She Who Finds a Husband (18 page)
Read She Who Finds a Husband Online
Authors: E.N. Joy
After a few months of living in Chile, Elton flew Deborah down to visit him. It was that one trip where things had gone a little too far, and Deborah, unbeknownst to her, left Chile pregnant and unwed. Engaged, but unwed all the same. There was no in-between in the Bible as far as Deborah could find.
At first, Deborah couldn't understand why all of this was happening to her, but then she realized why. After praying and crying, crying and praying for days in and days out, she heard this voice telling her that it was her punishment for tainting her relationship with Elton. She just couldn't keep her legs closed while visiting him, and now look. She'd gone down to another country and practically seduced Elton. Her jeans didn't have to be so tight. Even if it was hotter than water boiling a pot of spaghetti noodles, she didn't have to wear all those backless and strapless halter tops, enticing Elton with her smooth skin. After all, he was a man. He was a man of God, but he was a man first and foremost. She'd not only sinned, but she had caused Elton to sin. The baby growing inside her belly was nothing but a result of her sin. She knew it was a sin or else she wouldn't have gone through the extremes of spending more money than she had on big clothing in order to hide her pregnancy from those around her.
Deborah had allowed that voice to convince her that Elton was right; she had to get rid of the baby. How could they possibly repent for their sins and call themselves moving on with the result of their sin constantly staring back at them? They couldn't. She couldn't. Not stopping for a moment to decipher whether or not the voice that had been leading her was the voice of God, she agreed with Elton that they should abort the baby. Before heading back to Chile, he'd left her the necessary monies to get the procedure done. It had cost a pretty penny considering that by the time Deborah had met face-to-face with Elton to share the news of her pregnancy, she was already well into her second trimester. The procedure wouldn't be cheap, and it wouldn't be easy. And it hadn't been. The only thing that had been easy was lying to people when they questioned her about her weight gain.
To this day, Helen rubbing her belly in the clinic, causing her to think for one second that the child that had been developing inside of her for a little over five months was still alive, ached her very being. Helen had confessed that she was only six weeks pregnant at the time and had done all sorts of research on how at only six weeks it really wasn't a baby, etc . . . etc . . . , but that she didn't know how Deborah had the courage to abort a child that already had all of its organs and everything.
“You're better than me,” Helen had said, rolling her eyes, “but then again, maybe not. After all, that's a real live baby you're about to take out.” On that note, Deborah's name was called, which ended the short conversation she'd had with Helen. A woman who she never thought in a million years she'd ever see again.
As Deborah cried out on her living room floor, she thought back to something Mother Doreen had said to her about God using people to push this thing out of her. All this time while Deborah thought Helen had been sent by the devil as one of his advocates, God Himself had been using her to get rid of, how had Mother Doreen had put it, the stillborn baby . . . the stillborn issue.
“Jesus!” Deborah cried out as she hunched over in a fetal position. Her muscles tightened and her body tightened for a moment as if she were in pain. As if she were a mother in labor. And she remembered what labor pains felt like, as the day of her abortion the doctor had given her something to induce labor so that she could give birth to the baby that lay lifeless in her womb. She was now feeling those pains all over again. Now, though, it was as if she were pushing out the afterbirth; the mess that had her bound. Now she would be free. Now she would finally be free.
Hours later, Deborah stood to her feet and turned her attention to a cracked front door. That's when she realized that Mother Doreen must have let herself out. She walked over to the door and opened it, confirming that Mother Doreen's car was in fact gone. Just like an angel sent by God, Mother Doreen had come and gone after serving her purpose. No conversation about what she'd witnessed. No questions asked.
Deborah closed the door and locked it. Just like the last time a couple of saints from New Day had decided to make a drive-by visit to her house, she leaned up against the door and looked up to the heavens. “Lord, I declare that I am clean by the blood of your son. That I am restored by your love. That I am whole because of your grace and your mercy. Have your way in my life, Lord, as from this moment forward I completely surrender myself unto you. Use me for your good, for the glory of your Kingdom. I'm ready to be used!”
