The First Stone

Once upon a time I was a young pastor’s wife.

And I knew a young woman who left the church because she didn’t know how to deal with the shame of her choices.

I didn’t know quite what to say, so I let her go.

One Sunday morning, many months later, she walked back into church pregnant with twins.

She waved at me across the sanctuary.

After the service she came up to me beaming with joy about her babies and told me she was living with her boyfriend who wanted to marry her one day.

I found my words.

Standing in the middle of that church aisle, I told her in no uncertain terms that she needed to move out until he would marry her and come back to church because she needed to hear the Word, and that we needed to meet him to make sure she had made a better choice this time.

She hung her head, stared at the floor, and nodded silently, the smiled erased from her lips.

And she never came back.

And I never forgot.