Sahara jumped to her feet. “Stop it, Ma Ray. Stop it! What are you doing?”
Ma Ray looked at her. “Sahara—”
“You’re just doing this to get my attention,” Sahara said. “Okay, Ma Ray. I get what you’re trying to say. But you don’t have to go to this extreme to prove your point. I’m sorry for the way I’ve acted. I promise you, I’ll do better. But you don’t have to get up here, saying stuff like this, stuff that’s not true, just to punish me or to get my attention.”
“Sahara, this isn’t all just about you. This is to help someone here to understand that sex before marriage and outside of marriage is wrong. It’s not cool, it’s not hip, and it’s not even safe, most of the time. You young people who are having sex are putting yourself at a risk you don’t even realize. I read, just the other day, where the CDC is saying that herpes, which is simplex virus type 2—a lifelong incurable disease—is twice as high among women than men and more than three times higher among black people than whites. And the most affected group of all is black women. I believe it said forty-eight percent. And most folks who have the herpes virus don’t even have a clue that they have it. Some just think that they merely have a yeast infection when that’s not at all what it is. Then there’s HIV/AIDS. Lord have mercy, it’s killing folks, and Satan is taking out our young, middle-age, and older folks, using the oldest trick in the book: sex outside of God’s best for you. Fornication and adultery, that’s what we’re talking about here.”
Keisha raised her hand. “Ms. Ray, for some of us, it’s too late to go back.”
Ma Ray began to shake her head. “No, baby. With God, it’s never too late to do the right thing. God can fix things, He can fix things. God is a God of another chance. I’m telling you, He’s God of another chance.”
“So, what is God’s best?” eighteen-year old Marvin asked.
“God’s best is for you to save yourself for that one special person He has created just for you. You see the problem is: we act like we have to do something that we really don’t. We need to get our bodies under the control of the Holy Spirit. I’m talking about submitting to the direction of the Holy Spirit residing inside of you, who will let you know when you’re headed in the wrong direction. The Holy Spirit will rein you in and tell you to pump your brakes.”
Everybody laughed.
“Ma Ray, what do you know about ‘pumping your brakes’?” Marvin asked.
“I have a car,” Ma Ray said with a laugh. “Actually, I’ve been brushing up on my teen terminology. You know there is a language class for senior citizens and saints on young folks’ talk.”
“There is not,” a teenage girl said. “Is there?”
“I’m just kidding. But I do try to keep up, so y’all can’t get too much over my head. Me and Ms. Tootsie there”—she pointed at Tootsie—“find new terms and share them with each other. In fact, I learned a new one just yesterday: emo.”
“Ah,” Pastor Weldon said. “You are quite the bomb, Ma Ray.”
“Now, Pastor, that one’s a little over my head. Although from the tone of your voice, it sounds like it’s a good thing,” Ma Ray said.
“Absolutely,” Pastor Weldon said. “It means you’re dynamite … explosive.”
“So, to conclude my presentation,” Ma Ray said, “I just want you to know that the greatest gift you could ever give your husband or wife on your wedding night is yourself—untouched and undefiled. I would love for all of you to pledge today, truly with your heart, that you’ll protect that precious gift with everything you have within you, until that time.”
“What if it’s too late to be able to do that?” Allison asked. “What if someone would like to be able to do that, but they’ve already messed up?”
“Ah, then there’s something you can do today called revirgin. You can vow to start from this day forward to protect your special gift. Vow that you’ll keep your precious gift, to be given only on your wedding night, and thereafter to your spouse, and only to your spouse.”
“It’s not easy for us,” Allison said. “Back in the old days, y’all could do stuff like that. Folks during your day got married at thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen. From all I’ve heard and read, you were considered an old maid if you turned twenty and weren’t married yet. What you—and I don’t mean you in particular, Ms. Ray, but I mean all the church folks who believe we’re supposed to remain virgins until we’re married—don’t understand is how much pressure we teenagers are under. And it’s not always somebody else pressuring us. Sometimes it’s our hormones and the feelings we get that are difficult to keep under control. To have to keep ourselves until we’ve graduated college is hard, almost impossible really. I would be twenty-two. When you’re young, time moves slow.”
