Never Too Late Church

October 23, 2025

Shifting office chairs and hushed banter peppered Isaiah’s ears as he glanced at his phone and then at the clock on the wall. He groaned at the never-ending rush of e-mails that continued to flood his inbox. It was 4:30pm. What could they want?

Another last-minute request, asking a question he answered already at 2pm. Meanwhile, he had several new processes to learn before the end of the week. It was Thursday. 

“Isaiah,” a voice called out his name. He swiveled around to the left. Terrence was glancing over towards him. 

“What’s your ETA on those analytics for the Bryson account?” 

Isaiah groaned. All week it was e-mails, meetings, data reviews, new processes, and troubleshooting tickets. No time for his main projects. “I’m still working on it,” he responded. 

“Well when are you anticipating completion? Their deputy controller has been down my neck about the timeline on their deliverables.” 

“Just a lot on my plate right now, Terrence. But I’ll get it done.”

“I want a status update tomorrow at 10. We can’t afford any more trouble on this account. Okay?” replied Terrence. 

Isaiah sighed as a pit formed in his stomach. Nearby coworkers stole glances at him and Terrence before gluing their faces back to their computer screens. 

“Yeah,” Isaiah replied. It never ended. 

6:30pm 

It was dark when he got back home. Wind howled as it buffeted his puffer jacket and stung his face, the beanie on the top of his head offered little protection.  

He passed rows of apartment doors, many of them decorated in shades of orange and brown. Some had leafy fall decor, others had pumpkins, Jack-o'-lanterns, and strange cornucopias. 

Then there were the extra people with ghosts and skeletons at their doors but as he passed one of his neighbor’s doors their door briefly opened and he stopped as the words to Blessed Assurance filled his ears. Their door closed again. 

At his neighbor’s door were pumpkins surrounding a table with a small crucifix and a box with a sign taped to it labeled Prayer Requests. It seemed strange, but nobody bothered the display.

Isaiah paused and stood in place staring down at the box. Emotion swelled inside him as he remembered the days in church with his parents, how congregants stood up asking for prayer, and others simply raised their hands for unspoken requests. 

Isaiah gave up on prayers a long time ago. Prayers didn’t get him a wife or persuaded publishers to respond to his manuscript after 25 weeks.  

But something stirred in him. 

He opened his backpack and retrieved a notebook, flipping to a blank page. After fumbling in his bag he found a working pen. 

What was he doing? It had been so long since he prayed. 

With a deep sigh he began writing. 

“God, it's me, Isaiah. My mom and dad are gone.

You took them before we could do everything and say everything we needed to. 

They were taken before we were ready. It's not fair!

If you are the good and merciful God they taught us in church, please give me a sign.

Let me see them again, or at least let me know that they’re okay. 

Let me know that the decades my mom and dad served you were worth it. It's the least you can do!” 

Isaiah folded up the paper and slipped it into the prayer box. 

The moment he did so, he shook his head. “I’m such an idiot.” 

Isaiah reached his door and opened it. Inside, it was clean and orderly, but also dark and empty. 

Dark and empty apartment. The result of a losing streak that started in high school, then surged in college, the bars, and then on the dating apps. 

He collapsed onto his sofa. What little energy he had left drained out of him as his insides rumbled with anxiety and foreboding. Alone in his apartment, his two brothers scattered across the country, both of his parents deceased. It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way, but it did. 

He thought back to those years in church, his mother singing in the choir. How his dad helped the pastor as a deacon. How they would help with food after service. They were so alive back then and full of joy. 

Just then he felt the crunch of paper beneath his shoulders. Isaiah sat up and reached down. 

Cider, Pumpkins and Pies, Oh My!

It was an advert for the Hartswell Pumpkin Patch. 

Isaiah balled up the flyer and tossed it towards his apartment door. He tried closing his eyes and decompressing. His hands wandered to the nearby TV Remote but then his eyes kept drifting back towards the crumpled flyer. 

