Cover Girls (23 page)
God, we got to break this thing somewhere. We got to draw a line here somewhere. It’s too much heartache and we got to stop it now and say, “No more!” No more heartbroken girls growing into heartbroken women. No more boys carrying heartache with them until they die as men. No more, Lord.
She rocked the baby and smiled and sang to him while she prayed in her heart.
Lord, I’m holding this little baby, and I’m praying. But don’t just do it for him. Lord, I’m praying for all the babies who don’t have anybody to hold them. Don’t just heal bodies, Lord—mend broken hearts.
Right now, Lord, there are some grown women walking around every day smiling and working. Everybody around them thinks they’re okay. Even their best friends, husbands and boyfriends don’t know. They don’t know that sometimes these women steal away to cry. Some of these women just want love from any man, from anyone. But some of them, Lord, are so cold it’s like winter in their souls. They’re sitting alone right now telling themselves and the world they don’t need love—but it’s like the pins and needles of cold weather pressing into their hearts.
Lord, I’m praying for a new day. I’m praying that new healing and new deliverance starts right now. I’m praying that they would begin to weep healing tears that will thaw their hearts. Tears that will clean and heal the wounds that they’ve been carrying with them for years. God, let them feel Your sweet love for them. No matter what they’ve been through, no matter what they’ve done, Lord, let them feel Your sweet, sweet presence. Lord, touch right now, from the jailhouse to the White House. Lord, move in women’s lives wherever they are—in school, in the home, at work, in the air, on land, and at sea. Let these women, these girls, know what it means to be loved. Let them know how it feels to climb up on Your lap and how good it feels to call you Daddy. God, I know You’re able. I’m looking for a new day.
Ida paused a moment to smile at José. She clucked her tongue at him and then resumed her prayer.
Lord, there are so many heartbroken men. Men whose hearts are as fragile as this tiny baby’s heart. They’re pretending to be strong on the outside—they got so much to take care of and so much weight on their shoulders. Some of them are trying to be men when they never had a father of their own to teach them how. They’re hard on the outside and afraid to let anyone get near their hearts because they’re wounded. They’re afraid to love or be loved, even by children, because all they’ve known is heartache. God, I know that You’re able. I know that You are the heavenly Father who can speak healing to the heart of a man. You’re the Daddy big enough to wrap Your arms around a man and touch that place in him that is in need. God, I need You to heal these men. There are so many men locked away in so many prisons—physical prisons, mental prisons, emotional prisons, sexual prisons, spiritual prisons—because of heartbreak. Heal them good so they’ll be able to turn around and heal others. There’s no one like You, Lord. I’m looking for a new day.
In the new day, Lord, I’m looking for new hearts for all mankind. I’m looking for families that looked like they would never be together to get together. In the new day, Lord, I’m looking for hearts that have been bound up for years, for generations, to suddenly be healed and free.
Just like You’re blessing José, Lord, You know we’re all Your babies. We’re all Your children. Hold us real tight. Bless us and heal us like You’re healing him. We’re looking for a new day, Lord. We’re looking for a new day.
Miz Ida got on the bus, singing and praying for people as she rode home. She got off the bus and walked down the street blessing and praying. No one knew it. She didn’t wave her hands or speak out loud, but the Lord heard just the same. Miz Ida stopped at the door to her building, and looked at the young man curled up near the door.
“You better leave that man alone, Miz Ida! He’s on drugs, and there ain’t no telling what he might do to an old woman like you.”
His clothes were torn and his hair was matted; there was dirt on his face. It was the same young man she had been seeing for months. The one she promised Michelle she was going to do something about. Somebody had to do something. “You all right, young man?”
He didn’t answer.
She bent over him. “Young man, I said are you all right?”
He lay still, but opened one eye and growled at her. “Get away from me, you old bag. It’s bad enough I got to be out here without looking at something as black and ugly as you.”
Miz Ida stood up and stepped back. “Young man, you don’t know who you talking to. This is the last day you going to talk to me like that.”
He rolled over on his side. “Go ahead, old lady, cuss me out. Makes no difference. What’s new?”
