When at last we broke ground, every denomination in the county was represented. Brethren and Amish craftsmen worked side by side with tattooed, rough-around-the-edges bikers to erect the frame in one day. Within a month, the entire church building was framed and the outside walls covered because of the generosity of time given by the loving souls of Eel Falls.
All the construction was done by volunteers. Workers labored after they got off work and were supplied with a constant stream of food. Tables overflowed with casseroles, sandwiches, and desserts. Mennonite women helped our ladies with the food table all day, but kept their hands busy with needlework when they weren’t washing dishes or cleaning in my kitchen. I felt out of place among them, but they welcomed me warmly, and I learned we had much in common. I tried to talk them into riding with me on my motorcycle, but they declined with shy smiles.
Bernice and Norman shocked all of us by plunging into the building project with ardent fervor, and every day came by to give Goliath a cheeseburger. One day I caught Bernice slipping him a sandwich from the meal table.
“Don’t feed him from the table, Bernice,” I scolded. “You’re teaching him bad manners.”
“Oh, fiddle faddle.” She waved me off and gave him another sandwich. “He needs to keep up his strength. Don’t you, Goliath buddy?” She kissed his slobbery face, and I thought I’d fall off my chair.
One evening after a long day of work, Atticus and Opal stopped by the house to talk to Aaron.
“We’d like to be married as soon as the building is open, if you don’t mind.” Atticus blushed.
“Mind? We’d be honored!” Aaron hugged them both.
I clapped my hands. “What a wonderful way to break in the building.”
Between the building project, getting Opal ready for her wedding, and rearranging her house to accommodate Atticus, the Lady Eels didn’t do much riding that fall.
And while we loved every minute of the process, we all knew, without saying a word, we missed our rides, the freedom of the road, and bonding with one another.
But the wedding plans kept us distracted. At least we were still together helping Opal with her big day. We shopped for hours in Indianapolis for the perfect dress, and she finally chose a simple silk, tea length gown.
“No veil,” she said. “I’m not a girl anymore.”
“We can put flowers in your hair from my garden if you like.” Lily removed the veil and hugged the bride.
“That would be perfect, Lily. Thank you.”
It wasn’t like any of us to be too sentimental, but it was hard not to be looking at Opal in her gown.
Once the sanctuary portion of the building was complete, Aaron and the board decided to hold a dedication service. There was standing room only and bikers stood with community members, chatting, shaking hands, and singing. Any stranger coming in off the street would have felt welcome and accepted among the eclectic group that made up our church.
“Good thing we made the sanctuary bigger.” I overheard Norman mumble on his way to get chairs. The change in him, and especially Bernice, was startling.
But whenever one kingpin steps down, someone else is right there to take his or her place.
On dedication day Earlene was unhappy with just about everything we’d done to the church. The carpet was wrong, the paint wasn’t the right color, and the ladies’ bathroom doors weren’t to her liking.
As she walked past me, mumbling under her breath, I sighed and looked heavenward.
Are You testing me again, Lord? I thought I passed my class in patience before.
Reba caught my expression and laughed at me.
“I must remember to look into their faces and try to see Jesus,” I said to Reba as I walked to the stage to take my place at the piano.
“I was just thinking.” She pointed to my pickle face and snorted. “I sure hope Jesus doesn’t look like
that
.”
I made it to the piano bench just as Aaron began the dedication service.
“Welcome, friends! Isn’t it amazing what a few weeks can do?”
He waited a minute to let the thought sink in.
“God reminds us in Ecclesiastes chapter four that two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor.”
Aaron paused again and choked back tears.
My eyes leaked—something they never do in public. There was more love in that room than my body could take. I can only compare it to the love I felt the first time I held my babies in my arms—only sweeter. It felt like Jesus Himself was sitting beside me on the piano bench with His arm around my shoulder.
Aaron continued. “The evidence of this truth is all around you, everywhere you look. In every nail, every screw, every piece of decoration, we see represented a grand friendship. Unlikely neighbor came together with unlikely neighbor, and with forgiveness, and love, acceptance, and God’s grace, built something more beautiful than this building itself.
“The work of Michelangelo can’t compare to the beautiful portrait of friendship you’ve created in this community. And now, this church home stands as a testimony of how God took something broken and made it whole again.
“Whether you drive a cage or a bike, when you ride by this building with your children and your grandchildren, tell them the story of love that these walls represent. Tell them that when one brother fell, another brother came to lift him up; when a sister was hungry, another came to feed her; and when the battles raged and the storms buffeted, they joined hands and hearts and withstood the blows. Let us pray.
“Dearest Heavenly Father, I pray that this house of God will forever be much more than four walls. I pray that it will always be a shelter from the storm, a hospital where we can nurse the hurting back to health, a school where people can learn the Truth, and a gathering place for people to love one another because the love of God flows through every pore of their being.
“May people who enter these doors leave changed; may people who leave through these doors carry the gospel outside these walls to reach a lost and dying world.
“For as it is written in Your Word in Psalm 84:10: ‘a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.’
“And now, Lord, You gave this structure to us. We give it back to You. Take it. It is Yours. Amen.”
