The Pastor's Husband

by Tiffany L. Warren

  “I sure did. I saw her at the abortion clinic. And she had been thinking of doing that. God wanted to step in and save that baby.”

  “It definitely was God’s will for her to be in the sanctuary that day. That day, God truly moved.”

  Greg’s tone is so dry and direct. I don’t know what’s wrong with him, but he’s been acting very strange. I’ve stayed home ever since I flew back to take care of him when he was sick, so he can’t be feeling neglected.

  “Greg, is there something bothering you? You feeling okay?”

  “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  “Just wondering.”

  Greg cocks his head to one side and gives me a strange look. “Are you having a vision about me? Am I about to be blessed? Suddenly?”

  “Okay, now I definitely know you’re acting weird.”

  “Nah, I’ve just got a lot on my plate. A ministry to run. I’m glad you’re home. How long are you gonna be in town?”

  “I don’t know. I was thinking of quitting the talk show. Let someone else step into that role.”

  “Why would you do that? You’ve sacrificed so much for that show. For Lady Sandy and her vision. Why would you walk away before it’s finished?”

  Greg has always wanted me to quit and cut ties with Lady Sandy. He never wanted me to connect with her in the first place. Now he’s giving me grief for considering cutting ties. Something isn’t right. All I can think about is that heffa bringing that pot of soup to my house like Greg was her man or something. She was way too bold and familiar.

  “I thought you wanted me to quit. Has something changed? You like me being out of town now?”

  “Of course not. I want you home for good.”

  “Okay. I’m working on it.”

  “Did you prepare something for Bible study tonight?” Greg asks. “Or am I going solo?”

  I shake my head. I actually did start studying something, but I’m not feeling it tonight. I think it’s stress, or maybe just pure fatigue, but I just don’t feel in the mood for bringing the word.

  “You’re solo, babe. Do you mind?”

  “Nope.”

  Greg is tripping, but I don’t have the energy to address it. “I just want to be a congregation member tonight, and receive a good word.”

  “Do you want to come up to the altar for prayer? Rededicate your life to Christ? You know you can be rebaptized too.”

  I think these are jokes, but the deadpan way he’s delivering them makes me wonder if he’s trying to tell me something.

  “What are you trying to say, Greg? You think I need prayer?”

  “I think we all do.”

  “Do you think I need it more urgently than others?”

  “Do you?”

  I shake my head and give his dry jokes a dry chuckle in response. I don’t need a vision to tell me Greg is on something tonight.

  We get to the church, and for some reason it’s jam-packed for a Bible study. Although on Sundays we have a big crowd, we typically only see a couple hundred for Bible study.

  “Wow. Is Mother Olivia and her crew cooking dinner? There are so many people here.”

  “No. I’ve been doing a study series. This is week three. Everyone loves it.”

  “Really? What’s it about?”

  Greg laughs. “You haven’t even been watching the Bible studies online when you travel? You totally disconnect from your church when you get out there, don’t you? I guess Prophetess Nya doesn’t have a church home.”

  Admittedly, I haven’t been watching the Bible studies on our website. I’ve been meaning to get caught up since I’ve been home, but I’ve been doing a flurry of other things. Now that I think of it, those other things were pretty unimportant.

  “I do need to catch up, but I’m excited. What’s the topic?”

  “Jesus’s one-on-one encounters with people in the Bible.”

  Wow. He took the topic we were supposed to do together and developed a Bible study series from it. Even though I am irritated, I’m not quite sure if I should be.

  We walk into the church together and as soon as we hit the door, Greg and I are separated. So many people want to hug me because they haven’t seen me in weeks. I let Greg go ahead and get prepared to minister while I give my friends in the congregation some much missed attention and affection. Besides having Greg by my side, this is the part that I crave when I’m out in unfamiliar places. I miss the safety and security of home.

  Tina links arms with me as I walk into the sanctuary.

  “You sitting in the pulpit or in the pews with me?” she asks.

