Rachel sat on the cold uncarpeted church floor for quite some time. Eli's head was still cradled in her lap, his blood soaking into her dress. Later on, she would have no idea how long she had sat there crying; her brain had temporarily shut down when Eli's had stopped permanently...and then there was the prayer that she had shared with the dying Brother Eli, she couldn't explain that either. She understood that women were not worthy of leading prayer inside of a church; they were to remain silent and obedient in God's house. She'd been taught that since birth.
She may have remained there for an hour, indeed, she couldn't have sworn that it wasn't two hours, or even three; but through all of that time, absolutely no one else had arrived at the church; not a soul had shown up to break the spell that she was under. Eventually though, Rachel's back began to ache from being too long in an uncomfortable position on the icy floor; and as she slowly returned to clarity, the first thing that she realized was that she was cold...and wet. She'd been sitting in a puddle of the Pastor's blood and it had soaked completely through her cotton dress. Her teeth had begun to chatter.
She was cold, wet, and covered in blood that was beginning to clot; how had it come to this? Hadn't her few sins been minor ones? Had doubting her father's ideas about God's chosen role for women been such a grave error? Both he and Brother Eli had possessed very strong ideas about a woman's place being in the home. Should she have shared them?
Instead, she'd begun to let herself dream that maybe she could become a nurse after she'd settled down with a Godly man. She hadn't thought that too large of a dream; after all, there were a few women from the church who worked or volunteered a few hours away from their homes each week after their children had left the nest. Rachel had always hoped that just maybe she could do this too; maybe she could even act as a nurse for the church's religious retreats. She had thought that this surely would have pleased God. It was hard for her little church to bear the expense of hiring someone and she'd be willing to do it for free.
It is true that she had never been brave enough to tell anyone of her dream though, and it was abundantly clear to her that her father wouldn't have wanted to hear of it at all. She had thought that she could continue to advance her education until such a time that God chose to send her a husband, and considering the total lack of suitable marriage prospects that were her age in the church, she'd thought that she'd probably have some time to work on her dream. She would have even admitted that for once, she'd been happy that father would never consent to her dating anyone outside of their own small church, and heaven knew that their church was not as well attended as those modern churches with their video monitors, satellite campuses, and rock music.
But now she was starting to wonder if God had turned his back on her because she had not been suitably happy with her lot in life. She also considered Brother Eli; what grave sins had he committed? Rachel wished that she knew what he'd done wrong, but whatever it had been, he hadn't gotten around to confessing his sins aloud. She prayed that Brother Eli had mentally confessed everything to Father God; surely whatever his sins had been, they would not have been enough to consign the good pastor to Hell for all of eternity.
Rachel found herself wondering where the un-Godly had gone. If Father God had taken his people up to heaven, where had the others been sent? Had he already sent them to Hell, and if so, why had he left her behind?
Why not me?
Rachel slowly began to realize that remaining on the cold floor with a dead man's head in her lap was not doing much to answer any of her questions, so she gently moved the Brother from her lap and climbed slowly to her feet. Much later when she thought back on this day, she would think that she surely must have been in shock because the only thought currently in her head was that father would be upset because her dress and shoes were saturated in blood and completely ruined.
As she dimly began to realize that she'd need a change of clothes before she could go anywhere else, she headed back to the narthex where the 'poor box' was located. If she'd been thinking clearly, she would have realized how unlikely it was that there would be anything in the box that would come close to fitting her. This wasn't because the women of the church were ungenerous, because that wasn't the case at all; rather, it was because of how the poor reacted to the gifting. Very few of the poor would do more than sigh when presented with the clothing of the Holiness women; most of them would rather wear rags than the old-fashioned clothes that the church women wore every day of their lives. The women had learned that only the truly desperate or mentally ill ever were pleased with what the church brought them.
Now, the box itself was overfull, containing mostly brand new or gently used clothing. The church committee made sure that the box was always ready and waiting, but as usual, most of what it contained was men's and children's clothing. The few garments that were intended for females were all intended for children; Rachel recognized many of them as they had belonged to her sisters at one time or another.
When she reached the bottom of the box, she stifled a sob. What was she going to do? Her dress was soaked in blood, and as she thought with a shudder...
other
fluids as well. There was no way that she could even consider wearing it home. She told herself,
maybe one more time through the box
; but a second trip through the box revealed nothing that she could wear. Well...nothing that she was allowed to wear.
Rachel could hear Brother Eli's words, "Holiness starts from the inside, but it must be reflected by one's outside shell as well. A woman was not to wear the garments of a man, nor could a man wear garments of a woman! Deuteronomy was
quite
