There Must Be Something More

2 | Church

"What the heck?"

All eyes boggled, surprised. They all stared at little pink sticky notes in their hands. They looked flabbergasted. They had themselves turning their heads to anything, looking for an answer to one question that loomed over all our heads:

"What is this?"

I did, too. I stared down the paper in my hand.

2 Corinthians... who in the world is Corinthians?

"What kind of scam is this?" Calum asked. He glared down the paper. He turned to me, raised his eyebrows in a What-Is-Going-On face.

I gave him a shrug.

My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness...

It was like a riddle. I did not know what it was. Never had I encountered something I did not understand this much.

"Did you get one too?" Calum walked over.

"Yeah," I said. I showed him. He grimaced, and then showed me his. It was the same quote.

"Weirdo," he muttered. "Who do you think gave it?"

I glanced around. Everyone had the same problem. They were turning to each other, the same blank, puzzled faces. The way we do when we looked around for answers for a Calculus test.

But I knew who did it. That girl. The girl who breezed on by as if the notes were bread crumbs. As if these notes were supposed to lead us into something.

But what?

Everyone threw it away. But I didn't. I slipped it in my pocket. I got curious. I think I've heard Corinthians somewhere before. But I figured racking my brains all day wasn't going to get me anywhere. When everyone wasn't looking I stuck the note on my locker wall.

I spent the whole morning period wondering where I've heard about Corinthians. It was in the back of my mind. That is, until what Amanda said during lunch:

"It's a Bible verse," she said.

We all blinked as if we'd never heard the word before.

And then I snapped, "Right!"

Amanda and Calum looked at me.

"I've seen it," I said. "Every time I pass by that church on the way to our street. You know, the signs they put up. That's where I saw Corinthians."

"Church," Amanda said, making a disgusted face. "What a grandma."

"Don't you know these kinds of things too?" She turned to Calum. "Isn't your family, like, Baptist or something?"

"Catholic," he said. "And so what? That doesn't mean I actually listen when we go to church."

"Then what do you do?" I asked.

"I play games or listen to music," he said. He seemed to say it proudly. "Like I'd actually have myself listen to something that boring. I've had enough of it in school."

Amanda laughed. "Man, I'm glad me and my family don't believe in that kind of stuff."

"Then how did you know about it being a verse?" I asked.

She looked at me. For a moment I thought I saw surprise, or hesitation. And then she looked away, made a bored face.

"I've seen it on the internet," she said. "Pop-up ads and all that."

So she was curious enough to look at it? I wondered. I didn't have the courage to say. I shut up. I felt like a coward.

I expected the girl to show up again. But she didn't. The whole day she didn't.

When I drove home that evening I passed by the church again. They change the sign everyday. They put up new quotes from people with weird names like: Nahum, Habakkuk, Romans, Titus.

What made me guess they were people names? It's because some days I saw Matthew, Luke, Timothy, Ezekiel, Daniel, Joel, or John.

And next to those names were numbers that I guessed were, like, the year they said that quote of some sort. I'm not sure. All I knew was that the quotes were inspirational, even though I did not understand it fully. It was just a feeling, inside of me, somehow the words gave me a kind of feeling of comfort.

But I never knew what they were.

That night, as I passed by the sign on the church's lawn, I took the time to slow down and read what was on it.

But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. ~2 Corinthians 12:9 (NIV)

I hit the brakes. I stopped and boggled at the sign.

Had the girl come from this church? This church that had been meeting me halfway throughout all my years but now this was the very first time I had actually stopped and paid attention.

Was I overlooking something? Was I missing out on something that's been calling out to me all my life?

I was about to step out. I was about to get out there, ask somebody from the church (if there ever was anybody) and just ask them about everything that's been bugging my mind.

But before I could do anything else my phone rang. I picked it up. It was my girlfriend, Krista.

"My parents aren't home," she said. "Wanna come over?"

I turned around. I left the street and went my way to Krista's house.