Chasing the Storm (Chasing the Storm, #1) - PUBLISHED

Chapter One (Abigail's POV)

I love the song “Love Come to Life” by Big Daddy Weave. It’s one of my favorites. I hadn’t heard our church’s band play it until now.

We are told that we may now be seated as the band stops playing and the associate pastor – Pastor William Freeman – walks onto the stage. He talks briefly about tithing, explaining the biblical principal behind it.

“Gentlemen, please come forward for tithes and offering.”

What I estimate to be eight men go to the stage from the back of the room. Each one holds a white bucket with our church’s name on it: Winthrop Church of Christ.

A prayer is said and then the band plays again as the buckets go from one end of the pews to the other. I put a five-dollar bill into the one that comes down my row and am sad when the song Give Me Your Eyes by Brandon Heath ends. They’re playing all my favorite songs today! It makes me wish I weren’t sitting in the balcony, but up close. It’s almost impossible for my family and me to find seats on the bottom floor on Sundays now, because our church is growing. It’s grown so much since we first started coming here!

It’s Wednesday night – high schoolers’ service night – and it’s still too crowded for me to be on the first floor!

Youth Pastor David Richardson enters the stage after the band leaves. He tells us the events that are coming soon, including a lock-in, a white-out party, a flag football event, a chili cook-off and more. But there’s one thing that he shares really stands out to me, and it seems to make him a little upset, too.

“You guys… my neighbor, Paul Jones, was in a car accident with a semi very early this morning. He’s in the hospital, still in a coma, and no one knows when he’ll be out… or if he ever will. The doctors found out that he’s been paralyzed from his waist down. He has eleven children, some of whom were adopted, and there aren’t any extended family members who can stay with them and help out. Their mother died just two months ago while giving birth to the youngest. The father – my neighbor – was laid off from his job last month, so they could really use some help.”

“Aw,” my best friend Sierra says, pouting sympathetically. “That’s terrible!”

Pastor David continues, “If any of you would like to volunteer to help this family, there are sign-up sheets in the back that you can fill out after service. For those of you who plan on filling out those sheets, please come see either Pastor Amanda or me and we’ll tell you more about it first. Our church bus will be here tomorrow morning to drive those of you who need the transportation to their house in Plant City. You’d get community service hours for helping, but the most important part is you would be showing Christ’s love. And that’s what I’m going to be talking about today.”

During the rest of the service, he talks about exactly what he said he would, and what all of the songs played today are about: Sharing the love of Christ.