She Played the Altar Call for 31 Years and Never Believed a Word of It

Announcer: This is Kingdom Gospel Ministries — sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, one story at a time. You're listening to Kingdom Stories. Before we begin, we want to thank the supporters who walk alongside this ministry. Your generosity is what carries these stories out into the world, and reaches the person who needs to hear one today. If this ministry has meant something to you, we'd love for you to join them — you can find out how to support the mission in the episode description. And now... here's your host, Pastor Cole.

Pastor Cole: A woman told me she played the altar-call hymn every Sunday for thirty-one years. And that for twenty-five of them, she'd have told you she didn't believe a word of it — if anybody had ever thought to ask. That's Loretta, and she's here today.

Loretta: My hands knew the song. That — that was the trouble. My hands never once needed me.

Pastor Cole: Welcome to Kingdom Stories. I'm Pastor Cole. We're just a media project—not a church, but a place where we listen to people's stories and how faith shows up, or doesn't, in their lives. This is Loretta, and she came in from Gatesville to sit with us today. A friend of ours put us in touch because of her story. Loretta, you're not part of what we do here—you're just here as yourself. We're gonna take our time.

Loretta: Well. Thank — thank you for having me. I don't really talk about myself much. Thirty-one years I was the one asking the questions. Who's bringing the green beans, who's got nursery, is the fellowship hall unlocked, did the roof fund check clear. That's what I know how to do.

Pastor Cole: Tell me about that church. What's the sanctuary like—the pews, the light. What does it smell like when you sit down at the piano on a Sunday.

Loretta: It's a little white frame building, green trim, sits on the edge of town on a gravel lot. You can hear the gravel when people pull up. The sanctuary's not big—maybe two hundred on a good Sunday, and most Sundays it's closer to a hundred. The — the pews are old, they creak something terrible. You know who's gonna stand before they stand because the bench talks first. Hymnals in the wooden racks, the offering plates with the felt bottoms so they don't rattle. The light comes through the side windows real soft that time of morning. At the piano I could smell the Dial soap—the pink kind—from the bathroom sink. And the percolator in the fellowship hall, that burnt-coffee smell that means somebody's been there since seven. We did the potlucks there—fried chicken and banana pudding on the fifth Sunday when everybody brings a dish. Same chicken, different tablecloth, when somebody died. I knew that building the way you know your own kitchen. Every board that creaked. Where the thermostat stuck. Which hymnal had the broken spine.

Pastor Cole: How'd you come to the piano? Who taught you?

Loretta: My grandmother taught me. She had an old upright in the front room — cherry wood, real pretty, but the low keys were out of tune somethin' fierce. We'd sit after supper dishes, and she'd tap the beat out on my knee with one finger. I was twelve. The bench was worn shiny in the middle from her sittin' there so many years. First hymn I ever played all the way through was 'Blessed Assurance.' My hands were shakin' so bad I thought I'd lose the place. But the whole church sang along anyway. Didn't matter I was scared. And Grandma — she was sittin' in the second pew, just noddin'. I wore a dress with a collar that itched like crazy. Didn't care one bit.

Pastor Cole: You know, there's somethin' about bein' the one playin'. You're in the room—everybody hears you, sees your hands—but you're also... you're not part of what's happenin' in front of you. You're holdin' it up. The folks singin', walkin' the aisle, cryin'—that's their thing. You're the one makin' it possible, but you're not in it. It's a lonely kind of centered, if that makes sense. And you did that for thirty-one years. How many pianists—if you know—has that church had besides you, in your lifetime?

Loretta: Just me. Thirty-one years, four pastors, two pianos. Started with Grandma's upright, then the Baldwin when the church had money for it. I picked the offertory hymns. Kept — kept the spiral notebook for meal trains in the kitchen drawer. The nursery clipboard hung by the door. Every Christmas I'd dig up a bathrobe that fit and set the cardboard manger in the corner. That's what happens when you're the one at the piano. You stay.

Pastor Cole: And somewhere in those thirty-one years, there's Gene. He's your husband. Tell me about him.

