Free Faith Wish by James Bennett Page A

school.”
    â€œBut we’ll be receiving it soon.”
    â€œI mean, Monday is just an orientation meeting. I’ve had my orientation face-to-face with Mrs. DeShields. Remember?”
    â€œHow could I forget? I was there.”
    â€œThat’s my point,” Anne-Marie tried to explain. “You know that I’m acquainted with all the details.”
    â€œAll the details we know about,” replied her mother. “There may be more. There may be a syllabus, or other printed material.”
    â€œMother, this might be different if I was just looking for a place to hang out or goof off. All I’m asking for is permission to fellowship with the Lord.”
    Her mother was looking into the dressing table mirror while trying to adjust a stubborn earring. “Don’t play the holy card, Anne-Marie. I doubt if that will be a strategy that works.”
    â€œI’m not playing cards, I’m just telling you the truth.”
    â€œThere will be lots of other chances for Bible study groups, I’m sure.”
    â€œBut not with Sara’s group. It only meets on Monday nights.”
    â€œThen maybe somebody else’s study group, hmm? Or maybe just plain old church on Sunday morning. I feel confident that the Lord makes His presence known in settings other than Sara Curtis’s family room.”
    Why should I expect my mother to understand ? But how could she, when all she knew of religion was the watered-down and the lukewarm? What could she know of the bold, the born-again, or the Spirit-filled life? She couldn’t be expected to understand something so transforming, so passionate. It would have been even less likely for her mother to understand the complex relationship she had with Brother Jackson or the tiny snail of life turning in her womb. Must be turning. How else could she explain the morning sickness?
    Her mother had the earring in place and was ready to join the reception. “I can’t talk about this now, Anne-Marie. We’ll have to table it until later. We’ll discuss it with your father.”
    That was the death sentence for sure, since her father was even more rigid than her mother. She needed to set her own needs aside, though, because this was Eleanor’s day, not hers.
    Most of the reception was on the front lawn, although the driveway was available as well because her father had gotten permission to move his restored Jaguar and the old Chevy into a neighbor’s driveway. The tent on the lawn turned out to be unnecessary; the day was glorious with warm sun and very little breeze. Some people sat beneath it however, to get out of the bright light.
    Eleanor gave Anne-Marie a quick hug of greeting, but then was swallowed up by well-wishers and media. A number of the city’s leading citizens were there, as well as a Republican state representative named DiGregorio, to whom her father made yearly campaign contributions.
    By the time the strings commenced with selections from Vivaldi and Mozart, Anne-Marie was helping herself to mushrooms and scooping them in a mellow, cheesy dip which seemed to go down easy.
    When her stomach began feeling touchy again, she finished with the mushroom dipping, tied off a couple of full garbage bags, then went inside the house. She watched the proceedings from the living room window. She was happy for her sister’s stunning success and recognition, as she knew the Lord would want her to be, but she herself was grounded. The whole scene reminded her of her own history of paltry achievement in comparison to her older sister’s.
    Her father had now gathered all those assembled into a sort of semicircle, while someone Anne-Marie didn’t know was extolling the praises of Eleanor’s winning the Oneppo Medal, a symbol of the highest academic esteem in the entire universe.
    Other people were scheduled to add a few remarks, Dad included, and the media would interview Eleanor, but Anne-Marie went to get the