The Wings of Morning by Murray Pura Page B

again. “He doesn’t have to enjoy it so much.”
    “We don’t know what he enjoys and what he doesn’t, Lyyndy. How could he tell you? He’s forbidden to talk to you or even send a note.”
    “I wish—he loved me enough—to break the rules—”
    “I know, but that’s asking a lot for an Amish convert who wants to stay on the good side of the colony just as much as Papa does.”
    “It is not the colony’s rules I want him to break.”
    “No, but the
Ordnung
demands that the wishes of the parents with regard to their children be respected.”
    “Then maybe I should leave the colony, maybe Jude and I should both up and leave the colony and live in Philadelphia.”
    “Hush. That’s quite enough. I have brought your red book.” Ruth took it out of a pocket in her dress and put it in Lyyndaya’s hand. “You can read it in the buggy if you feel inclined to hearken to your great-grandmother’s words. Now take off your apron and leave it here. Mother has fresh ones for us at the table. We must go.” She pinched Lyyndaya’s cheek. “And last I looked there were no strawberry pies.”
    Minutes later, the gelding, Old Oak, trotted happily along the road toward the celebration. Lyyndaya could see ahead that Jude’s plane was on the ground; she could see it turning into the light summer breeze blowing from the south. She put her head down so she wouldn’t have to watch. Her eyes fell on the red book on the seat between her and Ruth and she picked it up, opening it to the page labeled July seventh.
    Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty
. The handwriting flowed like water across the page. Lyyndaya gently moved a black-eyed Susan she had pressed when she was twelve. She read,
     
    I am not thinking about the liberty wrought by armies or frigates, but that which is brought about by God’s Spirit. It has nothing to do with soldiers and guns and killing and death. Instead, it has everything to do with peace and life: the freedom to love thy neighbor as thyself; the freedom to forgive and be liberated from hate; the freedom to come to the Lord in any mood or state of despair and find acceptance, reconciliation, and a new beginning; the freedom to find light in the darkness, hope in hopelessness, one promise kept when a hundred others are broken; the freedom to have God even when you have no one and nothing else.
     
    Find something on this summer day that sets you free to believe in God’s ways and God’s plan and thank him for it. Such liberation is the great road to happiness and a deep, unending joy. Oh, but so few find their way to it. Do not count thyself among the numbers who miss the signposts and spend a lifetime meandering in the wilderness or charging along, pigheaded, in the wrong direction. Find God’s way, take it, and secure thy emancipation in Christ. Have faith, trust in God, love and forgive; oh, forever forgive; and in return you will never lack the sweetness of God’s own forgiveness and will receive complete and utter liberty to rise above all life’s tangles and snares and pitfalls. You will never be less, you will always be more.
     
    Lyyndaya closed the book. She could make out Emma waving as Jude took off yet again with, it looked like, Pastor Miller of all people in the front cockpit.
    “Well?” asked Ruth, glancing over at Lyyndaya.
    “Well, what?”
    “Did Great-grandmother Kurtz help you out today?”
    “What will help me out today,” replied Lyyndaya, looking straight ahead, “is not to wait for Emma Zook to come for her piece of pie—”
    “Lyyndaya—”
    “—but to bring it to her instead. Do you have any idea what her favorite kind is?”
    Ruth stared at her and then turned back to the road and flicked the reins. “I don’t, but her mother will, and she is standing and talking at the pie table right now.”
    Ten minutes later, with Jude still flying south and west with Jacob Miller, Lyyndaya approached Emma, simple and elegant in her light yellow dress,