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Maggie
Okay.
Levi
I’ll come over after church and cook chicken soup for you. I’ll bring lunch. What do you want for lunch?
Maggie
Again, you don’t have to.
Levi
I want to. Want me to surprise you for lunch? Then you can tell me how well I know you.
Maggie
Whatever.
Levi
If you need anything else at the grocery store, text me before noon.
Maggie
Okay. Thanks, Levi.
Levi
Back to church. See you at lunch.
Maggie wondered what the surprise would be. How well did Levi know her? How well did Levi think he knew her?
Yes, it did feel that what they had was a simple friendship between two Christians. Nothing more, nothing less. That fact was solidified when Levi asked her to help him get a date with Forsythia.
Speaking of whom, Maggie hadn’t completed her task for Levi yet. It was going to happen. Alden was helping her to get ahold of Forsythia. Once she and Levi went out to dinner, Maggie’s job was done.
She could finally retire from being Levi’s matchmaker.
After singing hymns—old and new—with the congregation, Maggie checked her church app on her phone to see which passage of the Bible she should put her bookmark on.
As soon as she saw the verse, she drew a deep breath. Proverbs 16:9. Dad had preached on this verse before, and so had Malachi. In fact, it had been Malachi’s first sermon right out of seminary.
A man’s heart plans his way,
But the Lord directs his steps.
On screen, Pastor Kim looked formal in his suit, his usual attire in the second service at church. In the first service the seventy-year-old pastor was usually more relaxed, not wearing a coat and tie. In the next service, he’d wear his usual formal attire.
Sometimes she wondered if Pastor Kim used the early service to warm up for the second service, but she had attended both services back to back before, and he preached the same way both times.
Suit and tie were Pastor Kim’s staple, reminding Maggie of the church history. Midtown Chapel had kept its tradition from a hundred years ago when people dressed in their Sunday best to church. No beach flip-flops and bikinis in the sanctuary for church members, but that didn’t apply to visitors. If one should walk in from the neighboring hotel pool dressed as such, the church wouldn’t turn the soul away.
Atlanta was a tourist town, and in any given year, there would be millions of visitors coming and going, especially now that the entire state of Georgia was open as film sites. Many award-winning movies had been made in the state. That not only meant that cast and crew came and went through Georgia, but also tourists who wanted to see film sites and fictitious towns with their own eyes.
Given the change toward a more casual atmosphere on weekends, most churchgoers at Midtown wore casual attire. A Hawaiian shirt here, and a pair of jeans there. That made it less off-putting for visitors and tourists who dropped in on Sunday mornings if they were walking about downtown and saw this historic church at the corner of Spring Street, blocks away from the Fox Theatre.
Yeah, it would feel like downtown to tourists who didn’t know the city, but Midtown Chapel was technically located in themidtown area, away from the Atlanta city center. Traffic there was just as bad, but Maggie felt at home with an urban lifestyle.
