“Well, good morning, Sister Hannah.” The speaker was a tall, broad man with bushy brown hair and cheerful brown eyes. He smiled and reached out to help Hannah to the ground.
“Good morning, Brother Felix. We’ve got some visitors this mornin’. This is Chase Hardin and Joy Smith. This here is Elder Felix Bone.”
“Kinfolk of yours?” Elder Bone asked.
“No, not a bit of it,” Sister Hannah replied. She scanned the churchyard, which was covered with wagons, cars, and trucks. She looked at the church building and said, “The church house looks plum good. That coat of white paint shore makes it stand out. I like to see the Lord’s house lookin’ sprite.”
“It does look good, don’t it? Well, I hope you got a good sermon for us this mornin’, Sister. I think the congregation needs a little brimstone.”
Hannah smiled and shook her head. “A little fire and brimstone goes a long way, Brother Felix. What folks need to know is the love of Jesus.”
“Amen! Hallelujah! Praise God, you’re right.” Elder Bone nodded his head with each word and then said, “I’ll go in and prime the pump, get the singin’ started.”
Hannah turned back to Chase and Joy. “A good man, Felix Bone. Used to be a bootlegger. He got saved by the grace of God and now leads our singin’. C’mon, I’ll see you get good seats right down in front.”
Joy thought, I’d rather have one in the back, but she did not argue. She and Chase followed Sister Hannah as she made her way into the church. Joy took in the simple meeting place in a glance. The ceiling was high and formed of rough pine, and bare light bulbs hung from naked wires. The walls were whitewashed, and the smell of pine filled the building. Hannah directed them into the second pew, and when Joy sat down she found it impossible to assume any position except one—bolt upright. The seat was so narrow she could not possibly slump, and the back went up at an uncomfortable right angle.
Chase was more interested in the people than he was in the architecture. The women all wore long-sleeved dresses, buttoned down to the wrists, and their skirts brushed their shoe tops. None of them, he noted, wore jewelry, and most of them had their hair plaited and bound up in a roll. One woman’s hair was done so tightly it pulled her eyes into a slanting position. None of them, of course, wore makeup.
The men, for the most part, wore overalls or jeans, but all of them wore white shirts and ties. It appeared to be a poor congregation, Chase noted. He leaned over and whispered to Joy, “This reminds me of some of the churches my dad pastored—everybody wearing their Sunday best, even if their Sunday best wasn’t much different from their everyday clothes.”
Joy had no chance to answer because Brother Felix had loosed a booming greeting on the congregation. “Well now, we’re mighty glad you’re here in the house of God this morning. I want you to let God know how much you love Him and appreciate Him. We’ll start by singin’ ‘When I See the Blood.’ ”
The congregation all stood without being urged and sang vigorously to the accompaniment of an out-of-tune piano. As Joy glanced around she saw that most of the worshipers were enthusiastic. Some of them clapped their hands, and more than once someone would lift his hands and shout, “Glory to God!” or “Praise be to God forever!”
Joy was not accustomed to such enthusiasm in church. Her experience had been with more sedate churches and sour-faced participants. These worshipers actually looked like they were happy to be here. She glanced over at Chase and saw that he looked as uncomfortable as she felt. He was not singing, for like her, he probably did not know the words to any of the songs. His whole body looked tense, and he clasped the seat in front of him with splayed fingers and white knuckles.
I wonder what’s wrong with Chase. He grew up in church. This is not like anything I’ve ever seen myself—but I don’t know why it’s affecting him so. . . .
The singing went on for some time, much longer than Joy was accustomed to. There was a pause while the ushers took an offering, and then Sister Hannah said, “Now the Scripture tells us that if any of you are sick, you should call for the elders of the church. The elders shall anoint the sick with oil, and the prayer of faith shall save the sick. Any of you who have a sickness in your body, I want you to come down to the altar, and we’re going to see miracles.”