“I know it’s hard,” Ma Ray said. “But if you could just think about how awesome it would be to hold on to your precious jewel, determined not to cast your pearls before the swine. If you can just hold on to the thought of a wedding night where you can present your husband or wife, whichever is the case, with something that no one else has ever had before—my goodness! What generally happens, though, is your friends will tell you how great their premature experience was, make it sound like it was the best thing that ever happened to them. And truthfully, some of the places people lose their virginity in is neither romantic nor sexy at all. Forgive me, I don’t mean to be graphic.”
“Well, you’re telling the truth,” Allison said. “You’re just telling it like it is.”
“You sure are.” More teens nodded and chimed in.
Ma Ray swallowed, then smiled. “Well”—she clapped one time—“my time is up. I hope I’ve said something to make you look at this in a different way. You are worth the wait. If someone doesn’t want to wait for you or they try to convince you that you’re so special you have to do this, whether it’s to prove that you love them or them to prove that they love you, then they don’t really love you the way you deserve to be loved. Yes, it’s hard. Yes, you’re dealing with hormones. I’ll let you in on a little secret: many adults don’t have this under control, either. Sad, but true. That’s why we all need the Holy Spirit.
“So, it’s not just a teen or YA problem. But all of us must realize that when we’re going against what God has said, after we have asked Him to come into our hearts and our lives, that what we do, He is right there seeing everything when we do it. Now, do you really want God there watching as you blatantly disobey Him? Because He’s there. You don’t get to ask Him to leave while you satisfy your flesh, then come back when you’re done. He sees everything. God is the One we really should care about. Amen?”
“Amen,” the teen group said in unison as they clapped and stood to their feet.
Pastor Weldon came up and asked them to show some love for all three of the seasoned-salt women. They waved and bowed to standing applause like rock stars.
Chapter 41
But all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated unto the Lord: they shall come into the treasury of the Lord.
—Joshua 6:19
“I can’t believe you did that! That was cruel, Ma Ray,” Sahara said. “I’m ready to go. There’s no way I can stay here with people who think you were actually a prostitute. A prostitute, Ma Ray? You actually thought you could pull off something that far-fetched?”
“Stop, Sahara,” Ma Ray said. “I didn’t make up anything. If anything, I didn’t tell as much as I’d planned to because of how you started acting.”
“I was acting that way because you were only saying that to get back at me. Okay, I get it. If I embarrass you, you’ll do something even bigger to embarrass me. I get it. The only problem with your little stunt is that you have to live in this community with these people. Now they’re going to believe you were once actually a 304.”
“Whoa. What’s a 304?” Ma Ray asked. Sahara didn’t answer her, so Ma Ray turned to Crystal. “Crystal, what’s a 304?”
“Why ask me? I wasn’t the on
e who brought it up,” Crystal said, then walked away.
Ma Ray turned back to Sahara. “Sahara, what’s a 304?”
“It’s a term that means a prostitute, someone who’s promiscuous…. If you were to look at a digital instrument upside down, 304 spells h-o-e.”
“Goodness gracious! What will you young folks think of next?” Ma Ray said.
“Can we go home now?” Sahara said. “Please, Ma Ray. Let’s just go.”
“No. According to you, it’s my reputation that has just taken a hit. Besides, after lunch, aren’t you’re supposed to model?”
Sahara vigorously shook her head. “I’m not modeling now. Everybody will be pointing at me while whispering stuff about you and your teenage life.”
“Oh, yes, you are modeling, too,” Ma Ray said with her hand on her hip. “If some of the things you’ve done in your own life hasn’t shamed you, then that little information I just revealed about myself should only be a drop in the ocean of life.”
