“Where you going? I don’t know if I should leave you alone. You might go burn down Paulo’s brownstone or something.”
“Just stop it,” Phoenix snapped. “I didn’t mean to hurt him and you are jumping to conclusions. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I have to take care of something, if it isn’t too late.”
“Okay, I’ll text you,” Cara conceded before leaving to join her family.
Phoenix took two deep breaths and ran into the church to the front desk. “I know it’s late, but can I still sign up to share my testimony?”
The older woman at the front desk of the church looked at her list. “We just got number three, dear. Just two minutes before you came in. You have to wait for next Sunday.”
Dismay flooded Phoenix as she nodded. “Okay then.” Her day was not going as planned at all.
As she walked away from the desk, the woman stopped her. “Dear? You know what? I can squeeze you in. I feel the Lord telling me it’s important you share tonight. You go ahead. What is your name?”
“Phoenix Jean-Baptiste,” Phoenix answered, keeping herself from jumping up and shouting. God was truly in control.
“Fill out this card and take those stairs to head backstage. You have to keep it short because we only hear three testimonies usually.”
“I understand,” Phoenix said, taking the card. “Thank you so much!”
She handed the card back after answering the short questions about her faith and how long she’d been attending the church.
“God bless you,” the woman called, as Phoenix raced down the stairs just as she heard the music from the choir begin.
“Where’s your friend?” Paulo asked. “Did she leave?”
As much as he wanted to be away from her, that had nothing to do with her missing church.
“No,” Cara answered, leaning over James. “I texted her to tell her where we are sitting and told her she was on the aisle. She said she had to do something first. Maybe she went to the restroom or something. Anyway, we’re only in the fourth row from the back. She will find us.”
Paulo hoped that was the case. Father forgive me if I drove her away. I am just so hurt. I pray that she comes to her senses and officially accepts You into her life. I know it’s too late for us but I still ask that she accept Christ.
They each wondered where she was as they sang songs of praise to the Lord.
Fifteen minutes later, the first woman stood to share her testimony. Paulo wondered if he should go out into the lobby to search for her.
Phoenix was quivering on the stage.
She was seated on the far end of the stage, where the elder had quickly placed a seat for her. She was practically hidden behind the section where the church leaders sat. She could barely see the audience. She wasn’t afraid of speaking in public, having done so many presentations in school and at work.
But her testimony was no presentation.
This time, she would not be speaking on something she had researched. She did not have a PowerPoint presentation filled with graphs and statistics to prove her theory. All she had was her memory of what God had done for her in the past few months.
But what if she sounded stupid? What if she said something that offended the audience?
She tried to practice her testimony in her head but found that she couldn’t.
As she watched the first woman walk up to the pulpit, her fear turned to sharp knives that began to cut away at her courage.
God, help me. I don’t know what to say!
Be still and know that I am God.
Phoenix received a peace that surpassed her entire scope of understanding.
After the choir sang several more songs, and the third man took the pulpit to share, James recommended that Paulo go to the lobby and check for Phoenix. She had been gone a full half hour.
Besides, he was sick of Paulo’s fidgeting.
Paulo climbed over James and Cara and raced to the lobby. He walked to other side of the sanctuary entrance, went upstairs to where the balcony seats were, and downstairs to the overflow room, where the church had a large room with a screen. He scanned the room and went back outside.
Dejected, he realized that Phoenix must have left.
His behavior had caused her to leave the church.
He returned to their row, but that time took Phoenix’s seat on the aisle. He whispered, “I think she’s gone” to James and Cara.
But Cara was shaking her head as she stared, wide-eyed, at the stage. “No she’s not.”
Paulo almost fell out of his seat. “Phoenix?” he whispered.
The choir’s song had ended and Phoenix was walking to the pulpit.
Lead me, God.
I am with you, Daughter. You are with God.
Phoenix reached the pulpit and took a deep breath. She scanned the audience to see if she could see her friends, but the lights were too bright.
She opened her mouth to speak and was suddenly overcome with tears.
“Glory to God!” she spoke with words that were not her own, but reflected exactly how she felt. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
“That’s alright, Sister,” one of the choir members spoke from her place behind Phoenix. “Take your time.”
Phoenix took several more breaths. “I got saved last night on my living room floor,” she blurted.
The entire congregation let out shouts of praise and applause.
“But first, I have to tell you how that happened.”
“Amen!” one of the elders shouted.
“I’ve always hated myself. You see, up until about six months ago, I was overweight all my life. I had horrible skin and had always believed my skin was too dark. I was always awkward and never felt worthy of love. My father left us for another woman when I was younger, and my mother blamed her own imperfections for his adultery. She passed that self-hatred down to me…”
Tears spilled onto her cheeks as a hush fell over the congregation.
