Wednesday, February 08, 2017

Planted Seedling: Day 7

Word Count: 42,024

Summary of Events:
On the way home from her grandparents' Lark and her sister got into an argument over Brandt that resulted in their dad making Lark's sister walk the rest of the way home. Brandt was sent to Medicine Hat to run errands, one of which involved him going to the mall, where he ran into Lark, Haylee, and another friend, Anne, and had lunch with them. Later on Lark was texted by Brandt and invited to have dinner with him before she went home, and she notified Haylee and Anne of as much . . .

Excerpt of the Day:
""So long as we're not invited," Haylee said. "I don't know that I want to hang out with him."
"Then why'd you press me to get involved with him?" Lark asked.
"I didn't realise that he was that vicious," Haylee said.
"He's not a Christian," Lark said. "Did you expect him to be anything remotely resembling angelic?"
"Well no, but, he did come to church, and he's not antichurch," Haylee said.
"That means nothing," Lark said.
"He came to church?" Anne asked incredulously.
"Yeah, on Sunday," Haylee replied.
"Really?" Anne asked.
"The Remingtons all used to be members," Lark replied. "In fact, Brandt's grandparents transferred their membership from our church to one in Brooks when they moved there. I don't know when their kids each left church, other than his dad left about the time their marriage fell apart. All of them still have inactive memberships with us, though."
Anne shook her head. "I never would've guessed that."
"I can't say I would've either," Lark said.
"So, to say the least, that family kind of fell apart," Anne said.
"Yeah," Haylee said.
"Unfortunately," Lark said.
Anne and Haylee looked at her with furrowed brows.
"What?" Lark asked.
"You feel badly for them?" Haylee asked.
"Of course I do," Lark replied. "What kind of Christians are you guys that you think we shouldn't feel badly? Surely Brandt's grandparents wanted to see their kids stay in the church. They didn't want to see their name become the scourge of the community."
Anne shifted her jaw and looked guilty. Haylee looked downright convicted.
"You're the two who even went to Bible School!" Lark said. "Honestly!"
"I don't know," Haylee said. "It's kind of hard, you know?"
"Not without explanation," Lark replied.
"We can look at other people, in other places, and be, like, 'you should really forgive them' or 'you should really get over it already' but then we go to where we are and we're like 'there's no way I could possibly forgive them' or 'I'm never going to get over this,'" Haylee said. "I mean, you're right, we shouldn't be mean to them, we should feel badly for his grandparents, and we shouldn't feel like we don't want to see them in church and stuff. But, it's hard."
Lark nodded. "It is."
Anne nodded too. "But do you really think it's likely the rest of them are going to come back to church?"
"No," Lark replied. "But that doesn't mean that we should treat them unkindly or anything like that. Or be unwelcome to them if they should return. In fact, really, we should pray for them that they would come back."
Neither Haylee or Anne said anything, and Lark noticed with relative astonishment that they completely walked past the last store they'd been planning on going to and continued on to the entrance they'd come into and out to Haylee's Pontiac."

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