Standing Room by Chelsea Temple

He’s twenty-two and there’s only standing room. He’s sweating through the collar of the shirt his mother pressed for him this morning. She’s sitting in the front row with his father and his three younger siblings. His extended family are behind them waiting to hear him. He hasn’t had this many people listen to him since seminary school. 

He holds his Bible to his chest. 

“This is what you’ve gone to school for. You can do this.” 

The church windows are open, but even on this crisp fall day, it is still stifling. Or maybe that’s just him. His hand shakes and he sends up a prayer for peace. He cannot get this wrong. He will not get this wrong. 

He’s thirty, and his wife is pregnant again. Little Cora sits beside her in the first row. His father stands at the back. He hasn’t sat in the front row since mom died, but he’s still here, every Sunday. Construction has finished on the church last spring, and now, everyone has a seat. 

Cora is still small. She was sick last night, and she slept curled between him and his wife fighting for comfort on their small bed. 

He sends up a prayer for strength. This is the first Sunday in the newly renovated church. He cannot get this wrong. He has to prove to the congregation that this was the right move. He will not get this wrong. 

He’s fifty and Cora is sitting in the front row with her new husband. Her mother holds her hand. It’s been over a year since she’s seen her. She still looks like the little girl they raised though he knows that she is soon to be a mother in her own right. 

“Lord, what will I do with a grandchild?” 

Still, he is happy. Attendance has been down lately, and he wonders if this is what it will come to. When he first started out, even their extended family came to hear him preach, but as the years passed and more and more people went home to be with the Lord, their vacancy was never filled. 

“People just aren’t interested in coming to church anymore,” he had told his wife. 

He clutches his Bible tighter, as if it is a lifeline, a buoy in this dying world. 

He sends a prayer up for those who are not here today. He hopes that the lost find peace. He hopes that he can be a light, and that one day, the church will be full again. 

He’s eighty, and this is the first Sunday without his wife. The few faithful of his congregation have urged him to take a few days off, but he can’t. She wouldn’t have wanted him to sacrifice others for her memory.

The topic of the lagging congregation had been one that they spoke of often. 

“If you can touch even one person out there, then you must do it. The Lord said that he will be there if even two people are gathered together in his name. You are one and I am two, that’s all we need.” 

He clutches the Bible that his parents gave him when he first started his ministry. He opens it and looks at his mother’s handwriting. Will it ever end? This missing?

He is called to the front. The choir has finished the first song of the morning, but his hearing aid didn’t pick up the silence. 

He moves to stand at the podium, and he looks out into the crowd. He sees the ghost of people who used to be there, old Frank Clarke who always had the best jokes, Annie McCullough who used to put together gift baskets for the kids during Christmas. Her great-granddaughter still attends church regularly. She teaches Sunday school when they are lucky enough to have some kids in attendance. 

He looks at the place where his wife once sat, and he can remember the days when the church was standing room only when people listened to the word instead of people who listen only for him to finish speaking.

He has given his life to this church, and he wonders if it has been enough. Has he done enough? 

Then he thinks, about his family, his mother, and father who came to church every Sunday. He thinks of the people who this job has allowed him to know. He thinks of the hospital visits and the countless people who have come to alter to gain something that they can never lose. He thinks of these things, and he knows that this place is more than just four walls and a roof. 

He looks out into the crowd, and he knows that one or two can become a multitude. He sends up a prayer of thankfulness, and he knows that one day there will be only standing room again. 

Chelsea Temple is an English teacher from East Tennessee. Her favorite part of having a relationship with the Lord is that she always has someone to see her classic "side-eye" look. She believes that the Lord appreciates her humor while she tries to appreciate all of his. She attends Lyons Park Missionary Baptist in Church Hill, Tennessee.