A Bridge Still Standing
If you haven’t read the previous post, linked here, I would read that first. This is a sequel to the last story. Someone said they liked the previous story but they want to see an Amish novel where the bishop is the good guy. Since this wasn’t school, I thought it would be interesting to see AI’s interpretation. This is what ChatGPT came up with.
Jacob and I had been living in Maryland for a little over three months when we got a letter with a Pennsylvania return address and the bishop’s handwriting. I nearly dropped it. I stared at the envelope, half-expecting it to burst into flames in my hands. Jacob read it aloud, slowly, cautiously. It wasn’t what we were expecting at all.
The bishop said he’d heard we had left because we wanted a different kind of Ordnung—not because we hated the church or our families. He said he couldn’t condone how we’d left, especially deceiving people, but he also admitted he’d spent a lot of nights thinking about it. Then he wrote, “Maybe I was too quick to shut you down before hearing your hearts.”
We read the letter three times that night. Jacob kept saying, “Do you think he means it?” and I didn’t know what to think.
A few days later we got a visit from Levi, a young man from our old district. He brought us cinnamon rolls from Yoder’s and news that the bishop wanted to meet us—not to scold, but to talk. I could barely eat a roll. I had never known the bishop to “just talk” without there being some form of discipline, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to face all that again.
But curiosity got the better of us, and we agreed to meet him halfway in a small diner just over the Mason-Dixon line. He came alone, in a car—something that had always seemed strange for him, even though it wasn’t against the Ordnung. He was quiet at first, just sipped his coffee and asked how we were getting along.
Then he said something that stuck with me.
“I spent a long time trying to preserve the Ordnung,” he said. “But in doing so, I might’ve forgotten the people it’s supposed to protect. I saw how determined you both were, and instead of asking why, I just said no. That wasn’t right.”
I felt tears prick my eyes. I hadn’t realized until then how much weight I’d been carrying—how I’d been bracing myself every day since we left, half-expecting to be chased down, confronted, or somehow excommunicated from my whole past.
He didn’t ask us to come back. He didn’t pressure us. He just said he was sorry for not listening. And he told us something else—that after our departure, the church had started having open meetings about the Ordnung, something that hadn’t happened in decades. Not everything changed, he said, but people were talking now. Listening.
Before he left, he pulled out a small package. “Your mother wanted you to have this,” he said.
Inside was my old hymnbook, the one I’d left behind in my rush to pack. Folded in the front was a note in Mom’s handwriting. Just four words: You are still loved.
On the ride home, Jacob held my hand in silence. There wasn’t much to say. We weren’t going back—we knew that. Our life was here now, and we were happy. But somehow, that visit untangled a knot inside me. We hadn’t burned every bridge. Some of them were still standing, waiting, open.
I never thought I’d say this, but I was grateful for the bishop.
Not because he changed his mind.
But because he opened his heart.
And that, I think, is worth more than agreement ever could be.
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Keep writing Josh, good stuff.
This is great! I now need the book with that picture on the cover.