Every day it was the same routine: go to work, return to his apartment to recover, do the same thing the next day. Using the weekends for sleep, doomscrolling, and an occasional gym workout. 

If things were going to change, he had to start now. 

He looked at his watch. It was only 7:30pm, the Hartswell Pumpkin Patch wasn’t that far. 

Ten Minutes Later…

The crisp autumn night air nipped at his neck, prompting him to hike his scarf a bit higher. 

Isaiah walked on the pavement down a brightly lit plaza area that fed into rows of houses, his backpack slung over his shoulders. 

Nearly all of the homes were adorned in jack-o-lanterns, and Halloween decor. At the end of the line of houses was a gate leading into a field full of pumpkins. 

The Pumpkin Patch. He was almost there. 

He passed the dilapidated Hartswell Grocery Store. It used to be a popular grocery store in the area, but now everybody went to Walmart or Kroger. The former store owner’s gambling scandals didn’t help. 

As he approached the lines of houses, more people came into view. Parents and children approached and left houses. The children skipped happily with bags full of treats. Trick or Treating. 

Small groups of people ambled their way towards the Pumpkin Patch, some grasping bottles of soda, others cups of coffee, and most holding jugs of cider.

Isaiah stopped and set his backpack on the ground. He opened it and took out his camera. 

Might as well take some pictures when he got down to the pumpkin patch. 

Suddenly a gaggle of kids spotted Isaiah and rushed towards him, laughing and giggling with candy-filled bags in their hands. 

“Trick or treat, mister,” they chanted. 

Isaiah smiled. 

“Uh, sorry kids, I don't have anything,” he said. 

“Not even a Reese's?” asked a little girl in a witch’s costume. 

“I like Reese's,” said a boy in a ghost costume nodding.

“Afraid not,” Isaiah replied. 

“Don’t you have any candy?” asked another boy in a Pirate costume. 

“Sorry I don’t, maybe next time,” replied Isaiah. 

“What's in the bag?” demanded the little girl in the witch’s costume. 

“Are there Reese’s?” asked the boy in the ghost costume. 

“No, it's just some of my things,” Isaiah replied. He was getting tired of this. Why was he explaining himself to children?

“Come on man, give us something!” said the boy in the pirate costume. 

“Sorry kids I don’t have anything,” he replied. 

“Okay, mister, then you’ll get a trick!” said the boy in the pirate costume. 

“Yeah!” squealed the other two children. 

Before he could react the boy in the pirate costume sneaked around him and swiped his backpack. Then he started running. The boy in the ghost costume pushed Isaiah back, making him stumble to the side. 

“Hey! That’s not funny!” he shouted. 

The kids scattered, running in all directions, laughing. 

Isaiah chased after the boy in the pirate costume, who was running back toward the dilapidated Hartswell Grocery Store, “Come back here! Give me my bag, you little brat!” Isaiah shouted. 

The little boy shrieked with laughter, taunting Isaiah as he pursued. 

Isaiah increased his pace, tying his camera strap more tightly to his hand. 

He started closing the distance. The little boy’s laughter stopped when he looked back and saw Isaiah barreling towards him, getting closer.  

Scared of what would happen if he were caught, the little boy flung the backpack to the right and then bolted towards some nearby woods. 

Isaiah slowed down, stopping at the position from where the boy flung the bag. 

He breathed in and out slowly, trying to catch his breath. 

Isaiah looked in the direction the boy flung his backpack and quickly spotted it. But his body shook with surprise and emotion as he looked up. The sign for Hartswell Grocery was still there but in place of the dilapidated store, there was a small white country church. 

Where was the store? 

Just then he heard singing. 

The words of Blessed Assurance filled his ears. 

The door to the church slowly opened and a man poked his head out. 

His face seemed familiar. He was a young Black man wearing a tartan-patterned suit and a black tie. His hair was intricately coiled at the top, but wavy and long at the sides. A Jheri Curl? In 2025?

“Come on brother, service has started,” said Jheri Curl. 

