Chapter 20
Trap sat almost against the wall, his sister, Laurel, beside him in the pew. She sat next to his momma, and then Daddy took up the end of the row.
As children, their whole family could fit on these side pews, but Trap enjoyed a little bit more room for his adult-sized body and wide shoulders.
He stayed seated as everyone else stood when the choir came out and started to sing.
His mother threw him a Look-with-a-capital-L, and Trap clapped along to appease her.
He usually enjoyed church just fine, but he felt buried by work right now.
When Lila Mae had texted him early that morning and said one of their new stray cats had torn apart the cat room, and she wouldn’t be at church, Trap had wanted to skip immediately.
He normally didn’t sit with his family either, but over by Ty and Winnie, Colt and Jonas, and Jake and his brother Carson.
They sat a couple of rows back, in the middle, and Ty wished he’d driven himself and sat with his friends.
Jonas sat with his grandmother that day, because Colt had brought Sariah to church with him. Trap thought he was moving even faster than him and Lila Mae, while at the same time his heart beat out some happiness for Colt, who hadn’t gone on a date with a woman he liked this year—until Sariah.
The song ended, and whispers and shuffling moved through the chapel as people retook their seats and got their kids settled again. Pastor Knowlton collected his notes and took off his reading glasses before he started to approach the microphone.
“Trap,” Daddy hissed, and he looked over to his father. No one in his family had regained their seats yet, because Lila Mae was currently squeezing past his daddy and the pew in front of him.
Trap jumped to his feet, surprise running through him
“Sorry. I’m so sorry,” Lila Mae whispered as she moved past Momma, and then Laurel. His sister scooted down to make room for her on the bench, and Trap ran his hand along Lila Mae’s waist as she arrived in her pretty pink dress.
The soft pink fabric shone, reflecting the light from her hair, and she’d painted her lips a paler shade of rose to match. Everything inside Trap roared into an explosive fire.
“Wow, you look nice,” he said right out loud.
“Travis,” his mother chastised him in a loud whisper that she might as well have shouted. Still, she rarely used his full, given name, and his adrenaline spiked.
He frowned at Momma, and then realized he and Lila Mae were the only people still standing.
“Brothers and sisters,” Pastor Knowlton said, and Trap hurried to squeeze himself into the corner of the pew and leave room for Lila Mae.
Thankfully, there wasn’t much room for her beside him, and he turned sideways and lifted his arm around her, ignoring the way his mother watched him with narrowed eyes.
What was he supposed to do? He could’ve had her sit on his lap, and Trap actually smiled just thinking about how Momma would react to that.
He leaned down, nearly touching the brim of his cowboy hat to Lila Mae’s temple. “I thought you said you weren’t coming,” he whispered.
“Well, I got things cleaned up faster than I thought,” she whispered back. “And I figured I might as well come, instead of puttering around the sanctuary. Sometimes I need a break from it.”
Trap understood that, and he kneaded her a little bit closer, glad when she cuddled into his chest and then looked toward the pastor. She wasn’t wearing a hat today, though Trap had seen her pin them to her hair in the past and sit on the end of a pew by herself here in the chapel.
They hadn’t sat together at church previous to this, and his pulse echoed through his body in a strange way. Bringing a woman to church was a big deal in his family, and he honestly wasn’t sure he was ready for it.
He told himself he was sitting next to Lila Mae, and it was no different than taking her to a movie, or piling into a booth with her at a restaurant.
“…the creation,” Pastor Knowlton was saying when Trap finally got his ears to focus on the right thing.
“Now, the creation is at the very beginning of the Bible.” The pastor smiled out to everyone.
“So a lot of you have probably read it many times. Today, I ask if you’ve ever studied it and really thought about each word, and what it means.
To have these six, glorious creative periods of time, which, in our own human temporal understanding, we’ve called days. ”
He proceeded to talk about what God created on the first day, and then the second, and then the third. Yes, Trap had read these scriptures before. Pastor Knowlton always spoke in a calm, kind, powerful voice that brought the spirit to the room.
Today was no different, and when he finished reading about how God had created male and female, and then pronounced the work “very good,” Pastor Knowlton looked up again and pulled off his reading glasses.