  “Greg is preaching tonight, so I will sit with you.”

  I wave at a few more people as I sit next to Tina on the second pew. The praise team is already up and has started to sing.

  After a few selections, the church is in an uproar of praise and worship. People are in tears, hands raised to the ceiling. The spirit is so high, God’s presence almost feels tangible. I have missed this too. Never experience this on the road. We’ve had a few moments, but mostly it felt manufactured and orchestrated. This is the real thing.

  The people are primed for a word, it seems, and Greg seems prepared with one.

  “Tonight we’re going to talk about intimacy. I lost some of y’all already,” Greg says with a laugh. “Some of y’all went straight carnal as soon as I said intimacy. And some other night we’ll talk about that intimacy y’all thinking about. Between a man and a woman. But not tonight. This evening, we’re going to talk about intimacy with God.”

  A round of applause goes up from the congregation. Some stand to their feet.

  “You know that’s what He wants from you, right? He wants to be face-to-face with you. He wants to rub noses with you in the spirit, like an Eskimo kiss. Who wants to kiss the Savior tonight?”

  After another round of applause, Greg smiles. “Okay, y’all, open your Bibles to the Gospel of John, chapter—”

  Before Greg can finish his sentence a loud wail comes from the back of the sanctuary. Greg makes eye contact with me and looks down at his notes.

  “That’s John, chapter four—”

  This time the wail is so loud and clear that the majority of the congregation turns to look. I can’t help myself, so I look around too. I want to hear who has that kind of despair in the sanctuary tonight.

  I narrow my eyes at the pitiful figure stumbling down the aisle of the church. She is wearing a long skirt and it looks as if. . . is she barefoot?

  As she gets closer to me, I narrow my eyes and look at her face. Although it’s contorted from her screaming and hollering, I recognize her immediately. It’s the chicken-soup maker.

  I stand to my feet and step out into the aisle. I’m going to intercept whatever it is she’s trying to do.

  When she gets to our pew, I reach out and grab her arm. She snatches it away like I shocked her. Then she looks me dead in my face, and snarls.

  “Liar,” she whispers. “You are a liar.”

  Then she reaches toward Greg with an outstretched arm. She’s holding something in her other hand, but I can’t see what it is.

  “Pastor!” she cries. “Pastor Greg!”

  I am about to have security escort this crazy wench out of the building, when I notice that Greg’s hand is outstretched too. What in the world?

  Greg nods to one of the ministers on the front row. “Bring her up here,” he says.

  Two ministers jump up from their seats and flank her on either side.

  “While she’s coming up here, I don’t want any of you to sit in your seats judging her. I have knowledge of this woman’s situation, and I promise that most of you wouldn’t even have the strength to walk down this aisle if you’d gone through what she’s gone through.”

  That heffa wails louder, giving Greg’s words extra effect. I wonder if they planned this.

  “She’s lost everything.”

  Humph. Not everything. The heffa lives in Southlake, where even a townhouse would cost over four hundr
ed thousand dollars. I wouldn’t say she’s lost everything.

  “I see some of you are unconvinced, but that’s okay. God knows what she’s gone through. God’s collecting her tears right now.”

  When on the platform, the heffa whispers to one of the ministers, who then whispers to Greg. Greg pauses for a moment and then nods. He steps out of his shoes and removes his socks.

  Wait, what? Oh, I don’t even believe this. Tina grabs my arm like she doesn’t believe it either. Mother Olivia makes a sound like she just sniffed a sour carton of milk.

  This heffa has kneeled on the floor in front of my husband. She’s pouring something on his feet and crying at the same time.

  “This is someone who wants a God experience,” Greg says. “Pray for her.”

  “She wants a Greg experience,” Tina whispers.

  I was almost able to stay in my seat, but when the heffa unpins her hair and lets that wig fall over Greg’s feet, I have had quite enough.

  When I get in the aisle, Mother Olivia stops me. “I got this baby,” she says.