“It's Thursday!” was all Isaiah could say. 

“It’s always a good time to worship the Lord, my brother,” the man replied with a chuckle. 

Jheri Curl popped back into the church before Isaiah could reply. 

The church door remained open. 

Isaiah snapped a picture and went inside. 

There were about forty people in the chapel. Twenty-five women, the rest were men. 

There were a few white guys, some with mullets and a white woman in a pink dress with big hair that seemed stuck at a Bon Jovi concert. 

At the head of the church the pastor led the church in song, clapping his hands rhythmically.

Jheri Curl found him again. 

“Come on young brother, come sit with me,” the man insisted. Isaiah was overwhelmed. He followed the man towards the front of the chapel.

They stopped at the first row and stood at a pew near the altar. Then a smooth, soprano voice entered his ears and punctuated the air with joyful confidence, accompanied by a booming bass that rumbled in his chest. 

Isaiah began to cry. He knew those voices. His eyes looked up at the pulpit. A woman in a long blue skirt and matching blue vest, with a white blouse beneath, sang the final verse to Blessed Assurance. A man in a simple black suit and a blue banded collar shirt stood next to her, holding her hand. 

Isaiah collapsed into the pew, his insides flipping with emotion as he watched his mother and father finish the verse. 

“Perfect Submission, all is at rest, I in my Savior am happy and blessed; watching and waiting, looking above, filled with His Goodness, lost in his love.” 

The song ended and his parents looked down towards him. They beamed at him, smiling as the pastor finished his remarks. 

“Brothers and Sisters, we thank you for joining us here at Never Too Late Redeemer Church. To our Terrestrial Brothers and Sisters, it's never too late to get right with the Lord, and it's never too late to say what needs to be said.”

The service concluded and his mother and father left the pulpit and walked towards him. Isaiah ran towards his mother. 

She wasn’t the sick old woman he saw in the hospital, she was young, beautiful and vibrant just as he remembered her from his childhood. His father was slim and muscular, with a kind face. 

“Isaiah,” his mother called out, reaching out with her arms. 

She wrapped her arms around him. Isaiah hugged her back, sobbing uncontrollably as he felt the warmth of her body. His father hugged him from the side. 

“It's okay, Isaiah. It's okay,” she soothed. He kept crying, he didn’t know how to stop. 

She didn’t rush him, she didn’t tell him to stop. She just held him as his father caressed his shoulders. 

Finally, Isaiah stopped and stepped back to look at them both. 

“How? We had a funeral. We buried you.” 

His mother smiled. 

“It was a beautiful service. We love you boys so much." 

“Are you coming back home?” Isaiah asked. 

At first she said nothing. 

“Son, let's sit down,” said his father. 

“Come on Isaiah,” said his mother. 

They went to the first pew. Jheri Curl stepped aside to let them sit. 

Then it hit him. 

“Uncle Dante!” Isaiah shouted. 

“Yeah, that’s me, nephew. Good to see you!” 

Isaiah shook his head. Uncle Dante died in Oklahoma City on April 19th, 1995 at the Murrah Building. He was 32. Isaiah was about 4. 

They sat on the pew. Isaiah kept holding his mother’s hands, not letting go. 

She cleared her throat. “From time to time the Lord will have us come to touch the people we left behind, to help them and to warn them.” 

“Mom, what do you mean?” 

“You keep to yourself, don’t make friends, you allow dark thoughts to consume your mind. You bury yourself with work.

You’re not living joyfully like you did when you were a child,” she said. 

“How can I mom? He took you from me! He took you both!” 

“Son, we poured our hearts into you. But you keep hanging on to the past and not moving forward.” said his father. 

His mother continued. 

“I know it's been hard, son. I’m sorry we had to leave you before you were ready. But life is for living and right now son, you’re not living. You’re just existing. 

You loved writing, yet you struggled to finish your stories. You say you want a family, but you pull away when a woman shows interest in you. Then you convince yourself that nobody loves you!