“You’ll note, my friends, that He did not say ‘very good’ when He finished creating the fishes of the sea, or separating the light from the dark.
Those things were good, but God creating us in His own image and giving us the potential to become like Him was very good.
We are His children. You are His son, or you are His daughter, and He gives each of us the very life we breathe. ”
Trap’s insides started to tingle, something that only happened when he felt absolute truth ringing through him.
“And now I wish to focus the rest of my sermon on a part of the creation that I believe is overlooked, and that is the seventh day.”
Trap was suddenly very glad he hadn’t skipped church on this, the seventh day, when he knew he should keep the Sabbath Day holy.
“God gave us the gift of rest,” Pastor Knowlton said. “And He provided for us the example of how to live it by demonstrating it Himself—because He rested on the seventh day.
“This is a principle that comes from our very existence.” He swept one arm wide. “God commanded us to rest before there was organized religion, before we had the scriptures, before the Law of Moses.
“It is a perpetual covenant, woven into the fabric of existence, and He wants you to have a respite from the chaotic and loud calls of the world around you. You need this seventh day of rest, my brothers and my sisters, as it will provide a safe haven for you mentally, physically, and spiritually, to rest from your cares and from your labors and find ways to build the relationships that God wants you to have: with friends, with family members, and ultimately with Him.”
He smiled and consulted his notes for a brief moment. Trap needed more time to absorb his words and really let them seep into his heart, to examine them and how he could incorporate them into his life moving forward.
But Pastor Knowlton didn’t give him that time.
“Now, I’m not going to give you a talk on what you can and can’t do on the Sabbath Day.
I think every child of God in this room has the ability to get down on their knees and ask the Lord if the activities they’re doing on Sunday are appropriate or not.
“But you can start with some of these questions: Are you allowing yourself to rest from your worldly cares? God rested on the seventh day. Do you think you need more time than He used to create the world, organize matter, and set it all where it needed to go? You need more time than He had?”
Pastor Knowlton shook his head. “I don’t think so, brothers and sisters.
And I think this principle of rest, this gift God has given you, should not be overlooked.
Ask yourselves: am I utilizing the gifts God has given me?
Am I taking advantage of the opportunity to rest?
God has already given you permission to close the doors on business, ignore your email, save the text messages for Monday morning, and set aside anything that weighs you down and pulls you away from Him.
“Now, the other six days of the week, we have to deal with those things, and He expects us to do so, but this glorious seventh day should be restful, my friends. How are you using this opportunity? Have you thanked God lately for His Sabbath Day and His permission to rest?”
Trap sat there, totally enthralled, as he’d never given much thought to rest being a gospel principle. He felt God speaking to him through Pastor Knowlton, and the message sunk straight into his heart.
The lists of supplies he needed to order could wait until tomorrow morning. So could the emails he hadn’t gotten to on Friday night, as well as his check-in with Jason and Sawyer. Heck, they already met every Monday morning, and Trap didn’t need to take hours on Sunday to get ready for it.
He deserved a day of rest.
As the pastor finished up and turned the time back over to his sister and her husband, Cactus and Willa Glover, who ran the choir, Trap found himself with the energy to stand.
After all, now attending church would be the most draining thing he would be doing that day.
He clapped along and even sang when invited to do so.
Lila Mae seemed to have the light in her eyes that they were singing about, and when the song ended, she giggled as she put her hands against his chest and leaned into him.
Trap grinned down at her and turned toward the end of the row as the meeting had ended.
“Lila Mae, are you coming to dinner at our place?” Momma asked.
Lila Mae sobered instantly, and Trap also felt himself wilt as his mother’s gaze landed on him. She looked up at him, and Trap said, “Yeah, you should come.”
“Were you going to eat over there today?”
“Yeah,” Trap said.
Lila Mae turned back to his mother. “Did you make a roast, ma’am? Trap brought me some leftovers a couple weeks ago, and it was so good.”
“Yes,” Momma said, her smile widening at the mention of her good cooking. “But it’s pork, and we’re having barbecue sandwiches with coleslaw and homemade potato chips.”
