Gentleness
Written by Emma McCoy
3 minute read
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Hey everyone! Welcome back to a fun and fictional blog series for the next chunk of time. In this series, I’ll be writing fictional short stories following various familiar characters as they try to walk along the faithful path.
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The point of these short stories is to illustrate our big idea: Jesus grows our hope through uncommon friends. But in order to get to this big idea, we first need some scaffolding. Think of these stories like handholds as we’re climbing toward our big idea. A lot of the time, stories that demonstrate an idea are more helpful than just talking about it, so that’s where the fiction comes in. And the handhold (also called an outcome, or learning target) I’m focusing on in this series is this:
We notice and name signs of hope, and learn to receive it too.
If I could put a huge neon sign around that, I would. In this season at Spring Church, we’re going to be using the language of the fruits of the Spirit (like joy, patience, and faithfulness) as we recognize these gifts in our friends. So follow along these stories as I illustrate what it might look like to notice and name these good things in our friends, and how the naming can give us hope. See if you can spot the fruit of the Spirit that comes up!
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We notice and name signs of hope, and learn to receive it too.
If I could put a huge neon sign around that, I would. In this season at Spring Church, we’re going to be using the language of the fruits of the Spirit (like joy, patience, and faithfulness) as we recognize these gifts in our friends. So follow along these stories as I illustrate what it might look like to notice and name these good things in our friends, and how the naming can give us hope. See if you can spot the fruit of the Spirit that comes up!
You can listen to this story narrated like an audiobook on your favorite podcast app!
Between Two Friends
Friendship that holds us through loss and loneliness
Harold walked into the bar, out of the rain. As the door swung shut, it blocked out the city noise: horns honking, alarms blaring, water spinning under taxi tires. The warmth of the bar greeted him, its orange-yellow light blinding him for a moment. When he blinked the light from his eyes, he saw Luke sitting at their usual booth, two kombuchas already on the sticky table.
Harold sat down with a groan, his knees popping. He didn’t know how someone could be so tired after sitting behind a desk all day, but he was. At least he got to watch people coming and going out of the office building, directing couriers and the like, rather than staring at a wall. Still, all the sitting. Amelia had been on his case for years about exercising more.
“How was your day?” Luke asked, sliding one of the glasses to him.
“Same soup, just reheated,” Harold replied, which earned him a chuckle. Luke was younger than Harold, and worked in the office building as an accountant. He had trimmed black hair and a way of looking at you that made you think he could see exactly what was going on inside your head.
The two friends rehashed their weeks—Luke had taken his youngest daughter out for ice cream after her ballet recital and she’d spilled her cone all over the back seat, and Harold had won $15 from a scratcher—while drinking glasses of local kombucha and eating wings. When they’d started their weekly get-together a year ago, it’d been beer and burgers. But as time passed, and Harold noticed how little Luke actually drank, they’d slowly switched from sitting at the bar top to the booth, and from beer to kombucha. He supposed it’d be better for his health, which Amelia had always told him was so important.
“So,” Luke said, “there I was, with half the store’s napkins, trying to clean up strawberry ice cream from the seats before it set in. I was the one who had insisted on the cloth seats because they wouldn’t heat up in the summer, but Layla told me leather would be better for the messes, and look where ignoring her got me! Elbow-deep in strawberry with my child—my own child!—laughing the entire time.”
In that moment, Harold had a sense of being utterly, profoundly, grateful. Even before his wife had died, he hadn’t had many friends or gone out much. With Amelia gone, it was like being a boat without an anchor—no, it was like spending most of your life walking with someone’s hand in yours, then having to go the rest of the way with it in your pocket. But today he was sitting in a bar with his friend—his friend! as Luke would say—instead of at home alone. Even though Luke was an odd duck, going to Bible study and praying briefly before he ate his wings, he was a good one.
“I just,” Harold said, interrupting Luke. “I’m sorry. I just—I guess I wanted to say thank you. After Amelia—” he paused. He didn’t really talk about it. “What I mean to say is thanks. For everything. You’ve always been really gentle with me, and sometimes it feels like just because I’m a man folks don’t have to be. You know? Like I’ll just pull it together. But you’re gentle, and that’s a good thing.”
Luke gave him one of those considering, piercing looks. He looked down at the table and back up again. It might’ve just been the hazy light in the bar, but his eyes might’ve been watering.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “You matter to me.”
Harold didn’t know what to say to that, so he did what he always did: change the subject. But as they finished up their wings and started to get ready to go, Harold felt warm and grounded. Almost as if someone had slipped their phantom hand into his.
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About the author
Spring Church member, Emma McCoy (M.A.), has two poetry books: This Voice Has an Echo (2024) and In Case I Live Forever (2022). She’s been published in places like Across the Margin, Stirring Literary, and Thimble Mag. She reads for Chestnut Review and Whale Road Review. She’s probably working on her novel right now. Catch her on Substack: https://poetrybyemma.substack.com/