  Mother Olivia, in all her plus-size sanctuary-nurse glory, waddles up onto the stage with a huge white sheet in her hand. First, she looks at Greg like he ain’t got good sense. She takes one hand and pushes him in the middle of his chest, separating him from the Brazilian hair tangled up over his feet. Then, when she’s backed Greg away, she takes the sheet and whips it through the air like the sail of a ship. It billows through the air and lands on the heffa. Perfectly covering her from head to toe.

  I guess she’s finished. And that’s that.

  Thrown off his message some, Greg slips back into his shoes, without the socks. He walks down from the podium to speak, leaving the heffa lying on the floor with the sheet over her.

  Greg motions with a head nod for the rest of the ministers to go and lay hands on her. When he’s sure she’s being taken care of, he continues to speak.

  I don’t hear another word coming out of his mouth. I’m watching the heffa like a hawk, because if she rises from the floor and goes anywhere near Greg, I’m going to turn into one of those women on those ridiculous videos that get posted on social media. The ones where the women are fighting and hair weave is flying all over the place.

  This chick is utterly disrespectful. And Greg? Well, he’s got more than a few questions to answer.

  CHAPTER 48

  NYA

  We’re in the car, on the way home from church. I held it in until we were pulled away and driving down Interstate 35, but now that we’re out of earshot of our members, I’m about to cut all the way up.

  “Greg.”

  He glances over at me and pretends that he doesn’t hear me. Then he grips the steering wheel and stares at the road. What in the heck is he mad about? There’s only one person in this car who has the right to be furious, and that’s me.

  “Really, Greg? You’re not talking to me? I don’t understand the nature of your attitude. I just watched a woman, who clearly wants you, pour oil on your feet, cry tears, and wipe them with her hair.”

  “I think she identifies with the woman with the alabaster box.”

  “She better be glad her face didn’t identify with getting slapped by the open side of my palm. Are you kidding me?”

  “Get out of here, woman. All of the theatrics y’all do on your little ‘suddenly’ outings, and you’re going to say something about this?”

  “So, who are you? You Jesus or somebody?” I want to throw something at him. “You know good and well that was inappropriate.”

  “I wouldn’t have sanctioned it if I’d known what she was going to do, but I think it was an authentic moment. I believe the Holy Spirit moved her from her seat.”

  “You cannot be serious, Greg. That was not the Holy Spirit. That was planned and calculated. You can’t tell me she didn’t wear that getup on purpose, looking like a damn gypsy prostitute.”

  “You cussing now?”

  “Then she just happened to have her hair in a style that she could unpin and let flow all over your feet? Oh . . . and she just coincidentally . . . in her purse had a ceramic box with oil in it. Miss me with that. You ’bout to make me think you were in on it.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, really, player. Is it also just mere chance that the same chick crying on your feet brought you a pot of chicken noodle soup? And she’s confiding in you? Telling you all her trials? What’d you do, Pastor Greg? Where’d you lay hands to make it feel better?”

  I know I’ve gone too far. To the point of no return, but there’s no taking it back now. I’ve never had a more visceral reaction to any other woman with reference to Greg.

  “You can’t stand me having a ministry moment, can you? You so used to people fawning over your anointing that you couldn’t let that woman get her breakthrough.”

  “That was not a ministry moment. The woman came and laid her body across your feet, Greg. How do you think that looked?”

  “How did it look when the woman with the oil washed Jesus’s feet with her tears?”

  “You. Are. Not. Jesus.”

  As Greg gets off the highway, he hits a curve too fast and nearly puts the car up on two wheels. He’s gonna kill us, taking up for this woman.

  “Neither are you, but you think you are. You think you’re the only one in our church with a yoke-breaking ministry. Felicia was crying out to God. You and Mother Olivia stood in the way of that. Like, what type of pastor does that? Where is your compassion?”

  “Why is it that you know all of her struggles, Greg? Protocol is to send wailing women to our female ministry staff.”