“I’m glad you asked that question, young man. The whole day is new. It’s a new day.” Miz Ida drew herself up to her fullest height. “I said this is the last day you going to talk to me like that cause your life is about to change. The Bible says—”
“Oh, no! Leave me alone, old lady. I don’t want to hear that Bible mumbo jumbo.”
“You may not want to hear, young man, but you gonna hear it just the same. The Bible says if I got faith as small as a mustard seed, I can ask anything in the Lord’s name and it will be done. Well, if I can tell a mountain to move, I can tell
you
to get up. Get up, young man. Get up and get loosed! Rise, shine, and give God the glory! From this day forward, in Jesus’ precious name, your life is forever changed. Some woman needs a good son. You gone be the man. Some woman needs a good, saved husband. You gone be the man. Some child needs a good father. You gone be the man. It’s a new day, my son. You gone be the man. Amen, amen, and amen!”
Miz Ida clapped her hands together and walked away. While she walked, she spoke to the Lord in her own language of praise.
“Hey, lady!” She could hear the young man calling behind her. “Hey, lady!” Miz Ida turned back for a quick look. The young man was sitting up. “Hey, lady! Whatever this holy-roller stuff is you trying is not going to work.” Miz Ida kept walking. She could still hear him when she reached her door. “You hear me, old lady, I said it’s not going to work.”
Miz Ida laughed to herself. “Too late now. Can’t nothing stop the power of God.” She couldn’t wait to tell Michelle.
I
t always happens. Just when a body is finished eating and comfortable, just when a body has her feet up and a good magazine in hand, the phone always rings. Just as Miz Ida dragged a chair over in front of her and sat down on the couch, just as she got her feet and legs on the chair in just the right way, the pink princess started screaming.
“Hold on there, Princess, I’m coming.” She scooted until she could reach her rose-colored antique. “Hello?”
It was Michelle on the other line.
“Guess what?” Michelle and Miz Ida spoke simultaneously.
“You go first, daughter.”
“No, Miz Ida. You go, I can wait.” They did the no-you-go-first dance a few more times and finally Miz Ida, the lovely vessel of winter grace, relented.
“I did it today, baby.” Miz Ida was getting full just thinking about it. “We women—we mothers, grandmothers, cousins, and aunts—are going to have to take a stand. Our children are dying on the streets. No one else is going to rescue them. We’re the ones that feel for them, who are we waiting on? We can’t keep letting the enemy make us afraid of our babies. They may be in grown-up bodies and they may rage, but they are still our children. We have to take a stand for their lives. We can’t let the enemy snatch them out of our arms. We have to take a stand for their very souls.”
“Miz Ida, what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about that young man who has been lying by the front door of this building. I guess I’m talking about all the men, women, and young people that are lying around or walking around dead all over this country. We women are going to have to take a stand.”
“Miz Ida, what did you do? You don’t have that man living with you do you? Miz Ida, you can’t be taking everybody in off the streets.”
Miz Ida rolled the magazine she was holding in her hands into a tube. “Well, Michelle, I can’t tell you what I will or won’t do. But, today, I did what has been in my spirit for months now. I stopped pretending that boy was invisible and I prayed. I’m sick and tired of the demon of drugs that has gripped this land. We got the authority and power, in Jesus’ name, to bind that demon up and cast him out. Who knows what might happen if women all over this land got together and fasted and prayed? Who knows what would happen if all over this nation, for forty days, women fasted and prayed for our sons and daughters that are being held by the devil in the grip of drugs? We still got the same power, the same faith, that can move mountains. What if we got the courage to
use
it?”
Miz Ida was on a roll. “When the Lord was on earth with us, when He was moved with compassion, He moved in the lives of people to heal them. Jesus healed crowds of people of all sickness and diseases. When He was moved with compassion, He fed thousands. When Jesus was moved with compassion, he gave sight to the blind and he healed lepers. When the Lord was moved with compassion He taught and ushered multitudes into the Kingdom.”
“Miz Ida, you sound like you are fired up. What did you do?”
