Free And the Shofar Blew by Francine Rivers Page A

tears. Paul usually walked with them, but he was preparing for a meeting today. Time with him was becoming scarce and precious.
    It would be Christmas soon—their second Christmas in Centerville. Why was it that troubles often occurred during the holiday season? Which meant that even more time would be taken away from the family. But it couldn’t be helped. She remembered how it was growing up in a pastor’s home.
    Oh, how she missed her parents. The ache of loss was always greater during Christmastime. Memories flooded her, taking her back to childhood in a small Pennsylvania town and the church family her father had served as a lay pastor for twenty-five years. In some ways, Centerville reminded her of Coal Ridge. The congregation had been less than fifty and as closely knit as blood kin. Young people had grown up and moved away. Most had married “outsiders.”
    During spring break of Eunice’s senior year at Midwest Christian, Paul had driven her home to Pennsylvania to meet her parents. Her father’s and mother’s reserve had made him doubly conscious of everything he said and did, but he had been single-minded in gaining their acceptance. Not that he needed to worry. They showered him with love and attention. “I was lucky to have five minutes a day with my father,” Paul had told her later. “He was always busy with church business.”
    Paul was becoming busier with each month that passed. She was concerned, but not distressed. She walked along the tree-lined street, thinking about her parents. How had they managed to balance home and church obligations? There had never been any doubt that they were devoted to one another as well as to the body of Christ.
    Her mother and father had died within two years of one another. One of the elders had performed her mother’s funeral service. Eunice had felt like an orphan when everyone walked away and left her standing at her parents’ graves. She had been six months pregnant at the time. Paul had come home to Coal Ridge with her, but had been eager to return to the classes he was teaching. It was the only time she ever argued with him. Her emotions had been such a jumble, her grief so intense. Paul thought it best to go home. He’d wanted to be the one to distribute covenant papers. She’d been so hurt and angry she said she didn’t remember the Lord ever demanding that His disciples sign a piece of paper in order to have a covenant relationship with Him. Paul finally said they could stay another few days, but she knew grief didn’t always fit a church schedule and said they could go back to Illinois.
    A pastor’s wife couldn’t expect to have her husband all to herself.
    During the few days they had stayed in Coal Ridge, she had tried to imagine what Paul thought of the place where she’d grown up. Shabby houses, more bars than any other kind of business, stores closed. The mine where her father and the rest of the townspeople had worked had closed down for good, and the town was dying. The few townspeople who remained eked out a living on Social Security. No pastor had come to replace her father. What bright young college graduate would want to come to a dead-end town with no prospects for the future?
    Still, the church had continued, though it changed. People no longer came on Sundays to hear Cyrus McClintock preach. They came to sit in the creaking pews and pray for everyone and everything the Lord laid upon their hearts. The doors remained unlocked throughout the week so that whoever felt the nudge of the Lord could come and pray. Eunice had no doubt those precious people her father had shepherded for so many years would continue to offer up praise and pleas until the last member went home to heaven.
    Centerville Christian Church was changing, too, but Eunice wasn’t completely comfortable with what she saw happening. Paul’s ambitions for the church were growing just as the church was growing. The pews were filling up with new people. Visitors came out