This was certainly outside of Joy’s experience, and she watched with astonishment as an older woman walked down the aisle and knelt at the front rail. Several other people came forward—the elders, Joy assumed—and laid their hands on the woman’s shoulders. Sister Hannah put one hand behind the woman’s head and with the other hand rubbed oil on the woman’s forehead. She then clasped the woman’s head firmly with both hands and began to pray in a loud, piercing voice, “O God, this here is your daughter, and she is sick in her body. I pray, Lord Jesus, that you would heal her as you healed blind Bartimaeus, as you healed Naaman the leper. . . .” The prayer continued on, and with each phrase Sister Hannah would firmly shake the old woman until she almost reeled back and forth. Finally Sister Hannah opened her eyes and said, “Do you feel the power, Sister Irene?”
“I feel it! Praise God, He done healed my body.”
A chorus of amens and shouts went up, and then Sister Hannah turned to a bulky man who said, “I got me an ailin’ in my stomach, Sister, but I believe in the power of God.”
The healing prayers went on for half an hour, and all the time the congregation remained standing. Finally, however, everyone who went forward was prayed for, and Sister Hannah cried out, “Let’s everybody lift our hands and shout glory to God!”
As the congregation lustily shouted and raised their hands, Joy felt completely out of place. She did not know whether to imitate the worshipers—which would have been hypocritical in her mind—or simply keep her hands down and feel like a total alien. She saw that Chase simply stood there, neither lifting his hands nor saying a word, but his face was still full of tension.
Finally Sister Hannah said, “All right, you can sit now.” She waited until the congregation sat down and then picked up a black leather-covered Bible and said, “I intend to preach the Gospel to you this mornin’, and we’re goin’ to take our text from the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John. Find your Bibles now, and you follow along as I read.”
Chase pulled the New Testament from his pocket, opened it, and leaned forward, holding it so Joy could see it. They both followed along as Sister Hannah read a large portion of the chapter. It was a familiar enough story to Joy, and she assumed that Chase knew it well too. She had heard more than one sermon preached from this chapter, and when Sister Hannah finished reading, she prayed loudly, “O God, let your spirit rest on me. Anoint me with the power of the spirit of God, and may every sinner in this house see himself as condemned and lost, held over the pits of hell! And then may he see the Lord Jesus as the only hope he’s got in this world. In the name of Jesus. Amen.”
Sister Hannah paused only to let her eyes sweep over the congregation and then plunged into her message. “Every one of you has read this story about a poor, sinful woman who had no hope until she met a man called Jesus at Jacob’s well.” She continued to speak about the setting of the story. She finally said, “Women had a hard time in those days, even harder than they have today in this country. They was almost like cattle. If a man wanted to divorce his wife, all he had to do was to say, ‘You’re divorced. Now get out.’ They had no rights, and the poor women of that day didn’t expect anything good to come to them. I expect this here woman was plumb surprised when Jesus spoke to her. That’s why she said, ‘How is it that thou, being a Jew, asketh drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria?’ The first point of my sermon this morning is that Jesus found this woman on purpose. In verse four it says, ‘And he must needs go through Samaria.’ That means, beloved friends, He had to go that way. He could’ve gone half a dozen other ways, I reckon, but He knowed at that time of day, at that place, there would be a woman there who had to hear the Gospel. When He got there, verse six says Jesus was weary from
his journey. Can you imagine that now? The Son of God weary! Does God ever get weary? No indeed, and in Isaiah 40:28 it says, ‘Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?’ But the Lord Jesus, He became a man, and He had come lookin’ for this woman on purpose.”
Sister Hannah’s eyes again swept the congregation, and Joy felt the power of them as they locked onto hers. Hannah’s voice dropped, and almost in a whisper, she said, “Jesus is looking for you.”
Joy knew that this was meant for everyone, but it felt as if Sister Hannah had taken her by the shoulders and spoken only to her. She dropped her eyes, unable to endure the gaze of the older woman.