You’ve got to let go of this fear, son.”

“Mom. I don’t know how. It hasn’t been the same since you’ve been gone. It’s been so hard! Why couldn’t God make me better, like you?” said Isaiah. 

“Scripture promises us a new heaven and a new earth. But life can be a paradise on the old earth as well, son, if you open your heart to the Lord and to others. 

Don’t turn our departure into an excuse for not living,” she said.

“I need you, Mom. I need you, Dad. I’ll do better. But I need you to stay with me for a little bit longer.”

“That isn’t possible, Isaiah. Not yet anyway,” said his father. 

“What do you mean?” Isaiah said, shaking his head. 

His mother lifted her hands and caressed his face. 

“We did what we needed to do on Earth, son. We raised you to adulthood, but now you have a lot more to do. This is the only service you can attend. This is the last time you’ll see us like this,” she said. 

“No, Mom! I still need you!” Isaiah protested. 

“I’m always with you Isaiah. We all are. But you have to run your race and finish your course.” 

“Please, Mom! Let me stay with you!” Isaiah begged. 

His mother grabbed his hands and pulled him closer. A tear streamed down her face. 

“Promise me you’ll remember what used to bring you joy. Promise me you’ll make time for love and friendship. Promise me you will keep living. Promise me, you won’t give up.” 

“Mom! Please!” 

“Promise me!” she demanded. 

Isaiah nodded. “I promise, Mom. I promise.” 

She smiled. 

“I love you, Isaiah. I always will.”

The church and the people slowly began to dissipate. His father and mother continued smiling but their bodies slowly began to disappear along with the church. 

For some reason Uncle Dante gave two thumbs up.

Isaiah wailed uncontrollably as the church and people disappeared, replaced by moldy walls, vacant stalls and cracked windows of the Hartswell Grocery Store interior. 

They were gone. When he picked up his camera he found the photo roll was empty. 

October 25, 2025

“That will be $39.95,” said the pharmacist. 

“With insurance?” Isaiah asked. 

“Yes,” she replied. 

“Okay,” Isaiah groaned. Maybe one day anxiety meds would go down. 

After paying for his prescription, he went towards the exit. Just then a woman pointed at his shirt. 

“Nice shirt. Galatians 6:9, I love that verse.” 

“Thank you,” Isaiah replied. 

“I like your Star Wars Shirt,” he gestured to her Millennium Falcon shirt. 

“Thanks, I got it at a thrift shop,” she replied. 

“I just started building a model of the Millennium Falcon. I used to do it as a kid.” 

“Oh, that sounds fun!” she replied. 

“I’m actually doing a LEGO Model myself,” she replied.

Isaiah smiled. “Look at us, a couple of nerds. Tell me more.” 

Two minutes of chatting turned into ten. Very awkward, very enjoyable. 

As Isaiah left the drugstore, waves of dopamine and confidence surged into his gut. He kept his right hand in his pocket, clutching the paper Cassandra wrote her phone number on, even though he took a dozen pictures of it. She even drew a heart next to it. 

Maybe he’d take her to Pumpkin Patch tomorrow. 

He nodded towards a mother and her son as he passed them in front of the old dilapidated Hartswell Grocery Store. Signs dotted the windows and pavement around it. 

Condemned Building. Demolition on November 1st. 

Just then he heard a child’s voice.  

“It's there, Mom! It's a church with a big door!”

Isaiah stopped and turned. The little boy was tugging his mother’s hand, pointing towards the old Grocery Store. 

“There’s a church there, Mommy! I can see it!” the boy insisted. 

“It’s just an old building, Jacob.” she said as she pulled him forward. 

Isaiah chuckled. 

Just then his phone pulsed with a message. He took out his phone and flipped through to his Gmail. 

His chest swelled with joy. 

“Dear Mr. Isaiah Coleman, we would like to discuss next steps on your manuscript, Fields of Glory. 

Looking forward to connecting with you, Gina Williams, Paradise Publishing.”

The End…