“My mother makes the best homemade potato chips in the world.” Laurel beamed up at Momma and linked her arm through hers.
Trap grinned at her. “Lila Mae, this is my youngest sister, Laurel.”
“Yes, Trap has told me so much about you.”
Finally, Daddy stepped out into the aisle and took Momma with him. Laurel followed them, leaving Lila Mae and Trap to bring up the rear. He kept his hand in hers as she led him up the aisle and out into the foyer.
He went by plenty of people he knew, but he kept his head low so as not to start a conversation with them. He simply wanted to escape with Lila Mae and find that rest the pastor had talked about.
His parents always waited in line to talk to the pastor, but when Lila Mae looked at him, Trap nodded toward the door.
Outside, he felt like he could breathe easier, though his tie immediately felt too tight and too hot around his neck.
He reached up to loosen it, and he wasn’t the only cowboy doing that as they left the church.
“What did you think of the sermon?” Lila Mae asked.
“It was good.” Trap looked up into the wide, clear, blue sky, his thoughts on how God had created it and put everything in the right order so humans could live here on this Earth. “I don’t rest enough,” he said. “I almost didn’t come to church today, because I have so many things to do.”
Lila Mae linked her arm through his, and they walked down the sidewalk in front of the church, though he’d ridden with his parents that morning, and they’d parked in the opposite direction.
“It can be hard to rest as a rancher,” Lila Mae said. “I mean, I have to go check on the cats every day, multiple times a day, no matter what day of the week it is.”
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s what the pastor was talking about,” he said. “For me, it feels like a mental break that I need to take.”
“And anything that brings us closer to those we care about and closer to God is a good thing.” Lila Mae smiled at him, and Trap took a moment to simply drink her in, haloed by all that sunshine.
“That’s right.”
“What are you going to do after lunch?” She grinned up at him. “I already know you don’t take naps.”
He sighed, his mind feeling very drifty today and far away. “I don’t know. Maybe we should go fishing.”
“Fishing?” Lila Mae tilted her head back and laughed. “You have never once mentioned fishing.”
“Fishing is relaxing.” Trap grinned at her, enjoying the way her laughter filled his world with happiness and light. “I used to go fishing with my grandpa, and it was just me and him and the river and the wind. It feels like rest.”
“I’ve never been fishing,” Lila Mae said.
Trap came to a stop on the sidewalk and faced her. “Well, now we have to go, don’t we?”
“Do we?” She looked at him with such teasing, and he’d never had a woman look at him like this.
“I can’t believe you’ve never been fishing.”
“When’s the last time you went? Because I’m pretty sure you told me that both of your grandfathers have passed away.”
“Oh, gosh.” Trap watched the people in their Sunday best hurrying through the heat to their cars. “It’s probably been ten years.”
“We probably need a guide to take us then,” Lila Mae said.
It was Trap’s turn to laugh, and he did just that. “Honey, we don’t need a guide to take us fishing. You get a pole and you go to the river.”
“Last time we went to the river, we almost got attacked by a badger.”
Trap couldn’t argue with her there. “I can look up some places online,” he said. “There’s a couple of state parks around here. I’m sure we could go fishing at one of them, and we could try Silver Lake, though I bet it’ll be really busy today.”
He heard his father call his name, and Trap looked back toward the church. He and Lila Mae had only wandered about thirty yards away, and he held up one hand, and then reached to pull out his phone.
“Can you drive me to my parents’ house?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Lila Mae said, and he quickly started to text his father that he would go with Lila Mae.
“You ready to eat dinner with my Momma and Daddy and Laurel?” He shoved his phone away and looked straight into Lila Mae’s eyes.
“Yeah, sure,” Lila Mae said, her voice pitching up, but her pretty pink lips straightened out of a smile. “Honestly, Trap, as long as I’m with you, it doesn’t matter what we do today.”
“Funny,” Trap said, grinning at her. “I was just going to say that to you.”
She giggled and shook her head, then stepped off the curb. “I’m over here, cowboy, because I was so late.”
Trap let her lead him to her car, not sure that lunch with Lila Mae and his family could be considered restful, but praying that it would be.