Sister Hannah continued, speaking about how God saw everybody. She quoted Scripture after Scripture, including Titus 3:5. “ ‘The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.’ ” Sister Hannah waved her Bible around and said, “There ain’t no rich or poor, jest sinners.”
Finally Sister Hannah moved on to the second point of her sermon, saying, “And the second thing is this poor woman back in John four didn’t understand very much about what the Savior was sayin’. He told her she needed living water, but in verse eleven, the woman said, ‘Thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.’ You see what’s happenin’?”
Hannah thumped the Bible with her free hand. “He was talking about spiritual things, and all she could think of was physical things. Ain’t that just like us today? When God tries to come to our hearts, He wants to tell us about the glories of what He is and who He is and the glories of heaven—and all we can think about is how am I going to pay my bills? Who’s going to take care of my sick chil’uns? What am I goin’ to do with that boy of mine? Where am I goin’ to get money?”
Hannah leaned forward and said, “Jesus said in verse thirteen, ‘Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again.’ And what does that mean? It means that there ain’t nothin’ in this world that’ll satisfy a person except Jesus. But then in verse fifteen the woman said, ‘Give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.’ Don’t you see what she’s doin’? She’s still talkin’ about the water, the physical water in that well, and Jesus was tryin’ to save her soul.”
The sermon went on for a considerable time, and when Joy glanced at Chase, she saw he was listening intently. His eyes were half closed in a fixed expression, but it didn’t look like he was missing a word.
“And then Jesus put His hand right smack dab on this woman’s problem! He told her to go call her husband. But in verse seventeen she says, ‘I have no husband.’ Well, that was true enough. Jesus said, ‘That’s right. You’ve had five husbands, and the man you’re livin’ with now, you ain’t married to him neither.’ You see what happened? Jesus knew the very thing in her life that was keepin’ her from bein’ saved. And I suspect every sinner in this house this mornin’ has got somethin’ that’s become so big you cain’t see over it. You cain’t hear God because of it. There’s something in your life that’s not worth havin’, and I want every one of you to ask yourself—what is it that’s keepin’ me from God?”
Joy immediately thought of her bitterness against God. She thought of how much she had loved her parents and her sister and how her heart had been broken when she lost them all on that terrible day. She recognized, as she always had, that her bitterness was wrong, but she couldn’t release it. She bowed her head and tried to shut out Sister Hannah’s words.
Sister Hannah preached for over an hour. The last part of her message was brief. “This woman, she got saved, and she couldn’t keep quiet about it. And her revival come to that whole part of her world because of what Jesus had done for her. And that’s what every Christian ought to be, a voice. John the Baptist, he said, ‘I’m just a voice crying in the wilderness, and I’m pointin’ at Jesus, and I’m sayin’ behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.’ ”
Sister Hannah paused and lifted both her hands, clutching her worn black Bible in one hand. She said, “I’m goin’ to ask everyone in this house today who don’t know Jesus to come and ask Him to save you.”
Joy knew what was coming. Brother Felix stood to lead the congregation in another song, and Joy heard the words she had heard in her own church: “Jesus is tenderly calling today. . . .” Sister Hannah begged and pleaded, but no one went forward.
Finally a young girl, no more than eight or nine, went down to the front, and Sister Hannah talked with her, then put her hands on her and prayed loudly. She asked, “Are you saved, honey?” and when the girl spoke in a muffled voice, Sister Hannah threw her hands up and shouted, “Glory to God and the Lamb forever! Another sinner come into the kingdom!”
The service ended shortly after that, and Chase and Joy found it difficult to get out because so many people wanted to shake hands with them. The hands were hard with work, and the voices were earnest as they invited the two young people to come back. Joy murmured polite words in response, and finally, when the congregation had dispersed, she and Chase stepped out the door and walked over to the buggy. They waited for Sister Hannah as she stood outside shaking hands with the last few people, her voice carrying over the distance.