  “We’d gained a rapport working on the grant proposals. There was nothing ungodly about her sharing her pain with one of her pastors.”

  “I have a problem with it. So, let’s find her someone else to link up with.”

  “You worried about Felicia? You shouldn’t be. All she’s doing is writing grants for our church. She’s already gotten us a quarter of a million dollars in grant money for the youth center.”

  “I didn’t know you were that hands-on when it came to grants.”

  “You aren’t hands-on at all when it comes to our church, so how would you know?”

  “So, your message moved her so much that she got out of her seat and lay out on the floor.”

  “Apparently.”

  “If it was such an awesome move of God, why was she the only one to come up to the altar?”

  I know as soon as the words come out of my mouth that this is foul, but it’s too late. The words are out already. The truth is, Greg’s message wasn’t all that. It was pretty perfunctory if you ask me. Nothing extra-anointed about that message.

  “I guess there’s only room for one celebrity pastor in our church, huh? All hail, Queen Nya, the most anointed in the land.”

  I roll my eyes. “Come on Greg! You can’t see what that woman was trying to do? Are you so desperately starved for attention that some crazy woman can walk down to the altar and make you feel like the man?”

  “You know what that feels like. Feeling like the man? You strut around on stage growling. Sounding just like you’re possessed. Maybe you think you’re truly a man, ’cause I ain’t seen a woman doing woman things in my house in a long time.”

  “I don’t feel like the man, Greg. Mostly . . . mostly I feel like a fraud.”

  Greg shakes his head. “You should. Because you are.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Greg presses his lips together and flares his nose. “Nothing. I don’t mean anything by it.”

  Then, at the most inopportune time, I feel the tingle in my spirit that means a vision is coming.

  The woman sits at my feet with clothing that is way too tight. Her hair is a mess and so is her makeup, but the most memorable thing about her is the wailing. She wails at the top of her lungs, and her wailing makes me want to give her something. The people are waiting for something.

  “Oh my God,” I say, snapping out of m
y vision. “It’s her. “

  “Who?”

  I slam my hand on the dashboard. “It’s her. Your alabaster woman. She’s the one I gave the ‘suddenly blessing’ prophecy to at that conference. She looks different. Slimmer, with better clothes and a better wig. But it’s her.”

  “And why wouldn’t it be? You gave her a prophecy that changed her life. Or, should I say, destroyed her life.”

  “Destroyed her life? Wh-what happened to her?”

  We’re not home yet, but Greg pulls the car to a stop at a gas station. I guess he doesn’t want to keep driving as he tells me this.

  Greg turns to me and gives me a sneer. “While you were off prancing around in half the pulpits in America, she got involved with a married man, thinking he was her blessing,” he says.

  “That wasn’t smart.”

  “And she got pregnant by him. The man plotted and schemed with a doctor and they convinced her the baby had such a devastating birth defect that she had an abortion.”

  “Oh my goodness,” I say, not wanting to hear anymore.

  “Wait, it gets worse. So then, she gets an infection after the abortion that caused her to have a hysterectomy.”

  “Father God in heaven.”

  “Does she sound suddenly blessed to you?”

  I don’t reply. I can’t reply. This is too much. I literally feel like I’m breaking inside, but I don’t feel as if I have the right to break. I’ve not suffered at all from my lie. And even though this woman was off her rocker to think that someone’s husband was a blessing, I disrespected the gift. I brought sorrow.

  “Why would you do that, Nya? Why would you stand up there and lie?”

  “Greg . . .”

  Greg takes both my arms and squeezes. “Why would you need to make up a prophetic word? God speaks through you . .. right? Or have you made it up this entire time?”

  I shake my head. “Just that one time. I’ve never lied about it before. You know it runs in my family.”

  “I don’t know what I know. What I thought I knew, I didn’t know.”

  “Can’t you see she’s trying to get revenge on me, Greg? Through you. She wants me to pay, so she’s throwing herself at your feet.”