“See, that’s what I mean. You were just trying to make a point. You went to the extreme to show how horribly embarrassing my past actions have been to you and my mother,” Sahara said.
“Go eat your lunch. I’ll be anxiously waiting to see you show us how great you are on the runway this afternoon.”
“I’m not doing it, Ma Ray. I want to go home. Now.”
“We’re not going home. So act right.” Ma Ray then started to walk away.
“Ms. Ray,” Allison said as she stepped up to her. “I just want to thank you for what you did today,” she said. “That was so dope … I mean, cool … I mean, great. We generally see people like you as though you were this sweet old person all of your life.”
“Okay.” Ma Ray sang the word as she nodded and smiled.
“I’m sorry, that’s not the way I meant for it to come out,” Allison said.
Ma Ray touched her hand. “I was only joking with you. It’s okay. And call me Ma Ray.” She smiled. “You should have seen me when I was your age. I thought age twenty-three was old. Fifty meant you had one foot on a banana peel and the other foot in the grave. But at age seventy-five, I’m still kicking, just not as high. I see how much age really is just a number.”
Sixteen-year-old Allison laughed. “But you really gave us something to think about. When we’re giving our bodies away without the spiritual bond God intended to be linked with it in marriage, we’re all pretty much prostituting. Some of us are exchanging ours for money whether we think of it in terms of that or not. Some, for what we feel is to get some needed attention. Some, to stand in a prestige place with our peers or others. But to share what is the symbol of true love, something that was worth protecting and waiting to give to that special someone, oh, what I wouldn’t give for that. I see now that when you do it God’s way, it’s like a dream.”
Ma Ray patted Allison on her hand. “Well, it’s like I said earlier, you can begin again. Just don’t keep making the same mistake and coming back trying to start over again just because you can. Go to God. Tell Him what you really desire. Pray for strength and guidance, and expect the best God has for you. True love is not cheap. But believe me: it really is worth its weight in gold.”
Allison hugged Ma Ray. “Thank you. Thank you for caring so much about us that you would come and be raw with us, to lay it out like it really is. I wish more adults would treat us like we’re intelligent and can handle the truth. Instead, most of them keep quiet, acting all holy. They let us find out in the streets what we should be finding out at home and at church. And it’s like you said in your talk, it becomes the blind leading the blind, and we both end up in the ditch.” Allison turned to leave. She stopped. “Ma Ray?”
“Yes.”
“Would you mind if I got your phone number and called you sometimes? I don’t mean to impose, but having someone like you to talk with would really help me.”
Ma Ray smiled. “I would be honored.” Ma Ray took out her pen and tore off a sheet of paper from the tablet that was in her folder. She wrote down her phone number and handed it to Allison. “Anytime you feel like you need to talk or if you have a question, you just call me.”
Allison took the paper with the number, hugged Ma Ray again, and scurried away. She stopped at Sahara, who had hung close by, and said, “You are so blessed to have a grandmother like Ma Ray! So blessed! She is a true Ray of Hope.”
Sahara looked over at Ma Ray. Ma Ray smiled, then winked as she nodded one time.
Chapter 42
But Joshua had said unto the two men that had spied out the country, Go into the harlot’s house, and bring out thence the woman, and all that she hath, as ye sware unto her.
—Joshua 6:22
The fashion show was wonderful. Sahara got a standing, whooping ovation. But of course, she was the most professional with her walk. She was born to be a model, and Ma Ray knew that much. People came up and told Sahara how good she was, encouraged her, telling her she really should pursue a modeling career.
The purity ceremony followed the final session. It started at five o’clock and was open to parents and friends of the teens who wished to attend. The fellowship hall had been transformed into this beautiful room of white. The youth who made the purity vow received a ring during the ceremony. The pastor and his wife performed the service. Each person who went forth was asked to make a vow to remain pure from this day forward until their day of marriage. The ring that was placed on their finger was to symbolize their vow to the Lord to keep themselves until the one they joined in holy matrimony replaced that ring during their wedding ceremony.
