There's this word the preacher reads over and over. Wholehearted. He preached a sermon on it once, said the psalms always praise or cry with a whole heart, and in the newer book, everyone who knew Christ and became his, Saul and Peter and Titus and all of them, they did everything with their whole heart.

Dad didn't like that very much, grumbled under his breath about people called Ananias and Sapphira, or a missionary that Paul didn't like who left halfway through.

But…I'd been listening. Because I knew people like that. I knew wholehearted people. I knew them because one of them was in my class.

I didn't notice him being wholehearted, not at first. But his older brother—his older brother walked in the boys' classroom at the beginning of term and every head turned. Thomas the bully saw a threat; Eric probably saw someone like himself; me, I just wondered what a higher classman was doing in our room. He was obviously older.

Then Edmund got up, and went over. I don't know what they talked about. But the older classman gave Edmund his whole attention, and when the teacher came in, began to reprimand, saw who it was, and instead inquired about family and studies and things, the classman gave that man all his attention to. And he just started showing up, at lunch, at the races, at rugby games, checking on his brother. He'd give all his attention to whatever was going on. All of it, though. Like the time at the game Thomas and his cronies cornered me behind the stands; he warned them off with just a few words. I wish I'd listened to the words; I was looking for a chance to run and didn't pay attention. But he took me back to the bleachers with him. It was the only time I sat in front.

And there I saw Edmund play, and Edmund's focus—wholehearted. That was the word. Mind, heart, and body, all fixed on what he was doing. I saw it when Edmund studied, too—studied books, or studied people.

Then I met his sisters, just once. It was another game. Peter—the older brother's name was Peter—saw me, paying attention like he usually did, and called hello from the middle of the group. I mumbled it back, but…Peter looked so at home with those people. So I sat a few bleachers back from them.

Well, truth be told, I sat on the same one at first, but then the youngest girl invited me over, and I didn't want to be in the middle, awkward and lonely. I just wanted to listen.

When the youngest girl spoke, the delight, the sorrow in her tone—

When the oldest girl wrapped blankets around people—

When Peter took care of them—

You know, I do most things half-heartedly. I do just enough to get by, not be noticed. The only thing I do wholeheartedly is be invisible. And complain.

I complained a lot about church.

But just this once, I knew what the preacher meant. I knew how rich life was when lived wholeheartedly.

So, one horrible morning when there was a huge train crash, and Edmund would never play or study again, when Peter wouldn't watch the game and everything else around it, when that youngest girl would never laugh or be silently thrilled again—

The loss of the people who were wholehearted, and the little loss I would be, that made me ache. Made me promise myself, just a bit, to live a little more. With a little bit more of my heart.

To work my way up to being wholehearted.

"You must serve faithfully and wholeheartedly in the fear of the LORD."

"Amaziah did what was pleasing in the LORD's sight, but not wholeheartedly."

"But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land."

"you who keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue wholeheartedly in your way."

"...be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me wholeheartedly."

A/N: Still struggling to write. But I wanted to at least write something; here's the practice of getting back into it. I've got another (longer) short snippet I'm working on, and then I'll take a deep breath and try to dive back into Walker. We'll see what happens!