“She taught me, with her self-hatred, that women that looked like us didn’t ever get to have true love. So I learned early in life that I had to work hard to get love. I wasn’t beautiful on the outside. I figured my looks, what God had created me to be, was beyond my control. So I learned I had to do what I could to get love at all costs. I learned that I needed to be educated as possible so I could make lots of money. I figured with that money, I could fix myself up one day…”
Paulo gasped as her words hit him.
“I learned that I needed to take care of everybody in order for them to accept me. I wanted to please everyone. It didn’t matter if I was sapping my own strength. I felt it was the only way to get love. I started studying psychology and joined a field where I could help people who felt just as unlovable and rejected as I always felt. I always tried to please my family and my friends and my clients and coworkers at my job. I always volunteered for things and tried to do things for people, because I felt I was too ugly to be accepted for me, you know? No one ever loves the ugly, fat girls. No one wants to hang out with them. The only way we could be loved was to give, and give, and give. But God showed me different! God showed me that He is ready to give His love to us!”
Again Phoenix paused as the congregation cheered their Lord.
“Four years ago, I got so depressed that I ended up going to church with a friend from work. For the first time ever, I felt like Someone could love me. He didn’t care if I was sixty pounds overweight or if my skin gave me problems. He only wanted me to believe and trust His Son, who died on the cross for broken people like me. I thought, ‘wow! Someone is willing to love me and I don’t have to do any work for their love? Sure, I’ll take it!’”
The congregation laughed.
Phoenix continued. “So when they gave the altar call at my old church, I gave my life to Jesus. Or so I thought. Within a couple of years, I started missing my old life. I missed my friends and being in a relationship, so I started searching for one. I ended up with a man who had no intere
st in me. He was very handsome and he knew I wanted him. I promptly started taking care of him financially and let him move into my home. We lived together in sin for almost two years. He had proposed –with a ring I purchased—and I just wanted to marry him so badly…”
“She purchased her own ring?” Paulo whispered, realizing the magnitude of Phoenix’s pain and sorrow.
“And I ignored the fact that while I took care of him, and his child, and his relatives, along with my relatives, he didn’t love me. I figured if I worked hard enough, he would grow to love me. And I tried. I did everything from giving him money to giving him my car. I was just happy that someone was giving me a chance. I was happy that someone was giving me some attention. I was so excited to marry someone, finally, that I ignored all of these things that were happening, until God made it so I couldn’t ignore it anymore. You see, God wanted more for me and for my life!”
“Halleluiah!” Cara shouted, with tears of delight in her eyes.
“I walked in on my ex-fiance, two months before the wedding, cheating on me in my house. I found him on the bed that I had purchased for us only a few months prior—”
Cara reached over to punch Paulo in the arm. “Thanks, really!” she hissed.
“Shhh, she’s talking,” Paulo said with wide eyes before turning back to Phoenix.
“—and when I went to my mom, she told me that I should have stayed with him because I was too unattractive to hope for more. I was so angry with her. But I realize now that I forgive my mom. After I went to see her, I went to my favorite park to sit on a bench and cry. I cried out to God for the first time in a couple of years. I begged Him to help me. I begged Him to send someone to give me a makeover. I begged Him to send someone to help me become beautiful. I begged Him to give me true love. That’s when I met a member of this church who came to help me.”
Paulo’s eyes filled and spilled as he listened to Phoenix recount their meeting and all they had accomplished together.
“But the thing about this guy, is that I believed he was being used to give me a physical makeover, helping me lose more than fifty pounds—”
The congregation applauded.
“—while my other friend, also from this church, helped me to take care of myself. She helped me to become like the Proverbs 31 woman who took delight in dressing well and loving herself even before I lost all that weight—”
James squeezed his wife’s hand, as Cara shook her head, overcome.
“—but what God did through both of them was teach me that the real makeover that had to be done was in my heart. The real makeover had to be done through Jesus Christ! They taught me that Jesus Christ was the only one that could really change me where it counts.”
The applause was deafening.
Phoenix went on to share how as she began to lose weight, she became prideful and bitter about her past. She talked about how her plan was to win her ex back and reject him, even at the cost of destroying the relationship she had with Paulo. She confessed how every time she had wanted to rededicate her life back to Christ, she had held back, refusing because of her pride and deliberate plan for revenge.
“But last night, after my friend and I had it out about my behavior, I went home full of rage because my friend had told me the truth. Again, my friend reminded me that although I’d undergone a physical makeover, I needed to let the Lord makeover my spirit and my heart. I went to see my other friends in the building and they prayed for me. It didn’t help, or so I thought. I went to my apartment and got drunk. I believe God was trying to stop me and I was ready to stop, but my ex suddenly showed up at my door…”
Paulo’s heart seized, as he listened to Phoenix confess her plan to seduce Cedric and reject him, in order to make him pay for hurting her. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the rest.
“But God...” Phoenix cried. She had to pause as tears overcame her again.
“But God wouldn’t let me go through with it. He kept at me all night. He turned the whole evening around! Before I knew what was happening, my ex was sharing his story of how he got to be so bitter and angry, and was apologizing for hurting me, lying to me, and using me. Before I could stop myself, I found myself comforting him, just like God commands us to do with our enemies!”
