BY MARIAH BOLAND

The summer sun had barely risen above the Connecticut River when Sarah Whitcomb joined the long, slow-moving line of townsfolk walking toward the small meetinghouse of Enfield. Dawn light glimmered off the fields, shining on the tops of tall grass like gold. The air was already heavy with July heat—thick and breathless—but the mood among the people was heavier still. Men spoke in low voices. Mothers hushed their children. Even the birdsong seemed subdued, as though all creation something unusual was about to happen. A hush lingered, thin and tout, like a pause before the storm breaks.

Sarah was twenty-six, unmarried, and accustomed to living quietly on the edges of village life. She kept to herself more than most, tending her father’s garden, spinning wool, or reading by the hearth in the long evenings. Her father, a stern and orderly man, had taught her the catechism with rigid diligence, drilling each line until she could recite it in her sleep. She never missed a Sabbath service—not once in all her years—but if she was honest, her faith felt like a coat she wore because she was expected to. It hung neatly on her body, making her appear proper and dutiful, but it never warmed her, never clung close to her heart. She envied those who spoke of God with wonder, with tenderness. She had never known such a feeling.

Rumors had spread for weeks about the visiting minister Jonathan Edwards—rumors that washed through the town like river water breaking against the banks. They said he preached like a man who had glimpsed eternity and returned with the scent of heaven, still clinging to him. Some scoffed at the tales, dismissing them as exaggerations of excitable folk from Northampton. Others trembled at the thought of such spiritual intensity. Sarah only knew that she felt drawn, unsettlingly so, as if something beyond herself pulled her toward the meetinghouse that morning.

Inside, the meetinghouse smelled of wood resin, wool cloaks, and the faint tang of iron nails warmed by the sun. Every pew was filled—families pressed shoulder to shoulder, men standing along the walls, children sitting cross-legged in the narrow aisles with the solemnity of adults. The windows were pushed open to let in whatever breeze God might grant, but the air remained stifling.

Jonathan Edwards ascended the pulpit without flourish. He was not tall, nor did he carry himself with the booming bravado common among revival preachers. When he began to speak, his voice was measured, calm, nearly gentle—so gentle, in fact, that Sarah had to lean forward to hear him. But the words—the words landed like sparks on dry straw.

“There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell,” he read in his even tone, “but the mere pleasure of God.”

A ripple moved through the room—people stiffening, shifting, exhaling sharply. Sarah felt her chest tighten as though an invisible hand had gripped her heart. She had heard sermons on sin before, countless times, but none like this. Edwards’s voice never rose, yet every phrase carved itself sharply into the air. He painted images with startling clarity—terrifying, vivid images—of the human soul dangling over the pit of destruction like a spider suspended by a single, fragile thread. He spoke of the justice of God not as some distant theological idea but as a storm gathering just beyond the border of one’s life, its thunder already rumbling in the soul’s direction.

Sarah felt pinned to her seat, unable to blink, unable to swallow. Around her, the room had begun to stir. A few quiet sobs broke out. Someone whispered a prayer. Her own hands trembled so violently she clasped them together in her lap until her knuckles whitened.

Every word seemed aimed directly at her.

You have prayed without meaning it.

You have sung hymns while thinking of earthly concerns.

You have trusted your good behavior more than God’s mercy.

You have lived as though you needed little forgiveness.

She knew it was true. For years she had kept up an appearance of piety—helping neighbors, reciting Scripture, sitting dutifully beside her father. She had been praised as “steady,” “respectable,” “upright.” But beneath the polished surface lay pride, coldness, and a hollow certainty that she was “good enough.” The truth of it struck her like a blow. Suddenly she saw herself exactly as Edwards described: a soul suspended over a yawning chasm by a thread she could never hope to secure by her own strength.

A tear slid down her cheek and splashed onto the worn wood of the pew. She did not bother to wipe it away.

The sermon grew more intense, though Edwards’s voice never changed. He spoke of God holding sinners over the pit of hell in the same way one might hold an insect over a fire. Not out of cruelty, but out of justice—a justice Sarah had never truly grappled with. The people around her shuddered with sobs. One woman cried out, begging for mercy. A man buried his face in his hands and shook as though gripped by an unseen fever.

Sarah felt something inside her open—a door long closed, perhaps never opened at all. It revealed not only her sin but the startling possibility of something beyond it: grace. Terrifying, humbling, transforming grace.

Before she realized she was moving, she rose from her seat. Her legs wobbled beneath her, and her dress brushed awkwardly against the bench, but she hardly felt it. The people around her blurred through her tears as she stepped into the aisle. It felt as though every step pulled her nearer to the brink of truth.

“Lord, have mercy on me,” she whispered, barely able to hear her own voice over the weeping in the room. “A sinner… a sinner.”

She reached the front pew and sank to her knees, clutching the edge of it as though it were the only solid thing left in the world. Her prayer was not eloquent. It was raw—an unfiltered pouring out of fear, sorrow, and desperate need. She felt stripped of every pretense, every quiet pride she had carried for so long.

And in that stripped-down place, something happened. A warmth—gentle, steady—entered her chest, not a blaze but a slow, spreading dawn light. It softened the edges of her fear. It steadied her breath. It felt like mercy.

When the sermon ended, Edwards said nothing dramatic. He simply stepped down from the pulpit, leaving the Spirit’s work to unfold in the trembling, transformed crowd. People prayed, sang low, repented, clung to one another.

Sarah rose slowly. Her face was damp, but her heart felt strangely light, as though the burden she had carried for years had been lifted from her shoulders by unseen hands. When she walked outside into the brilliant sunlight, the world looked newly minted. The river glimmered with startling clarity. The trees swayed gently in the warm wind. Children ran laughing in the grass, their joy no longer sounding distant to her ears but near, bright, alive.

Her father found her standing at the edge of the green, hands clasped at her waist.

“Are you well, Sarah?” he asked, his voice gruff with concern—or something close to it.

She managed a small, trembling smile. “I am… I think I am more well than I have ever been.”

He studied her face for a long moment, and though he did not understand, he nodded.

Sarah knew her life would not suddenly become easy. Doubts would return. Pride would rear its head. She would stumble and rise again. But something fundamental had shifted. She had not merely heard of grace or read about it in Scripture.

She had met it—felt it—like sunlight breaking over a long-shadowed field.

And she knew, with quiet certainty, that nothing would ever be the same.