Loretta: Well. Gene's a propane man. Thirty — thirty years with the same outfit, out on the road most days. He's the kindest person I know. I mean that. But he couldn't pick up on what you're feelin' if you wrote it on a card. Down at the feed store I've seen him with his cap pushed back, tellin' whoever's standin' there, "My Loretta runs that whole church." Proud as if he built it himself. He brings me a Coke from the cooler sometimes. Cold one, no reason. Just because. That's the thing, though. He thinks I'm the strong one.

Pastor Cole: When you were twenty-five, sittin' at that piano on a Sunday. Where was God for you. Honestly.

Loretta: It faded. Around year six. Eighteen — eighteen years old. There wasn't a day, y'know? People want a day. But you don't notice when it's gone. You just notice one day you've been drivin' a while without it. Radio off, hands on the wheel, drivin' to church like any other Sunday. And I couldn't... I couldn't reach it. Like askin' somebody to hand you somethin' and they just stare back. You ask again. Still nothin'. Goin' through the motions, I suppose they'd say. But that's not... that's not how I'd say it myself. Wasn't poetic. Just gone.

Pastor Cole: That's a particular kind of lonesome. Thirty-one years you're keepin' it all goin' and you're not part of it. Did you ever think about walkin' away from it?

Loretta: I thought about it. I did. But right around then — — there was a family. Their — their little girl was in the hospital in Temple. NICU. Three weeks. And I was the one who — — who knew how to run the meal train. The casserole dishes, they came in. Masking tape on the lids. Everybody's name. Date they brought it. Fed every night. Every single night. Three weeks straight, didn't miss one. And the church needed somebody at the piano. Needed somebody who'd just — — stay. That's what I did.

Pastor Cole: Did anybody notice? Gene. The pastor. Anybody ever see that you were carryin' more than you let on?

Loretta: No. And I still don't know if that's a mercy or just the saddest part. There was a pastor, maybe fifteen years back. Told me one Sunday I had 'the most faithful hands in the county.' I thanked him. Walked — walked out. Drove home. Gene was inside. His shadow on the living room curtain. I sat in the car in the driveway. Engine ticking as it cooled. Porch light was on. Just sat there a while. He never came out to see about me.

Pastor Cole: Over those thirty-one years at that piano. Did y'all raise any kids in that church?

Loretta: No. It was just me and Gene. That's a whole other conversation and it's not the one I came for. But I was real good at bein' the one who stayed. Every June, VBS — Vacation Bible School. I ran the craft table. Construction paper, markers that dried out halfway through, cotton balls for all kinds of things — flannel-board figurines, yarn beards on Bible men. Kids with glue stick on their fingers, y'know. I knew their names. Sat with the ones who hung back. Lock-in nights in the fellowship hall. Sleepin' bags unrolled on the floor, looked like a barracks. I'd stay up till the littlest ones were asleep. Make sure nobody woke up scared in the dark. Somebody had to. One Sunday the nursery wasn't signed up for. Not one name on the board. I just took it. Didn't ask anybody. That's what I knew how to do — just show up. Be the one that stays.

Pastor Cole: That's between you and Gene. Before the one we're gonna get to—was there ever a Sunday where it near about cracked open on you?

Loretta: A boy. Car wreck. His mama asked me special to play 'In the Garden.' The sanctuary was full of flowers. Daisies. Carnations. Big spray arrangements sittin' everywhere. Cost money she didn't have. I could see it. She was sittin' in the front pew. Black dress two sizes off. Loose in the shoulders like she'd just gone small. She looked at me before the service. Asked me with her eyes. I sat at the piano. Opened to 'In the Garden.' My hands found the keys and I played it through clean. Note for note. Perfect. And I felt — — nothing. Not sad. Not grief. Just my hands doin' a job. A woman buried her son that day. And I was numb to it. Her boy was gone. And so was I.

Pastor Cole: And you kept playin'. Ten more years. Showin' up to that piano.

Loretta: Yes. Because Sunday came. Because the offertory doesn't play itself. The Christmas program will find you whether you believe or not. Cardboard star and all.

