The Long Middle

Allison Jones is eleven years old, which means she is old enough to know exactly where she doesn’t belong and not quite old enough to know where she does. When the church Ladies’ Tea puts her squarely between the children’s craft table and the women’s conversation circle with nowhere comfortable in the middle, she carries that quiet ache home without quite having words for it. What the Jones family discovers together — at the dinner table, in the living room, and in the steady pages of First Corinthians and Jeremiah — is that the in-between is not a mistake in the timing. It is a season, and every season has a purpose. And in a quiet moment after Sunday service, something Brother Thompson says to Dad suggests that growing into the next thing — whatever it is — requires exactly the courage this family has been practicing all along.

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SPEAKER_00 1:18

Welcome to the Jones Family Chronicles. For life at school, home and church is always full of lessons, laughter, and love. Meet Dad, the pastor's assistant, Mom, the heart of the home, and their five bright and lively kids. Allison, Addison, Anna, Ava Grace, and little Andy, who somehow always managed to turn ordinary days into extraordinary adventures. So gather round, open your heart, and let's discover together the joy of faith, family, and the timeless truths of God's word. This is the Jones Family Chronicles. All right, kids, gather close. Paw Paul has a story for you about your favorite family, the Joneses. The ladies' tea at church happened every spring. It was the kind of event that the women of the congregation took seriously in the best way possible. Real tea cups, cloth napkins ironed flat, a tablecloth that only came out twice a year and an arrangement of flowers that Sister Des Bennett had clearly spent considerable effort on. Alison had been looking forward to it. She had chosen her outfit four days in advance, a dress with a modest collar and a thin belt, shoes that were appropriate without being uncomfortable, and her hair pulled back in the kind of style that said I took this seriously without saying I tried too hard. She had ironed the dress herself the night before, which Mom had noticed and said nothing about, which was the kind of noticing that meant more than a comment would have. She arrived at the fellowship hall with Mom and her sisters feeling prepared. The first sign came near the door. Sister Regens, who managed the seating with warm efficiency, looked at the Jones girls arriving together and smiled at all of them with the same smile. Then she directed Addison, Ava, and Anna to the children's table. A round table near the window with a craft activity, juice boxes in teacup shaped holders, and a small centerpiece made of construction paper flowers. Then she looked at Alison. The pause was only a half a second, the kind of pause a person makes when they are doing a wide calculation. You can join your sister, sweetheart, she said with a smile that was entirely kind and landed entirely wrong. Alison looked at the children's table. Anna had already located a cup and craft supplies and was narrating something to Ava Grace. Addison was assessing the construction paper flowers with the expression of someone who had opinions about them. And he was not at the tea because he was at home with Dad, which was the correct decision for everyone involved. Then Alison looked toward the women's tables, long and beautifully set, full of low, warm sound of adult conversation, Mom already moving toward the seat beside Sister Beverly. She was not a child, but she was not yet that either. She carried her tea cup to the children's table and sat down. She did not make a face about it, she did not say anything. She helped Ava Grace fold a paper stem the right way and answered honest questions about which color to use, and stayed for the whole event without anyone, anyone knowing that something small and real was sitting right under the surface of her composure. But it was there. The walk to the car after the tea brought a different version of the same feeling. A group of older girls from the congregation, thirteen fourteen, one who was nearly fifteen, was gathered near the parking lot in the easy, self contained way of a group that had already decided its shape. Alison recognized two of them from church, one of them looked over and gave a small wave. Alison lifted her hand in return and slowed her pace slightly. The girls resumed their conversation, and Alison caught the edge of it, references to things she recognized, the names, but not the full weight of all that was going on, the jokes that landed in a register she could hear but not quite reach, a shared shorthand built from experiences that she hadn't had yet. So she kept walking. Not because she'd been excluded. No one had been unkind. Older girls were not the problem. The problem was simpler and harder than that. She was not