God had used Mother Doreen to push her toward complete deliverance. She was no longer broken, but healed. She couldn't wait to see just how God planned on using her now.
Chapter Twenty-nine
“Nobody blames you for leaving your husband, Tamarra,” Deborah told her as they sat in the classroom holding the Singles Ministry meeting. Initially, Deborah wasn't going to show up, and not because of Helen. Oh, she was more than ready to face that giant. Better yet, she knew she didn't have a choice. She was done running. Like Mother Doreen had told her; it was time to send the accuser away packing. The real reason why Deborah wasn't going to attend the meeting was because she didn't need to anymore.
Deborah was able to admit that her membership and involvement in the ministry had just been another cover up; a bribe to God to get Him to acknowledge her, forgive her and not turn His face far from her. The more she thought back over things, the more she had realized that she had Martha syndrome; that she'd been doing hands-on busy work thinking God would see her works and show more favor toward her. More forgiveness even. All this time God really wanted her to seek Him. All this time she had actually been the one who had turned her face far from God, too humiliated to face Him due to her past guilt and shame.
It was time for Deborah to take on the characteristics of Martha's sister, Mary, and sit at Jesus' feet and receive the Word. To meditate on it and be clear on the revelation of the Word as it applied to her own life. But even with all that, Deborah still came to the meeting as it would be one of the last with Mother Doreen. Mother Doreen had decided that in the next couple of months she would prepare to relocate to Kentucky in order to be there to help take care of her sister. Deborah promised Mother Doreen she'd finish off the duties with her as a new leader of the New Day Singles Ministry was assigned.
Somehow, as always, instead of taking care of the initial items on the agenda, the women began to talk about relationships. Once again, Tamarra found herself speaking on her marriage with her ex-husband and their divorce. Tamarra had just expressed how awful she felt about having a divorce under her belt, and Deborah was comforting her.
“Knowing your husband was never fully committed to you a day in the marriage, and on top of that had a child outside of the marriage,” Deborah had continued, “surely God understands that was too much for you to bear. Most of us in here can probably honestly say that we would have done the same thing ourselves. After some illegitimate child fathered by our husband outside of our marriage showed up on our doorstep, we'd have made a beeline to the courthouse too.”
Several women backed up Deborah with a couple of “Amens” and “You know that's right.”
Tamarra just sat there the entire time taking in their undeserving support. For months these women had been supporting her, and all the while she'd let them believe a lie. She was so tired of living a lie. She'd witnessed Deborah, along with so many other people at New Day, be delivered from so many situations. She'd witness them just let go of old junk and become new creatures in Christ. She wanted it. She wanted deliverance, but she knew it was up to her to take the first step in achieving it.
“So don't beat yourself up about leaving your husband,” Deborah said. “Besides, the Word saysâ”
“I didn't leave my husband,” Tamarra blurted out, interrupting Deborah.
There was silence as the women looked among each other with puzzled faces. Then the whispering started. Finally a bold sister shouted out, “Don't tell us you got back with that sorry son of a gun.”
“Yeah, what about Brother Maeyl?” one of the women questioned. “He's a good man of God. I know you didn't kick him to the curb for someone with a track record of being a cheat.”
The fact that Tamarra and Maeyl were an official couple was now common knowledge. They didn't dare do things such as hug up in church, hold hands, or anything else that would offend God being that the two were not married, but they no longer purposely hid their relationship. They frequently shared rides to Bible Study, and they ate out at Family Café at least once a week. But what they didn't do was play husband and wife without the ceremony. Tamarra had even invited Maeyl to join the Singles Ministry. She felt they each could use the support as well as learn valuable information to aid them in their courtship.
