"...for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."-Matthew 5:45 KJV
William Skye is eighteen and a Oneness Pentecostal in a small south Texas town. Although much of a Pentecostal's l...
"I don't care if it hairlips every cow in Texas! I will serve the Lord!"—Brother C
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William Skye
I don't regret a day serving the Lord! However, I'd be a liar to say I didn't regret things I've done in the past. Church service was in high swing as we worshipped the Lord. I smiled as old bittersweet memories flooded my mind in the Creator's presence. The services weren't rehearsed as the Catholics in town were. Nor were the majority of the people vipers one day and Pinocchio pretenders the next like the Baptists. No, we praised the Lord as the Bible taught.
Pious silence was heavily discouraged by our Pastor. A high schooler in English can read the Psalms of David and note that nearly many Psalms are not declarative or simple sentences. Many of the Psalms are imperative or command sentences. Therefore when the Word says to dance, praising the Lord with a loud voice, clapping your hands and singing Psalms unto Him we take it as a command.
Tastes in music have changed over the millennia however and it was crowded in the front of the church as Southern Gospel was blasting from the church's sound system. Sounds of the bass, drums, piano, organ and worship washed over the sanctuary. The well lit sanctuary was full of fifty-plus souls and even though the thermostat was set to seventy almost everyone was sweating. Praising the Lord with all you got tends to get one's suit, blouse or dress covered in perspiration.
The sanctuary floor was a soft sky blue and the walls white, matching the colors in the school area across the entire church. Light colors reflected heat and kept the room cooler somewhat. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling and lit the room brightly as we worshipped. Everything was clean, so clean in fact, that the stained pine beams and pews looked like oak and fooled a few old carpenters who visited once.
In our respective assembly, the girls worshipped on one side and boys the other. This prevented accidents fueled by puberty or other similar desires. Wouldn't want boys and girls 'mistakenly' tackling their crush or spouse-to-be but even this precaution doesn't help. Sometimes when everyone gets rowdy in the spirit almost everyone just... lets go.
On the girls side of the First Pentecostal Church of Adnah were blouses, skirts and dresses of many colors. Their hair on their heads go uncut and fixed up in buns on their heads. Those more talented in dressing hair interwoven braids into their hair but only the little girls occasionally wore pig tails and the like, most of the time their mother fixes even the little ones' hair into a nice bun. Sometimes the girls would worship themselves flat onto the floor, undoing their hair with all their spinning and fervor. On days like that hairpins would also appear on the boys' side of the sanctuary.
The men weren't as colorful as the ladies were when it came to dress. Most men in our assembly wore white church shirts and dark suits with a tie. Ties of all colors were the most colorful thing on the men's side. However, you wouldn't be caught dead with a pink tie in Adnah but that might be more of a reflection on the town in general. Though more reserved than the girls, sometimes the men of the Casimir family and others would worship themselves flat with the girls. Whenever a Casimir family man gets riled up however it's usually best to just get out of the way. Their average height is six foot and even old Marty Casimir, sixty-six years old and six-foot-six, could run me over when I was in prime before changing from public to private school.
Ties, however, weren't mandatory so I usually wore a simple white church shirt and slacks. After worship I sat down on the front row as Brother Clarkson rose to teach. For whatever reason, this morning the message was a shotgun message about Holiness: no TV, no lewd books, no social media, no chat rooms, no dating apps and definitely no dating people from the world. He also touched onto a few dating standards we were familiar with: PDA was frowned upon, holding hands wasn't allowed until age eighteen, and teenagers weren't allowed to date until age sixteen.
Brother Clarkson, even at the age of sixty his voice boomed throughout the sanctuary. His preaching was usually very hot and heavy. With the little ones in Sunday School class nothing was sugarcoated; the more mature and explicit subjects of society today wasn't euphemized. Reverend Clarkson stressed the importance of being holy, chaste and having a good Godly attitude and worldview.
To most, the specific standards of some sorts of things would appear totalitarian and controlling. Why would any sensible person submit themselves to this? For some it's because their parents say so but for me it's my choice. Pentecost isn't, as Brother Clarkson likes to say, do's-and-don'ts it's want-to's and don't-want-to's. At the grand age of eighteen I'm not legally bound to stay in the faith. Neither does Brother Clarkson go around town and police his saints.
Though strict, the life as a Pentecostal isn't as bad as one thinks. After all, Facebook for example, from what I hear, is selling information about its users, censoring others, and is the cause of one-third to one-half of divorces nowadays. There's three pros to the cons of a slightly lesser social life. Other stories exist of people posting when they leave town and then a burglar chooses that day to rob their house. Young people who have a naive streak have been prey to online predators since the dawn of chat rooms and the like.
Teenagers don't need a screen to get into trouble however. I stole a glance at Guinevere and the longer I looked the more bad memories that came back. I'd know, I've done some seriously stupid things in my past. My family has done worse but I try to take whatever lessons I can get and implement them into my life so I don't make the same mistakes. Sometimes... that just doesn't work out though.
Regardless, ever since I joined this church I've been becoming a better and happier person. I used to hate myself and hate life. I do not regret giving my life to the Lord.
My thoughts drifted towards Guinevere and my hands knitted tighter in my lap. I've been a wannabe lover since puberty and never knew how to go about in the right way. People have asked me if I was ever afraid of anything. They say I look like I have everything together. Maybe that's a lot of people in Pentecost but of course I have fears. To me, my heart has become currency, formerly a heart of gold now minted into pocket change, I invest the pieces I picked up like one does in the stock market.
However, everyone here has seen my fall and the church is so small the only person I thought was worth the investment was Guinevere and now I'm broken. If anyone here ever thought of trading their heart for mine they are now never going to take the risk. The only thing I can do is patch my torn pride and keep going. Though I suffer, 'tis but a season for those who serve the Lord.
