Authors: Nikita Lynnette Nichols
Lady Elect (2 page)
Hot under the collar, Arykah marched the young lady straight to Lance's office. “Bishop, we have a problem.”
Behind closed doors, Lance listened as the young lady revealed that her husband was facing a layoff. Their mortgage was being threatened, and her husband wouldn't seek counseling to deal with his emotions. She had become subjected to rape and beatings on a daily basis.
Lance looked at his wife and discerned her spirit. The expression on Arykah's face was horrifying. He had married a firecracker and knew without a shadow of a doubt that Arykah wanted to advise the young lady to drug her husband, wait until he fell asleep, then cut off his private member and arms. That was a sure way to cease the torture she was going through.
Lance could've counseled the young lady himself but wanted to afford Arykah the opportunity to step in as his wife, as his right hand, and as the first lady, to become a mentor to the women in the church. Arykah was from the streets. She hustled for years to get to where she was. But Lance still saw signs of Arykah's roots taunting her. Though she wanted very much to be delivered from her abusive past relationships, Lance knew he had to continue to cover his wife in prayer and work through her struggles and insecurities with her.
But Arykah was now a pastor's wife. Lance silently prayed for God to write on her tongue. He cleared his throat and loosened his necktie in preparation for damage control.
Once he gave Arykah the go-ahead, there would be no telling what would come flying out of her mouth.
“First Lady, what do you advise this sister to do?” he nervously asked.
Both Arykah and the young lady sat in chairs opposite of Lance. Arykah held the young lady's hands in her own. “I want you to know that God loves you, and He didn't create you to be anyone's punching bag. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. It is unacceptable for a man, any man, to put his hands on you in anger. If Mother Pansie told you that your husband loved you while beating and raping you, she was mistaken.
“Your body is the Lord's temple, and no one, not even your husband, should be allowed to abuse and destroy it. If he isn't willing to seek counseling for his abusive behavior, then you should pack your things and leave. Because the next time he lays unholy hands on you, you may not survive it. And you should seek professional help from an abuse therapist for yourself. It isn't normal behavior for you to have accepted your husband's fury for so long. Ask the therapist to help you find out why you willingly tolerated his mood swings.
“And you have to learn who you are in God. My husband taught me that women must realize their worth and own it. Because if we don't own it, we become vulnerable. And vulnerability is a pathway for the devil to destroy us, often through the very ones who claim they love us.”
Lance was well pleased with Arykah's Christ-like attitude. Maybe he could go ahead and sit Mother Pansie down after all. He'd have to wait and see. He tightened his tie around his neck and leaned back in his chair while he watched God work through his wife.
Arykah dabbed the young lady's tears with a Kleenex tissue that she had pulled from a box on Lance's desk. “And you have to always protect your gates. Gates are openings that lead to your soul. Through our eye gates we may have seen our parents become victims of spousal abuse. And because we see it, our souls accept it as normal behavior.
“That's a trick of the enemy. Our ear gates can become flooded with damaging words spoken to us through verbal abuse.
“I once dated a man who constantly told me that I was too fat, that I wasn't pretty, that I was unattractive, and that I would never be loved by a man. And I believed that lie for years before Bishop Howell deposited a word of release into me. I tolerated that man's behavior because it was what I had become used to.
“And we have to protect our vagina gates also. Mother Pansie may have told you that it was impossible for a husband to rape his wife, but that was absolutely not true. How do you feel when your husband forces himself on you for sex?”
The young lady sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I feel violated because he's so rough with me. He never kisses me. Never asks how I feel or if I'm in the mood for sex. He just tells me what he wants, and then takes it from me and demands that I do things I don't want to do. And sometimes he bites my breasts until they bleed. And after he's done, he calls me dirty names.”
Arykah was flabbergasted, and Lance was appalled. But he sat silent and let Arykah do her thing that she was doing so well.
Arykah knew all too well what it felt like to be in the arms of a man that didn't love her. Listening to the young lady's story brought tears to Arykah's own eyes. She squeezed the woman's hands for comfort. “When I'm with my husband, I feel safe and secure. I feel protected and adored. He cares what my feelings are. There's no dirty name-calling. There's no hurt or pain. Only love, comfort, and security. When a man takes his wife's body by force and inflicts sexual pain upon her, he's raping her. And what you must do is start loving yourself and get out of this relationship because it's not holy, which means it's not of God.”
Arykah looked across the desk at Lance to see, through his facial expression, if she had crossed any lines. Lance softly smiled at his wife and nodded his head in agreement with everything she had said. He was well pleased.
“Bishop Howell and I will always be here for you, and we want you to feel free to come to us for anything. We are your spiritual parents, and we'll do all that we can to encourage you and keep you strong in the Lord,” Arykah assured the young lady.
Lance stood and encouraged the young lady to follow Lady Arykah's advice. He assigned certain scriptures pertaining to strength, courage, and peace for her to study.
He led the three of them in prayer for the young lady's strength and peace of mind.
The young lady hugged and thanked them both, then walked out of Lance's office and closed the door behind her.
Arykah looked at Lance. “You need to deal with Mother Pansie.”
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That meeting was still fresh in Arykah's mind as she and Lance stood in the middle of their master bath. “Lance, you know what happened the last time Mother Pansie counseled a young lady, but if you want her to sit in on the session with Darlita and me, then so be it.”
“Thank you.”
“You don't have to thank me, we're a team.”
Lance kissed Arykah passionately and guided her back to the bed.
“Do we have time for this before church, Bishop? Don't you have to preach in a couple of hours?” she asked, wanting Lance just as much as he wanted her.