Pastor Cole: The Book says, 'Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.' Which just means the shape of the thing, with nothing in it. The motions. The piano. The church runnin' perfect. But you weren't in any of it. Is that what it was. Or am I hearin' it too hard.

Loretta: The casseroles were real. I meant every single one. That wasn't nothin'. It's just — — the other part. Where I was but I wasn't....I don't know. That's how it felt.

Pastor Cole: There's a Sunday. The one that opened it all up. I want you to take me there. Sit at that bench. Tell me what happened—like you're playin' that mornin'.

Loretta: It was October. The windows were cracked open. Box fans in the corners, just turnin' slow. Ordinary Sunday. There was an older man. I didn't know him well — came maybe two, three times a year. Had a cane. Dark wood, worn where his hand held it. During the invitation he stood up. Took him a minute. Then he walked. I watched him. The cane tapped. Tap. Tap. Down the carpet runner. I was playin' 'Just As I Am.' Same song I'd played hundreds of times. My hands just — — they found it. Not thinkin'. But watchin' him go, it came to me. Whole. Like somebody spoke it. I have never walked that aisle. Not once. Not in thirty-one years. Thirty-one years I played the walkin' song. And I never walked.

Pastor Cole: And you knew—you couldn't leave. Because you were all they had.

Loretta: If I'd stood up. Right then. Walked down that aisle. Nobody in that room would've known what to do with me. I was the person who knew how to run everything. The meal train. The sign-up sheet. But there wasn't a sign-up sheet for this. For me needin' somethin'. I didn't know how to do that.

Pastor Cole: What happened to your hands. Right there at the piano.

Loretta: I don't remember finishing it. The last verse is just gone. My hands found every key and I don't know how. They just kept going. I was watching him walk and it came to me whole: I never had. Never once in thirty-one years. But my hands were playin' "Just As I Am" like somethin' wound up long ago. Thirty-one years will teach your hands to keep goin' when the rest of you comes apart a little. I finished the service. Stood at the door and shook hands. "Good to see you." "How're you doin'." Drove home.

Pastor Cole: I'm grateful you didn't clean that up. Left it raw—didn't make sense of it or soften it. So it followed you home that afternoon. You're sittin' in that driveway, engine tickin', Gene's shadow on the curtain. What are you carryin' in that moment.

Loretta: All week. Followed me to the Brookshire's where I stood in produce starin' at tomatoes I didn't even need. To bed at night with Gene already snorin'. His hand reachin' for me across the pillow like even asleep he was still lookin'. Wednesday was my lunch break. I drove to the church lot. Gravel crunched under the tires. I cut the engine. Just sat there. The building was right in front of me. The door I'd gone through a thousand times. I couldn't make myself go in. Then Tuesday night. Gene in his recliner with some show, volume up too loud. One of those shows where nobody's really watchin', just noise fillin' the room. I was at the kitchen table. Cold coffee in front of me. The cream had gone filmy on top. That skin that forms. I sat there.

Pastor Cole: When'd it stop bein' about the piano and the sign-up sheets, and start bein' about you needin' Him?

Loretta: It wasn't that I'd been bad. I'd been good. That was the trouble. I'd been so good for so long that I never needed Him. Not for anything. And you don't come to somebody you don't need. I'd been runnin' His house like He wasn't home. That's what it was.

Pastor Cole: The good ones—they need the cross just as much as the ones who leave. You thought useful meant forgiven. That you could earn your way in. But the Book says it plain: 'For by grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.' Which just means: it was never about the casseroles or the piano. It was about Him reachin' out to somebody He didn't owe a thing to—and givin' it anyway. So what happened. At that table. Tuesday night. What'd you do.

Loretta: I sat there a long time. My hands were on the table. Flat. Against the Formica. Cold coffee right in front of me, and I was just starin' at it. Gene was in the other room. His show still playin'. And I said it. Out loud. I have been here the whole time and I have not been Yours. I don't know how to do the other one. That's all I had. Thirty-one years I'd prayed for Mrs. Patterson's surgery. For Danny's boy over in Iraq. For the Hendersons' water heater when it broke. Always somebody else. Never myself. So that's what I said. At that table. Alone.

Pastor Cole: What happened in you.