There were loud cheers, which scared a few of the folks from more reserved churches, but I saw a couple of them smiling.
Then, Aaron’s beeper went off. Aaron never wore his beeper to a church service. He spoke to the worship leader who nodded and began singing “Great God.” Then Aaron left the stage.
I couldn’t follow him because I was playing the piano, but my head bobbed up like a jack in the box. Reba and Lily looked at me with questions in their faces—questions I couldn’t answer. I mouthed, “I don’t know,” and shrugged my shoulders.
Aaron was supposed to have announced that Opal and Atticus would get married at the conclusion of the service. Earlier, the Lady Eels had decorated the unfinished fellowship hall with airy pink and white paper lanterns.
Lily made a beautiful chocolate three-tiered wedding cake with white frosting and trimmed it in pink ribbon. The sweet-looking confection sat in the middle of the room, and perched on top of it sat an adorable miniature of a couple wearing leathers riding a motorcycle.
We were into a second song when I heard a rumble above the music. The low, thundering tones grew stronger, and I recognized the distinctive melody of a Harley engine. I looked up from my piano keys to see my husband, the refined pastor geek, riding a brand new, fully dressed Harley Road King—wearing black leathers, a doo-rag and sunglasses. I laughed so hard I could barely finish playing.
He cycled up the aisle, past faces that had gone blank, up the ramp to the platform, and hit the kickstand behind the pulpit. After he parked the bike, Atticus and Opal revved up the middle aisle behind him on Atticus’s bike.
Now the pale faces changed to smiles so bright there was no need for sunshine, lights, or candles.
So that’s why Opal hadn’t wanted to wear a veil.
She wasn’t wearing the dress we picked, either. She wore pink leathers and looked absolutely adorable.
Once the initial shock wore off, the church went wild. Aaron asked them three times to calm down so the wedding ceremony could begin.
I don’t remember all the words, only the sentiment that Aaron left in all of our hearts. Sentiment that gave new meaning to the joining of two individuals.
Finally, after Opal and Atticus said their vows, they mounted Atticus’s motorcycle, and took off, down the aisle, through the church lobby, and down the road. We didn’t get to throw rice or blow bubbles. But that was OK.
The way the Lady Eels were weeping, we couldn’t have seen clearly enough to shower them anyway. Besides, they’d be back. We had cake in the fellowship hall, and I’d never known Atticus to pass up a piece of cake.
My eyes filled for the second time that day as I left the piano bench to join my husband. “So, Pastor,” I said, sidling up to Aaron, “when did you learn to ride like that?”
“I’ve been sneaking in lessons on the sly.” he grinned.
The bikers gathered around the Harley, admiring it.
SlowRide stepped forward and grabbed the microphone. People were leaving, but he got their attention.
“Don’t leave yet. We’ve got one more thing to do,” he said.
Aaron froze. In times past, he’d never let someone at the microphone without permission. He looked at me and shrugged. Norman and Bernice weren’t the only ones who’d grown and changed.
The congregation turned their attention to SlowRide.
“We bikers here, as you know, did a couple of fundraisers. Well, one of them was to get our pastor this here bike. It isn’t a loan, Pastor. It’s for you. We can’t go to a church where the pastor don’t have his own ride.” He snagged the keys from the Harley and faced Aaron. “So, Pastor, here you go. Hope you like it.” He flipped the keys through the air, and they landed comfortably in Aaron’s hand.
My husband stood speechless with his mouth open, looking at the motorcycle. “A brand new Harley? Not sure what to say, fellas…”
Timmy broke free of Reba and Trace and climbed on the bike clapping and flapping. Aaron picked me up and swung me around. I worried I might hurt his back, but the building project had given him a few new muscles, I guess.
Finally, he set me down, and I stood facing him. I gazed at his handsome face, freshly bronzed from doing construction in the sun. “Aaron, I’m so proud of you.”
He grinned. “Honey, I’m proud of you. I never dreamed something like this for our church. Thank you for being you.”
Aaron looked at me, not past me, not thinking about what came next on his schedule, but really at
me
. He leaned down and kissed my lips the same way he kissed them the first time I knew he was in love with me.
And my arms hung down to my sides.
Like a couple of limp eels.
Everyone cheered, and Aaron and I blushed. For a minute there, we’d forgotten anyone was there. But now we turned toward the Harley.
“Get off the bike, Timmy, honey,” Aaron said. “Go ask SlowRide to take you for a spin. The first ride goes to Mommy.”
SlowRide talked Timmy off the bike, and Aaron and I got on and took off, down the aisle, through the lobby and straight past the cake in the fellowship hall. Everyone was a shouting blur of smiles and clapping.
Aaron pulled out of the parking lot, and we flew down the street.
You never know where a road will take you. And I didn’t know where we might go next. But as long as I was with my family, and God was my navigator, the journey would be fabulous and the destination perfect.
As long as I stayed in my lane.
And in the center of God’s will.
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Harbourlight Books
The Beacon in Christian Fiction™
an imprint of Pelican Ventures Book Group
May God’s glory shine through
this inspirational work of fiction.
AMDG