Lance removed Arykah's bathrobe. He let his towel slip from his waist. “This will help me preach real good.” He enjoyed his wife in between the Egyptian cotton sheets.
Later that morning, on the South side of Chicago, the sanctuary at Freedom Temple Church Of God was filled to capacity. Every seat, approximately five hundred of them, was spoken for. The congregation was in high praise when Lance and Arykah appeared in the doorway entrance to the center aisle.
The praise and worship leader signaled to Adonis Cortland, the head musician, to lower the organ's pitch while she announced their pastor and first lady. “Please stand and receive Bishop Lance and Lady Elect Arykah Miles-Howell.”
With Arykah standing on his right, Lance passionately placed his open palm on the small of her back. Arykah wrapped her left arm around Lance's waist, and they walked confidently as husband and wife down the center aisle. As he did Sunday after Sunday with a smile on his face, Lance escorted Arykah to the first pew and greeted Monique, Arykah's personal assistant, with a peck on the cheek.
Four months ago when Lance walked into the sanctuary for the first time as a married man, he moved his ten deacons from the front left pew to the front right pew. He reserved the front left pew for Arykah, her guests, and Monique. Arykah was now in Lance's full view.
Mother Pansie hadn't taken that rearrangement too kindly. It had been tradition that the mothers sat behind the deacons on the left side of the church. But with the deacons sitting across the aisle, Mother Pansie had to constantly look at Arykah's back side.
Lance sat in the pulpit among his assistant pastor, Minister Carlton Weeks, to his left. The associates sat on the right side of Lance. Minister Darryl Polk, Minister Tyrone Williams, and nineteen-year-old Minister Alfonzo (Fonzie) Kyles, whom Lance was leaning toward promoting to youth pastor, each shook Lance's hand and gave him a hearty, “God bless you, Bishop.”
Lance looked at Arykah, then winked his eye and smiled. She returned the gesture.
Monique nudged Arykah with her elbow and whispered, “I saw that, First Lady. You and the bishop should know better than to partake in foreplay in the sanctuary.”
Arykah chuckled and leaned into Monique for privacy. “If you would've been in our bedroom two hours ago, you would've seen some
real
foreplay.”
real
foreplay.”
Monique gasped, and it caused a few heads to turn their way. She met Arykah's lean and kept her whisper, “On a Sunday morning?”
On the pew behind them, Mother Pansie tried desperately to hear Arykah and Monique's conversation. She saw the wink Lance had given his wife. And because Arykah and Monique were leaning into each other whispering and gasping, Mother Pansie concluded that their conversation may not have been appropriate for the sanctuary. She tapped Mother Gussie Hughes, who sat on the right of her, on the knee and nodded her head in Arykah and Monique's direction.
Mother Gussie, affectionately known as “Momma G,” hadn't liked Arykah since the day she had first called the church asking to speak to Bishop Howell. As the church's secretary, she had interrogated Arykah about why she was calling. Once Arykah revealed that she wasn't a member but just a friend of Bishop Howell, Mother Gussie felt she was just another single lady all too eager for the pastor to place a ring on her finger.
Mother Gussie had had her own plans for Lance's future. As soon as her granddaughter would have gotten paroled and delivered her third child, Mother Gussie had planned to bring her to the church and introduce her to the pastor. But only weeks after she had answered Arykah's phone call, Bishop Howell introduced her as his wife.
Mother Pansie and Mother Gussie both turned their noses up at the form-fitting, crimson-red, knee-length crochet dress Arykah had decided to wear to church that morning. They couldn't help but notice the three-carat diamond platinum studs shining in Arykah's ears. Her lobes were completely hidden. Arykah's hair was pulled back into an elegant ponytail that revealed the matching six-carat diamond teardrop necklace around her neck. As Arykah giggled and whispered in Monique's ear, the mothers saw her bright red lip gloss. Her perfectly decorated eyelids were adorned with false eyelashes.
Arykah felt their stares. She purposely placed her left hand on Monique's right shoulder to give the mothers something to really be hot about. When Mother Pansie and Mother Gussie caught a glimpse of the massive diamond ring, coupled with the diamond tennis bracelet on the first lady's wedding finger and wrist, their breaths caught in their throats.
Arykah heard the gasping sounds and turned around with a smile. “Hello, Mothers. It is so good to see you both on this fine Sunday morning.”
The looks on the mothers' faces confirmed to Arykah what she already knew. They didn't like her and preferred she didn't speak to them. But Arykah didn't wait for a response. She knew it wasn't forthcoming anyhow.
When her mission had been accomplished, Arykah turned back around and found Lance's eyes staring into her own. He gave her a half smile and slowly shook his head from side to side, indicating to Arykah that she should be ashamed of herself for meddling with the mothers. She winked her eye at Lance. He smiled broadly, then turned his head to focus on the choir rendering in song.
The mothers hadn't seen Arykah's feet yet. She felt Mother Pansie and Mother Gussie would probably have a heart attack if they saw her red stilettos that were adorned with Swarovski crystals.
Many congregants approached the altar for prayer after Bishop Howell had preached a lengthy sermon on prosperity. The associate ministers came from the pulpit to assist their pastor with laying holy hands on the people. Lance called for Arykah to stand by him when he ministered to women. That was new for Arykah. She hadn't understood what Lance wanted her to do at that time. When he ministered to a woman, he'd ask Arykah to give her an encouraging hug. Arykah felt honored to be in ministry with her husband. It was exhilarating.
The last woman Lance instructed Arykah to hug was Darlita, the woman she was to counsel after morning service. She stood before Arykah with a tear-stained face.
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