Maeyl was unable to attend tonight, but he assured her he'd be joining her for the future monthly meetings. Knowing how Maeyl would soon be a male in a room that usually consisted of women where she could moan and harp on her past relationship, she knew that would have to come to an end. The last thing she wanted for Maeyl to have to endure was an hour of hearing about her past. Besides, her past and her separation from her last husband wasn't really what she had allowed everyone to believe it was, including her best friend, Paige. And now that there might not be such an opportunity where she felt she could speak on it as openly, she decided tonight's meeting was the perfect time to reveal the truth and put closure on her past marriage once and for all.
“Brother Maeyl and I are a couple,” Tamarra said proudly. “And there's no way under the sun, unless God Himself showed me His face and I saw His lips moving telling me to let Maeyl go, would I trade that man in for the world.”
“Then if you didn't leave your husband,” Deborah couldn't help but ask, “does that mean you never divorced him, and all this time you've still been married?”
Tamarra took a deep breath, attempting to retain the courage she needed to tell these women the truth. Only if they'd keep quiet long enough to let her. “No, I'm not still married. I am divorced, but like I said, I didn't leave my husband. He left me. I didn't want the divorce. He wanted a divorce from me.”
Tamarra allowed the women a minute to take in her words and for them to register in their heads. Once their gasps of surprise subsided, she continued.
“Yep, that's right, he left me,” Tamarra reiterated. She looked about the room, observing the shocking stares from the group. “He left me, and yeah, I was angry, mad, and upset in finding out that my husband had been living a lie, only I was the lie. That other woman and his child, that's the life he really wanted. Not the life he pretended to have with me.”
Tamarra's eyes watered. Once Paige noticed, she quickly grabbed a couple of tissues and handed them to Tamarra.
“No,” Tamarra refused the tissue. “I'm tired of holding back these tears. It's about time I let them out. Maybe then they won't keep fighting to come out.” Tamarra blinked, and for the first time since the night her husband packed his bags and left her, she cried.
“Now, now,” Mother Doreen stood up and said as she walked over to Tamarra and patted her on the shoulder. “It's all right, dear.”
Tamarra quickly stood, jolting Mother Doreen's hand from her. “It's not all right!” she exclaimed. “I'm sorry, Mother Doreen. I know you are just trying to help, but it's not all right. I'm not all right!” Tamarra declared.
Mother Doreen slowly made her way back to her seat as Tamarra continued.
“I'm a mess, y'all,” Tamarra confessed.
“Now don't say that,” Mother Doreen stated. “God don't make no mess.”
“I didn't say God made this mess. I said I'm a mess. Everything God gives us is without sorrow, but then we go getting in His way and making a mess out of things.”
“Well, I agree with Mother Doreen,” the young twenty-something woman in the group stated. “I ain't no mess. Now I got some things that need to be fixed and things God needs to deliver me from, but I ain't no mess. God don't make no mess. So if you want to claim that you're a mess, go ahead and do that. But I'ma do me.”
“By all means,” Tamarra told her, “you go right ahead and do you. And while you are doing you, I'm going to be doing God, because He's the only one who can fix my mess. I've tried to do me in the past. And that got me nowhere.”
“Amen!” a woman stood up and shouted, followed by several others. “I'm a mess, too,” the women began to proclaim. Some began to lift their hands to heaven and plead to God to fix their mess. Some repented and apologize for getting themselves into the messes they were in by not following God's commandments or just simply being disobedient by going left when He'd told them to go right.
For the next few minutes some deliverance took place. Even the young twenty-something woman found herself crying out, “I am a mess, God. I'm the one who chose to sleep with man after man unprotected. To have child after child, each with different daddies. You didn't create my body for that purpose. This body was supposed to be yours, dear God. A living sacrifice, holy and acceptable. And I made a mess out of it,” she confessed. “Forgive me, Lord.” The woman cried out and collapsed on the floor.
Mother Doreen, who had been comforting quite a few of the women, made her way over to comfort the young lady.
“See, ladies,” Tamarra stated. “I wasn't claiming the title of a mess, I was confessing it. You can't quit it until you admit it. God wants to hear you call those things out. The accuser is already up there tattling on you. That's the accuser's job.”