Loretta: I slept. First time in years I slept the whole night through without wakin' up at three checkin' the clock. Tuesday night I sat at that table. Wednesday mornin' Gene made coffee and I had two cups and I tasted it. Actually tasted it. Like I was back in my own kitchen after bein' gone a long time. I didn't tell anybody. Not even Gene. Weeks went by. I'd wake up and the thing that was sittin' on my chest wasn't there anymore. Didn't think about the piano the same way. Didn't think about what I was carryin'. One night I was at the sink washin' dishes and Gene was in the livin' room with the remote and I just — — I told him. Didn't look at him. He set the remote down. Came over and held onto me a long minute. Then he said, "Well. All right then." That was all. It was enough.

Pastor Cole: He set the remote down. That's the part I keep hearing. Not what he said. That he set it down. Loretta. Before that night at the table. If somebody had asked you straight out — did you want anything to change. What would you have told them.

Loretta: I'd have said I didn't want it. I did say that. That I was fine the way things were.

Pastor Cole: And the Sunday after that. Did you go back. What was it like when you sat down at that piano.

Loretta: The next Sunday I just went. Same sanctuary. Same light through the windows. The percolator in the fellowship hall, burnt-coffee smell. My hands knew the way to the piano. The hymnal was open to "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" — page I'd marked myself years ago. I sat down. Hands on the keys. Started. And I had to stop. Half a second. Couldn't find the place. Caught it again. Went on. Nobody saw it. Everything went on like always. But I played that hymn and I meant every note of it. Not just playing. I meant it. After, Sue came up to me — sits behind me in the choir loft. She looked at me. Eyes got wet. She held onto me and said, "I always wondered." Soft. Not mean. Like she'd been waiting. I didn't know what to say. Just held onto her. Then I went home.

Pastor Cole: Sue held onto you—she felt somethin' shift. But have you told her what happened. Have you told them.

Loretta: No. Don't think I need to. Some Sundays I'm sittin' there in the pew and I catch myself. Just... runnin' it all through my head. Who's on nursery. Who's bringin' what. I'm not all the way there. I don't know that anybody is.

Pastor Cole: You said it—some Sundays you're still runnin' it all through your head, even sittin' in the pew. But if somebody's out there right now, sittin' at a piano, runnin' everything that church needs, believin' none of it. Sure nobody'd notice if they stopped. What would you tell 'em.

Loretta: I'm not a preacher and I don't have advice for anybody. But the plainest thing I know. You don't have to keep runnin' to prove you're good. Somebody'll still need the meal train run either way. But you don't have to be the one. You just... don't have to. That's all I know for sure.

Pastor Cole: That took something, Loretta. Thank you for trustin' us with this.

Loretta: Thank you for asking. Wasn't as scary, sittin' here, as I thought it'd be.

Pastor Cole: You know, we preach the prodigal all the time. The boy who left. The one who came to his senses in the pigpen. And it's a beautiful story—the running father, the robe, the ring, the party. We know that one by heart. But there's another one in that same parable. The elder brother. The one who stayed. Kept the house. Ran everything. Stood outside the party in the dark. And his father—he didn't only run to the boy who left. He came out to the one who stayed. Came out to him where he was standing, angry and alone. And he said to him: "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." Which just means: you were never outside. You were never left. Everything I have was always yours. That was said to the faithful one. The one who never walked away. The one who kept going because somebody needed her to. If you're out there right now and you've been useful for thirty years and you haven't been His for one of them—if you've been keeping the house running while you stood outside the party— the Father came out to you too. Not because you earned it. Not because you finally stopped moving long enough to deserve it. But because you were never outside at all. There's no sign-up sheet for this one. No church you have to join. No performance left to run. Just a table. Just you and Him. And a door that's open. The grace was always there. Welcome home.

Announcer: You've been listening to Kingdom Stories, from Kingdom Gospel Ministries. Today's episode was a dramatized narrative inspired by true accounts. If it moved something in you, don't keep it to yourself — follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, and if you'd like to help these stories reach further, you'll find how to walk alongside us in the episode description. Until next time... the door is open, and so is the grace.