This week, I have continued my search for an old place of worship that I have been carrying in my heart for many years, and in doing so, I discovered the Pilgrims Rest Church and Schoolhouse.

It is important to note that in this area, many of the original church buildings are no longer standing at their sites. What you see now, resting squarely on a hill near the Pine Valley community, is not the first Pilgrims Rest church building. People worshipped at Pilgrims Rest during the Civil War, and over 160 years later, some still gather there at least once a year.

During early autumn, just as the sumac along the fence row is turning golden orange and just as the poke berries are changing from green to purple—and likewise, just after the goldenrod has been kissed by the sun, former members of Pilgrims Rest return for a day to their old sanctuary in the wildwood. They call their pilgrimage a homecoming. Well, folks, for the next couple of weeks, we, too, will be coming home to Pilgrims Rest. But before we put on our hiking boots, I want to tell you a funny story about Mary Sue Stevens, my friend-driver-tour guide for my journey to find the country church in my heart.

On the very first day that we traveled to the countryside, Mary Sue told me that we must begin our jaunt at Pilgrims Rest—that it was perfect, and I was like, “Yeah, Yeah, Whatever…” But as we pulled into the driveway of this magnificent altar, I whispered in a barely audible voice, “Oh, Please! Just let me find an open door. I must get inside!” After chuckling cynically, Mary Sue retorted, “That’ll never happen.”

I believed what my driver said, and I waded through chiggers, fire ants, and Johnson grass up to my shorts—I was trying to peek through every window of the old church building. Desperate for an image that I could carry with me, I held my phone’s camera next to the window screens and snapped. Although I realized that I was only photographing the screens, I continued this effort all around the structure—until I came to the building’s last side. Believe it or not: the door on that last side was wide open.

During our odyssey into the Wildwood, Mary Sue has had her hands on the steering wheel, but God has been driving our car. In my opinion, that open door was a miracle.

At the very least, my visit to Pilgrim Rest was a reawakening for me. My expedition into the countryside has been a search for an old country church that sheltered me over 50 years ago, and in many ways, I found it at Pilgrim Rest. No, I did not find the exact building where I had been before. That structure is in Lafayette County, and to tell you the truth, what I loved about that old space is gone now. But at Pilgrim Rest, I discovered that I was not actually seeking a building. I was seeking more than that.

When I walked into the sanctuary at Pilgrims Rest, I immediately noticed the sunlight. It was filtering through the first window. Often when I see light focusing on something precious, I try to capture that essence with my camera. I call that focused light “God’s Light,” and as soon as I walked into Pilgrims Rest Church, I was stunned by the way that the sun’s rays were striking the simple wooden pulpit there. In my heart, I knew that God was in that room with me.

Before the light struck the pulpit, however, it drifted across the primitive, handmade pews and the choir benches. I have been to several Sacred Harp singings before, and the pews at Pilgrims Rest remind me of those straight and narrow benches at Sacred Harp Singings.

I’ll be honest in saying that I wasn’t crazy about the cinder block walls of the church building, but my eyes hardly saw those concrete blocks. The ceiling caught my attention next. Built of beaded boards, it looks like warm honey. It is radiant, and even though the building is old now, the ceiling is better than new.

Certainly, the Pilgrims Rest church building is breathtaking, but in my opinion, the old schoolhouse is the better structure on that hillside. If there is anything that I like better than old churches that have been painted white, it is old churches that have never been painted at all. The old schoolhouse is more like that. In my opinion, the never-painted churches are merely one step beyond the forest itself, and it was in a forest that I first met God.

That happened at a summer camp church service. On Sunday mornings, we campers would line up behind our counselors at the top of a rocky path, and as we descended, one by one, deep into a wooded clearing, we would sing: “We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder.” To me, it seemed as though the trees would hold our songs and whisper back a prayer. “Holy. Holy. Holy.” It was in that forest church, where birds chirped and  “God’s light” glinted through breaks between thes Rest Church and Schoolyard.

This quest into the wildwood has been a healing journey, and it was on my visit to Pilgrims Rest that I realized something crucial. I thought that I was seeking a quaint little chapel-like building, painted white, somewhere in the country. At Pilgrims Rest, I realized that I was also seeking the sacred forest where the churches of my heart have always been planted.

When I visited the Pilgrims Rest site, I ran my hands along the rough boards where members had eaten dinners on the ground, and I paused while I thought. After that, I spun around, taking in the entire panorama. There it was: the old church, the old schoolhouse, the weathered boards that once had been a church buffet. But cradling these sanctified structures was the hallowed forest. All of that together is Pilgrims Rest, and it was at that spot that my heart began to rest:

“Come unto me, all that ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11: 28