The pastor emphasized the ring that would be placed during their wedding ceremony because he knew the various tricks people try to use to circumvent this covenant they were making today. Some would get a friendship ring and feel that constituted a valid replacement ring. Some might act like an engagement ring was enough. Pastor Weldon made sure they understood it had to be a wedding ring during a legal wedding ceremony. No crazy stuff like a bootleg ceremony between two people who would try to say they were married in God’s sight without a legal ceremony having taken place.
Ma Ray cried a little as she witnessed her granddaughters receiving their rings.
Sahara was quiet on the ride home. Ma Ray understood they were both probably tired. A reception, with a live band, had followed the purity ceremony. But Crystal, on the other hand, was a little chatterbox. She had truly been touched by the youth conference in a profound way. She talked about her dreams and plans for the future. How she was going to change how she’d approach her life from how she’d done it in the past.
When they got in the house, it was a little after eight. Ma Ray went straight to her room. This had been a long day for her. She could feel this one in her bones. As she sat down in her rocking chair, she rubbed her legs to try to relieve the throbbing.
“Ma Ray, may I come in?” Sahara said as she peeked her head inside.
Ma Ray smiled when she looked into Sahara’s eyes. “Sure. Long day, huh?”
“Yeah,” Sahara said, kneeling on the floor beside Ma Ray. “Your legs hurt?”
“A little. But nothing my old friend Ben can’t help make feel a little better.”
“Your friend Ben?”
Ma Ray laughed. “Sorry, I forget you young folk don’t always get it. Ben is short for Bengay. That’s the stuff we old folks use to ease the aches and soreness in places like our limbs and back.”
“I wanted to come in and apologize,” Sahara said as she held Ma Ray’s left leg in the air and began to massage it.
Ma Ray waved her off. “Already water under the bridge.”
“You were really great today. I didn’t realize until later how much you touched so many people. All I saw was that you were my grandmother, whom I adore, and there you were up there telling people you were once a prostitute. I get what you were doing now. But at the time, all I could think about was how what you were doing was impacting me.”
“That’s natural. Definitely
what we as parents sometimes do when you children do contrary things. We look at our children and think about how they’re impacting our reputations or our standing with others. With our little children, we’re busy making sure they look just right and are presentable for the world, lest it reflect badly on us as a parent. We forget that when that child stands all bright eyes before us, all they care about is our love.” Ma Ray slowly lowered her foot back to the floor. “There’s a light in young people’s eyes that rivals the sun shining at the peak of the day. Then we adults say or do something that causes the light to duck behind a cloud and, sometimes, set before time.”
Sahara laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Ma Ray asked.
“You do that a lot.”
“Do what?”
“Say a bunch of stuff that sounds really great but is so like Shakespeare, you completely lose me,” Sahara said.
Ma Ray nodded. “Okay, let me try that again. We parents should be caring about what you children are feeling and not so much about how the world is judging us through you. Children mess up sometimes. Instead of us adults flipping out, we need to help you up, find out if you’re hurt, then help you move in the right direction.” Ma Ray tilted her head. “Was that better?”
“Better,” Sahara said. “You want me to rub your other leg?”
“Nah. I’d rather you and I talk.”
Sahara completely sat down on the floor, Indian style.
“You can sit on my bed if you like,” Ma Ray said, looking over at the bed.
“I like it right here. It’s something special about sitting at your feet. I never thought about how special it was until today. Today, I saw me in you, if that makes any sense. I saw a teenage woman dressed in an old person’s suit. I heard my and my friends’ words coming out of your mouth.”
“Wow, now that’s something I wasn’t expecting to hear you say.”
“You were willing to push the envelope today just to fit in. You said some things to shock us, so you could get our attention. And it worked. Some people believed you about being a prostitute. That’s because they don’t know how straight up you really are.”
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