quite the same thing as them yet, and both she and they knew it without anyone saying. She got to the car and waited. Addison arrived beside her, still holding a construction paper flower she had redesigned to her satisfaction. Anna arrived talking, Ava Grace arrived holding Mom's hand. Alison stood with her binder. She had brought it because she always brought it, because having it felt like having something organized in a world that wasn't always, and looked at nothing in particular. She didn't know exactly what she was feeling. She only knew it had edges she couldn't find the end of. She was quiet on the ride home. Anna filled the silence the way Anna filled all silences, completely and without apparent awareness that there was silence to fill. She had thoughts about the craft activity, the flower arrangement, the tea sandwiches, and a detailed comparison of this year's event versus last year's that nobody had requested, but nobody could interrupt. Ava Grace looked at Allison from across the back seat. Allison looked back at her. Ava Grace didn't say anything. She just stayed looking the way she did when she was being present rather than productive. Then she leaned slightly toward Alison's side of the seat, just enough to close the space between them by an inch. Allison let her. At home, Dad was on the living room floor with Andy and a collection of trucks that had been arranged and rearranged approximately forty times since morning. Andy held one up when the girls came in. Vroom, Alison said back automatically. Then she went to her room. She set her binder on the desk, sat on the edge of her bed, and looked at the wall. She was too old for construction paper flowers and juice boxes and teacup holders. She was too young for the conversation circle at the long table. She was exactly eleven, which was she was beginning to understand in its own particular kind of alone. He knocked twice before opening the door, which was the agreement they had. Alison was still on the edge of the bed. She hadn't moved her binder, she hadn't changed out of her dress. Dad came in and sat beside her on the bed in an unhurried way that he had. Not filling the room with questions, not arriving with solutions already prepared, just arriving. They sat for a moment. How was the tea? he asked. Alison considered the question. She could have said fine. She had the tools for fine. She used them often and well. Instead she said I didn't fit anywhere. She told him about Sister Reagan's and the children's table. She told him about the older girls in the parking lot. She told him it wasn't anyone's fault because she had already worked that out on her own and wanted him to know she wasn't angry at anyone specific. She was just in between, Dad said. In between, she agreed. He nodded slowly, not the nod of someone managing a problem, the nod of someone who recognized something. That's a real place, he said. The in between. It's not imaginary and it's not a mistake. I want you to know that before tonight, because I have some things I want to say at the table, and I want you to have heard that part first. Allison looked at him. You didn't do anything wrong by being eleven, he said, and eleven is not a lesser thing than twelve or fifteen or thirty. It's a real season, and God is in it. He stood, squeezed her shoulder once, and left her to change out of her dress in peace. She sat for another minute after he left, and she went to her desk, opened her binder, and wrote at the top of a clean page The in between is a real place. She didn't know yet what to do with that, but it felt better to have written it down. The following Sunday the congregation filtered out of the sanctuary into the bright mid morning the way it always did after a good service. Unhurried and warm, nobody quite ready to let the feeling go. Mom took the younger children to find their Sunday school crafts, which Andy had apparently created with great enthusiasm and zero identifiable subject matter. Alison walked with Dad toward the exit. Brother Thompson was near the side door. He was alone for once. Sister Beverly was still inside talking with Sister Hawk, in the way of two women who had been friends long enough to lose track of time easily. Brother Thompson had his Bible in one hand and a tithe envelope in the other, and was waiting with the patience of a man who had learned that some things were worth standing still for. He saw Dad and raised his chin in greeting, and he glanced at Alison. Would you mind waiting just one minute? he said to her gently with the kind of respect he showed everyone, regardless of their age. Alison moved a few polite steps away and found something interesting to look at in the church bulletin. Brother Thompson stepped close to Dad. He was quiet for a moment in the way of a man choosing his words carefully rather than quickly. I've been praying about something, he said low and steady.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