Mother Doreen nodded her head in full agreement, as she, too, had just recently told Deborah that very same thing.
“But God doesn't want to hear it from Satan,” Tamarra stated. “He wants you to confess it. To man up. Well today, I'm manning up.” Tamarra looked up and shouted out at the top of her lungs. “Lord, I'm a mess. Help me! Heal me! Mend me! Fix me!” She then looked to the women. “Some of the messes I've gotten myself into I don't even know how I got into them. But one thing is for certain and two things are for sure, I don't know how I'm going to get out of it, but I know who is going to get me out. God is good, hallelujah!”
Several women co-signed Tamarra's hallelujah with one of their own. All of this support and praise gave Tamarra the courage to continue with her testimony.
“My husband left me, y'all, and I've been running around here like I let him go,” Tamarra admitted, “too ashamed and embarrassed to speak the truth. But the truth is going to set me free from my mess. But guess what? It's all right that my husband left me. It's all right that I begged him not to go the day he packed his bags and headed out the door.” Tamarra's mind went back to that awful night she'd never forget.
For the two weeks after Tamarra's ex-husband's secret of infidelity was revealed, she gave him the silent treatment. She wouldn't cook for him or clean the house, let alone show him any signs of affection. She needed to heal, but she was too busy cursing God to seek Him for His healing power. She blamed God for allowing her to walk around like a fool for so many years. She blamed God for not revealing her husband to her for who he was prior to fifteen years of marriage.
“I've served you all these years,” she had fussed at God. “I've praised you. I've worshipped you. I've given you the last of my last in tithes and offerings. Where's my harvest? This? This mess right here?” she cried out. “Even when I couldn't get Edward to go to church but twice a year, on Easter and Christmas if it fell on a Sunday, even when he got copies of the returned checks from my tithes and offering and we argued, I still praised you, Lord. I was obedient to you, Lord. I kept all my promises to you, Lord, and you couldn't do the one thing I asked of you, to bless my marriage.”
In the middle of Tamarra's outpouring, words her pastor had shared with her came to mind. “God don't bless no mess. Now He will take your mess and make it a blessing to the rest of the world to keep someone else from getting into that same type of mess, but in the end, your mess is simply your testimony. Your ministry.”
Back then, Tamarra had just brushed those words off. The God she served was a big God and could turn any situation around, which is why she had gone on and married Edward in the first place. He was a good man, had been raised in the church as a child, but as an adult, he had strayed away and never went back. Tamarra, on the other hand, hadn't been in the church very long herself. But she was on the road to becoming a true practicing Christian when she and Edward met. Listening to him talk about growing up in the church, Tamarra had just assumed that Edward was still a churchgoer. He would frequently talk about his current work in the church, so once again, Tamarra made the assumption that in reference to his work, he meant his ministry.
After only two months of dating, Tamarra was already head over heels in love with Edward. She was in love with the surface of Edward, so a few months later when she found out that Edward's work in the church was as an accountant, simply keeping church books, but that he hadn't attended church since childhood, she felt stomped. A prayer that should have gone something like this: “God, your Word says that one should not be unequally yoked, so if Edward is not the equal that you have sent to find me, remove him from my life speedily in the name of Jesus,” went something like this instead: “God, you know I'm already in love with Edward, so please let me have him.” Well, she got what she asked for.
It wasn't even a year after meeting him that Tamarra and Edward were married. For some reason she thought she could eventually change Edward; get him to get back into church and all, but try as she might, only one person can change someone, and that's God. But even then, they have to want God to change them. So Tamarra spent years often compromising who she was for the sake of her marriage. Once a faithful Bible Study attendee, when Edward decided to make Wednesday night his night with the boys, something about that didn't sit right with Tamarra. She decided to cut down going to Bible Study to every other week, making the opposite Wednesday her and Edward's date night. This meant a decrease in his time spent with the boys. This was just one of many occasions Tamarra would find herself putting God on the back burner.
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