“I
am
fired up, baby. I’m stirred up because I’ve been thinking, and there’s no telling what a woman can do when she’s been thinking—even an old woman. I’ve been thinking about the compassion and mercy of God. The Father’s compassion will cause Him to accept His prodigal children back home.
“And I been thinking that if some women would pray, we could turn this whole thing around. No one has more compassion for our broken sons and daughters than we do. What if we stopped worrying about our own lives? What if we stopped worrying about being cute? What if we just let the tragedy of what we see well up on the inside of us? What if we let our compassion well up on the inside of us? What we need is some wailing women, some daughters who aren’t afraid to weep, to get ugly and cry out to the Lord. I just been thinking, Michelle. I been thinking.”
“What brought all this on, Miz Ida?”
Miz Ida had almost torn the magazine to shreds, she was so stirred up. “When I saw that young man, I knew today was the day. If God gives me the power to move a mountain, He sure gives me the power to get a young man to stand up, and that’s just what I told him. I felt like Peter and John on the steps of the Temple called Beautiful. I’m not a rich woman, but what I have is God’s treasure inside this old jar of clay—God’s spirit inside of my old body. So, I prayed in Jesus’ name and I believe that young man is going to get up.”
“Did he get mad, Miz Ida? Did he try to do or say anything to you?”
“Well, he tried to kick up a little bit. But, you know the old man always kicks up when the new man is about to kick him out and move in. He said a little something, but I forgive that, it’s just the price of a new life. And I’m a woman at war against the devil’s kingdom; I can’t fear the one who can kill the body, I just fear God—
He’s
the one that has power over my soul. I’m determined, Michelle. I’ve just been thinking that if we’re determined, we can turn this thing around.”
“You’ve been thinking, Miz Ida. I can hear that in your voice. And it’s a dangerous thing when a woman starts thinking, because I have been thinking, too!”
Miz Ida began to fan herself with the tattered magazine. She had broken into a sweat. Right there, in her own living room, on her couch holding on to her own pink princess phone, Miz Ida had gotten worked up. “You have, baby? I just been going on and on—tell me what’s been on your mind.”
“Miz Ida, I been thinking that I want my husband back.”
She began to fan faster with the tattered magazine. She was hot like she was sitting in a too tight pew in an un-air-conditioned church during a summer Holy Ghost revival. “Well, hallelujah anyhow!”
“I’ve been thinking it for a while, now, Miz Ida. Especially since me, Tonya, and Shad went out to lunch the other day at the train station. When Tonya started talking about why a woman should love a man, I thought, ‘That’s exactly why I love Todd.’ Those things she said about loving a man have just stayed on my mind.”
Tonya’s words, as Michelle had recounted them, came to Ida’s mind.
“What gives him value in her life is not the coins in his pocket, but the richness of his character.”
“I love Todd, Miz Ida, because he is a man full of love and peace. He is patient and kind. He is always good to me and I can count on him—even when I have mistreated him. On top of all that, Miz Ida, he is gentle—he wouldn’t even think about hurting me or harming anybody else.”
“He is her king, because of her admiration for the generosity of his wise and understanding heart.”
“Miz Ida, I have never known a man like Todd in my life. The way he loves me is not human, it’s supernatural. Todd is a gift from God—my gift from God.”
“He is her lover because of his intelligence, which is spirit-led and without price.”
“It took God to show me love and to show me the worth of a man who is filled with His spirit. There is no way to measure the worth of that. Women deciding which man they want by what kind of car he drives rather than looking at how big his heart is are just missing the boat. They’re missing God’s blessings.”
“He is her husband because she has found him to be her match—both body and soul.”
“Miz Ida, Todd is so much for me, he fits me so well in every way that it scared me. I ran from feeling the way Todd could make me feel. It has taken God teaching me and Tonya telling me, to get me to see what I was throwing away.”
“Well, Michelle, it’s never too late. It ain’t over until God says so.”
“That’s what I know, Miz Ida. So, I have been praying.”
Michelle’s voice was full of passion and hope, a sound that Miz Ida hadn’t heard from her in too long a time.
“Today the funniest thing happened at work. I was listening to the radio. This one song went off and this gospel song came on the radio saying a brighter day was coming.”