Paulo shook his head in awe.
“And next thing you know, my ex asks me of all people to pray for him. And together, we prayed for God to forgive us both, for our immoral relationship, for our own bitterness and ways we had hurt people, and for our pride. After that, the Lord led us both in accepting Christ into our hearts! We ended up praying together all night in my apartment!”
Phoenix’s next words were drowned out by shouts of praise.
“And we parted ways this morning in peace. Not only did God cause me to forgive him and find closure, but He led us to Christ together, and allowed us to part ways in peace! And here I am! A new creation in Christ! God truly gave me the makeover I’ve been craving!”
Paulo was sobbing as the congregation came to its feet.
“And I just want to share one thing. I know I hurt my friend so badly, when all he tried to do was love me, and teach me about loving myself, and letting Christ love me. He loved me just the way Jesus loves us, with light and salt. I just want to tell you, finally, that I do love you. And your prayers have been answered. Thank you for praying for me! And I thank God for sending you and bringing me back to Jesus. I thank God for my makeover!”
Phoenix paused as the congregation applauded thunderously.
Phoenix swallowed and continued. “So, please, if you’re someone that is concerned about your outer appearance, or how much money you have, or your title—none of that is important! If you are looking for love in the wrong places—don’t. Only God can give you the love you want and the life you want. Come to Jesus.”
Phoenix smiled as the congregation jumped and shouted praise. She had done it. Except she had one more thing to say…
“Thank you Jesus! And to my friend, if you still want me, after all I’ve done, I would be honored to be yours. I now belong to Jesus again, so I can belong to you, too.”
And as Phoenix went back to her seat on the stage, Paulo leaned forward to hug his knees, sobbing as James patted him on the back.
And as the Lord used Phoenix’s testimony to bring over seventy people to Christ that evening, He used it to answer Paulo’s question.
Phoenix was going to be his wife.
Chapter 30
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them (Romans 8:28).
After the service, several members of the congregation hugged Phoenix and wished her well. The woman who had signed her up to share her testimony met her backstage and hugged her. “I wish my granddaughters had been here to listen to your story. They are always worried about their appearance, when they need to be worried about their relationship with Jesus. I am so glad I obeyed the Lord and signed you up.”
“Thank you,” Phoenix beamed. “I wanted to share what God has done for me in the past few months. I also wanted, in front of everyone, to apologize to my friend. I hope he forgives me for everything I put him through.”
“I do,” Paulo said, standing behind Phoenix.
Phoenix noticed the woman flash a wide grin. “I should have known she was talking about you, since she said her friend owned a fitness center. God bless you both.” The woman left them alone.
Paulo grabbed Phoenix’s hand and looked down at her with flashing eyes. “You were amazing. I had no idea you were going to do that. I was looking for you all night. I thought you’d left because of the way I’d acted.”
Phoenix laughed. “I wish I could have, but the Lord told me I had to share my testimony this evening.” She hugged him. “I was so glad to see you standing in front of the church. I was so afraid you would miss it.”
“I was so angry with you. I might not have come if I had known you were here. I am thankf
ul now that I refused to check my messages, even if I was being immature.” Paulo’s smile widened. “But God takes all of our foolishness and still makes use of it.”
Phoenix closed her eyes. “I saw that last night first-hand.”
“But, Phoenix, I’m sorry for judging you, for jumping to conclusions the way I did. When I saw you guys hugging, saw his bag, and—”
Phoenix shook her head. “Don’t apologize. When he showed up, that’s exactly what I had planned, even though it was wrong. I just wanted to hurt him, and hurt you too, I think. I was actually going to come back to you and Cedric just showed up out of nowhere.”
“The enemy never stops. Thank God he led us all to keep praying for you.”
Phoenix started giggling.
“What’s so funny, baby?” Paulo whispered.
“I used to call you, James, and Cara the God Squad. I felt like you all always knew what was going on whether I told you or not. I used to make fun of you all behind your back. Now I’m thankful he put a God Squad in my life!”
Paulo laughed as he hugged his woman. “I love you, Phoenix.”
“I love you too, Paulo.”
Paulo exhaled. “Say that again, Baby?”
Phoenix cleared her throat. “I said, I love you too. I fell in love with you right from the beginning. I am in love with you.”
Paulo hugged her close. He ached to kiss her, but remembered where he was.
“Ready to go?” Paulo whispered. “I want to spend some time with you.”
“Sure. Uh, let’s say goodbye to Cara and James.”
After saying goodbye, they were on their way.
On their way uptown, Paulo looked over at Phoenix. “Are you busy tomorrow after work?”
“No, why?”
“I’d like to go shopping in Cross County Mall in Yonkers.”
“Sure.” Phoenix nodded and chewed her bottom lip.
She was wondering how she could get Paulo into Zales to look at engagement rings without being too obvious.
The Makeover Page 42