About Sister Beverly. About doing things the right way, he paused.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

I'd like to sit down with you sometime, if you're willing. A man needs counsel before he takes a step like the one I'm considering. Dad looked at him for a moment. Something moved behind his eyes. Not surprised exactly, but the particular expression of a man whose quiet hope for someone has just been confirmed. I'd be glad to, Dad said. Just name the day. Brother Thompson nodded once. Thank you. He said it simply, but the word carried the weight of a man who had come a long way to be standing in a church doorway asking another man for counsel about doing things right. Sister Beverly appeared at the door just then, her face warm from the conversation she'd left and fell naturally into step beside him. Ready? she asked. Ready, he said. They walked out into the morning together. Alison, who had been reading the same line of the church bulletin for two minutes, looked up as they passed. She watched him go. Dad, she said quietly, something's happening with them, isn't it? Something good, Dad said. The kind that grows the right way. Alison watched him a moment longer. There was something in the way they moved that she could almost name but not quite. The ease of two people who had moved through their own in between and come out somewhere steadier on the other side. She filed that away in the part of herself that was already eleven and already watching the world for things worth understanding. Sunday dinner was full and warm in the way Sunday dinners tend to be. The table set properly, Andy in his high chair with a roll in his agenda, everyone settling in for the particular busyness of a morning at church. Dad's question moved around the table. Anna had comprehensive thoughts about the children's church lesson and also about the snack that followed it, which she felt had been a strong choice. Addison noted that her Sunday bow had been by any objective measure excellent. Ava Grace said she had held the door open for Sister May without being asked, which she reported with quiet satisfaction. And Andy? He held up his roll. Then Dad looked at Alison. She had been thinking about how to say it since they pulled into the driveway. I've been thinking about the tea, she said. About not fitting. And I want to understand it better, not just feel it. Addison looked at her with the expression she used when something had been said that she recognized. The in between thing? Alison looked at her. You feel it too? All the time, Addison said, matter of factly. I'm nine. I'm too old for some things and too young for others, and nobody made a table for the middle. Anna's hand went up. Seven is also the middle. I I'm also in the middle. I would like it to be acknowledged that the middle is very crowded. Ava Grace considered this. I'm five. Is five the middle? Five is still near the beginning, Alison said gently, but you'll get there. Ava Grace seemed to find this acceptable. Andy put his roll on his head. And Dad, he reached for his Bible. The living room that evening had the Full Jones family arranged in its usual constellation, Andy on Mom's lap with his drumstick, having traded the roll for something with better percussion potential. Ava Grace cross leg on the floor, Anna sitting beside Allison, which she had decided to do without announcing it. Addison with her ankles crossed, Alison with her notebook open, the line she had written there visible at the top of the page. Dad opened to first Corinthians chapter thirteen and read verse eleven without preface. When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, and when I became a man, I put away childish things. He let that settle. Paul is not saying that being a child was wrong, he said. He's saying there was a season for it, a real season with its own ways of speaking and understanding and thinking. And then there is another season, and the movement between them is not a failure, it's a design. He turned pages carefully until he found Jeremiah chapter one and read from verse seven. But the Lord said unto me, Say not I am a child, for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee, thou shalt speak. Dad looked up. God said this to Jeremiah when Jeremiah was young. Jeremiah thought his age disqualified him. He thought, I'm a child. I'm not enough for this. And God said, Don't say that. Don't dismiss what I've already put in you because of the season you're in. Alison had gone very still. Mom leaned forward slightly. The in between isn't empty, Alison. It feels that way sometimes because you can see clearly what you've grown out of, and you can't quite see yet what you're growing into. But God is in that space. He's not waiting for you to finish becoming. And so the in between has a purpose, Alison said. Wasn't quite a question. Every season does, Dad said. Ecclesiastes says there is a time and purpose for everything under heaven. Not everything except the awkward middle, but everything, including right now at eleven, with your binder under your arm and more wisdom than most adults twice your age. Anna turned and looked at Alison with sudden solemnity. You do have a lot of wisdom, she said. You reorganized the shoebasket, and it actually made sense, unlike what I did. Addison nodded. That's true, the sh the shoebasket was a real contribution. Alison almost smiled. Then she did smile. David Grace looked up from the floor. When I get to the middle, will you tell me what it's like? Yes, Alison said. I'll tell you everything. Andy tapped his drum twice, slowly, then he looked at Mom and appeared to decide he was tired, because he simply put his cheek against her arm and closed his eyes without further ceremony. Dad prayed. He thanked God for every season, the beginning seasons and the ending ones, and especially the long middles that feel like neither. He prayed for Alison by name and asked that she would know in the deepest part of herself that she was not behind and not early and not misplaced. He prayed that the in between would shape her into exactly who she was being made to be, and that she would trust the maker of the seasons to know what he was doing. The amen rested in the room for a long moment before anyone moved. Wednesday afternoon, Sister Banda asked if anyone would be willing to work with the younger students in the reading corner during free period. Two third graders who were struggling with chapter books. She needed someone patient and organized. Three hands went up. Sister Banda looked at Alison's. Alison, would you be willing to lead it? Alison looked at the two third graders already making their way to the reading corner, small and earnest, carrying their books in both hands the way young children carry things they're not sure they can hold. She thought about the children's table, about the juice boxes and the construction paper flowers, about the feeling of sitting somewhere she had grown past. Then she thought about what Dad had said. The in between isn't empty. God is in the becoming itself. She picked up her binder and went to the reading corner. She sat across from the two third graders and asked them where they were in their books, and they told her with the trusting openness of children who had decided immediately that she was safe. She helped them sound out two words, she explained what a chapter break was for. She listened to one of them read a paragraph out loud, slowly and carefully, and when he finished she said that was really good. Try the next one. He tried the next one. Allison sat in a reading corner at Glendale Christian Academy, too old for the children's table, not yet old enough for the women's circle, and was exactly useful. Exactly needed. Exactly in the right place at the right time. She was in the middle, and the middle she was beginning to understand was not nothing. It was where the growing happened. That Wednesday night Alison lay in bed with her binder on the nightstand and the notebook page facing up. The in between is a real place. She had written it on Saturday. It had been true then in the uncomfortable way of things that are true before you know what to do with them, and it was still true now. But it felt like Felt different. Less like a locked room she couldn't find the key to and more like a corridor she was walking through with a destination she couldn't fully see yet. Which was not the same thing at all. She thought about Brother Thompson and Sister Beverly walking out into the Sunday morning together. She thought about what Dad had said, the kind that grows the right way. She thought about how long it must have taken to get to that. All the growing and the waiting and the becoming that had to happen first before two people could walk side by side in that easy, unhurried way. Growing the right way took time. It took the middle. Alison reached over and picked up her pen. Beneath the first line she had written she added one more. God is in it. She set the pen down and turned off the light. Outside the neighborhood was quiet. Somewhere down the block a porch light glowed warm and steady. The same as it always had, patient and present, and burning right through the middle of the night without anyone asking to notice. But Alison noticed. She was good at that. Now, who's ready for brownies?