“Some sermon,” Chase murmured.
“Never heard anything like it. Have you?”
“Yes, I have.”
“You believe it, Chase?”
Chase Hardin turned, and his eyes were sad. “I believe it, but it’s got away from me, Joy. I’ve lost it somewhere along the line.”
Joy looked up. “So have I, Chase. So have I.”
****
That afternoon the sun was starting to angle to the west when Joy went outside to find Chase sitting beside Jake. His hand was on the big dog’s head, and she approached cautiously. When he looked up he said, “You can put your hand on him now. Just move slow and easy.”
Joy moved cautiously. The big dog eyed her as she approached, and she felt a moment’s fear. This huge dog with the sharp teeth and powerful jaws could do some serious damage. Carefully and slowly, she put her hand out and ran it over the coat of the shepherd. “Good dog, Jake,” she said.
“He is a good dog,” Chase said.
“But he was so vicious. What did you do to him?”
“He just needed somebody to trust him. I don’t think he’s ever had that.”
“How did you do it? All I ever saw you do was just sit with him.”
“I talked to him. Animals don’t know many words, but they know the tone of a voice, and they sense it when people have confidence and trust in them.”
“He’s a beautiful animal.”
“Yes, he is.” Chase hesitated, and the two sat there quietly for a moment. Finally he remarked, “I used to work with animals in a circus, Joy.”
“Really! That must have been fun.” She expected him to say more, but he did not. Finally the silence grew uncomfortable, and Joy said, “I’ve got to get to Galveston, Chase.”
“To Galveston? What for?”
Joy hesitated and then began to tell him about Travis. She told him little of her problems, saying merely, “He’s gone in a steamer down to South America. He doesn’t know where I am, so I’ve got to be there when he comes back.”
“You two are pretty close, I take it.”
“He’s all I’ve got left, Chase, after . . .” It was hard for her to go on then, but she swallowed and said, “Well, I just need to be there is all.”
Chase wondered about Joy—why she had been riding the rails and where the rest of her family was, but he didn’t press her to say any more. “Well, I guess Galveston’s not all that far away.”
His words encouraged Joy. She studied him for a moment, then turned and said, “I’ve got to go start supper.” She leaned over and put her hand on the big dog’s head. “Good dog, Jake.”
Jake licked her hand, and she smiled and then looked at Chase. “You’ve done a good job.”
At that mome
nt Sister Hannah came out and saw what had happened. “Well, I never!” she exclaimed. “What kinda spell you put on that there dog?”
“Come over here, Sister Hannah. You’ve got a new friend here.”
Joy smiled at Hannah’s surprise that she was able to pet the dog. The big woman could not get over it, and finally she laughed. “I got some sinners in this community I should put you onto, Chase. They’re as vicious as that dog was.”
“I think I can only work with animals. You’ll have to handle the people, Sister Hannah.” Chase smiled at her.
Joy went inside, and as she worked on the supper, she was surprised by a sensation of fear. She had been so occupied with helping Chase recover from his wounds that she had almost forgotten the circumstances under which she had left the Tatums. Now as Chase was recovering his health, it occurred to her that the law might be hot on her trail. As she cut potatoes into small chunks, she wondered if she was safe living here. She clasped her trembling hands together, and she almost burst out and asked God to help her, but the memory returned of the church service and how even there she had refused to let God come into her life. She continued with her work, resolving not to tell anyone about her feelings, nor the reason why she needed to leave as soon as possible.
****
That night at supper Chase ate heartily, and Sister Hannah said, “You’re a fine cook, Joy.”
“Thank you very much, Sister Hannah.”
“You look a little bit peaked. Don’t you feel well?” Sister Hannah inquired.
“No, it’s not that. It’s just . . . well, I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave soon.”
“Leave?” Hannah was taken aback. “Why would you do that?”
The Fiery Ring Page 10