment right now to pick up those nine pies because she needed her cooling racks for the next nine, and how soon could we pick up that next batch because she had things to do you know?

She’s preached me Jesus more times than I can count.

And I’m pretty sure I’ve felt the earth tremble under my feet when she’s asked God to move.

She’s a rock. The last standing of a generation of her family that piled stones together as the foundation of my church.

::

To hear her exhale resignation there at the library door, held up by an apparatus she despises, my heart may have paused for a beat.

“Hey,” I said, “You listen to me. It’s here. Right here.” I made a fist and rapped my chest hard this time. “You know that.”

She looked back up, met me with weary eyes and said, “Yes, well, maybe it is still in my heart.”

And with that, she rolled the walker into the library.

I turned back to the keyboard and continued typing where I’d left off.

Be still, my soul:
thy God doth undertake
To guide the future,
as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence
let nothing shake;
All now mysterious
shall be bright at last.

I looked out at the congregation that morning, my perch giving me a rare view of the lot of them from the back. I saw silver hair and no hair, pony tails and buzz cuts, blue jeans and t-shirts, dresses and suits, walkers, canes and sippy cups.

And I remembered how much I love my church, a family with whom I’ve walked through fire and flood. We’re small, and we’re regular folks, a mix of farmer and doctor, educator and businessman, stay-at-home and work-away.

We still have pews, though they’re padded. Our praise team is fledgling, staffed with teenagers and retirees and amateur musicians who just love to worship their King. We have one service, and it’s still on Sunday morning. My pastor wears a tie instead of ripped jeans and a v-neck. And we start every service from the hymnal.

We’re not hip.

And that’s okay.

Because if my church were hip, I know one humble servant I’d never see on a Sunday morning.

::

Photo: Lonely Soul by Wendy Swallis via Stock.xchng
Be Still My Soul, Katharina Von Schlegel, Public Domain