Been There Prayed That (9781622860845)

by Joy, E. n.

  Without even looking up from her task at hand she said, “Oh, yeah right, sis,” then continued scribbling down words.

  Mother Doreen looked her brother-in-law in the eyes. “God will provide all that other stuff.”

  Feeling encouraged, Uriah smiled. “Yes, Doreen, I know that God is a provider.”

  “And don’t you forget it,” she playfully scolded. Flattening out her blouse, she then changed the subject. “I sure do wish I’d known you were coming. I would have made up something real special in the kitchen.” Mother Doreen looked to Bethany. “Did you know he was coming home? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Sis, I’m just as surprised as you,” Bethany told her, still not looking up from the crossword puzzle.

  “Oh, don’t worry about it,” Uriah told Mother Doreen. “I wanted to take my family out to dinner anyway. It’s not often I can do that. So dinner is on me tonight.” Uriah looked down at his watch. “It’s three o’clock now. Bethany, what time do the kids usually get home?”

  “They have band practice today, so the activity bus won’t get them home until about five-thirty,” Bethany answered, finally looking up, but not at her husband. Straight forward, as if she had to think about her answer.

  “Well, that gives me time to get cleaned up and take a little cat nap,” Uriah said to Bethany before turning toward Mother Doreen. “Sis, you’ll be joining us too, right?”

  “I wish I could, but I’m having a dinner meeting with Pastor Davidson this evening.”

  “Dinner? With Pastor?” Bethany jumped in. Finally, something had pulled her attention away from that crossword puzzle.

  “He says there is something he wants to talk to me about,” Mother Doreen replied. “But maybe I can cancel. It’s not every day we all get to have dinner together.”

  “Oh no, I wouldn’t want you to do that,” Uriah said.

  “Please, that man is just trying to wine me and dine me into becoming a member of his church.” Mother Doreen shooed her hand.

  “Reen!” Bethany said in a shocked tone. She was now looking at Mother Doreen.

  “Oh child, please. Don’t even try to act shocked. If they had a word for pastors chasing folks to become a member of their church like they do attorney’s who chase ambulances—”

  Uriah chuckled. Bethany shot him a look. It was the first time Mother Doreen noticed her looking at her husband at all.

  “Come on, honey, you know she’s right,” Uriah agreed. “I love Pastor Davidson to death, but he’s bar none when it comes to filling that sanctuary with members.”

  Bethany shook her head and fought to hide her smile. She knew both her husband and sister were speaking the truth. Pastor Davidson took evangelism and discipleship to a whole new level.

  “Anyway, sis, you go ahead with your meeting with Pastor,” Uriah told her. “Maybe the next time I blow through town I’ll give you a heads up so you can make something real special. How about that?”

  “I’m gonna hold you to that,” Mother Doreen told him. “And it better be real soon. I had planned on whipping Bethany and the kids something up to eat before I headed out, but since you’re taking them out to dinner, I don’t have to worry about that now. Guess God wanted to free me up some time to go get prayed up before my meeting with Pastor Davidson.”

  Bethany smacked her lips and dropped her pen. “Reen, you act like you got a meeting with the devil. It’s Pastor Davidson for goodness sakes.” Bethany was almost offended at this point.

  “Child, I don’t care if I was meeting with Jesus Himself. I always want to be prayed up and ready. So I’m just gonna pray that God be in the midst of our conversation and that I hear and follow no other voice but His, that’s all I’m saying. Because I know Pastor Davidson is a man of God, but even a man of God’s flesh can get in the way of his spirit man if there’s something he wants badly enough.” She shot her sister a peculiar look. “You know what I mean?” Bethany fidgeted with her pen and went back to her crossword puzzle. Mother Doreen took that as a ‘yes,’ then made her way up the stairs to get her prayer on.

  “Reen . . . Wallace?” Bethany’s tone was laced with a bit of anger. “What are you two doing here? Together?” Bethany did everything but fold her arms and tap her foot while she waited for a response. Her lips were pouted. Yep, the folded arms and tapping foot were the only things missing from her visible temper tantrum.

  “Why, uh, Sister Bethany, it’s mighty fine to see you up and out of the house enjoying your evening.” Pastor Frey looked over Bethany’s shoulder at Uriah, who was standing behind her with his hands on her shoulders. “And uh, you too, Brother Uriah.” Behind Uriah stood the couple’s children. Pastor Frey nodded them his hello.

  “It’s good to see you too, Pastor Frey.” Uriah walked around his wife and shook Pastor Frey’s hand. “It’s funny we ran into you. I was just telling my wife on the drive here how I had to call the church and thank them for looking out for my family. And I want to thank you especially, Pastor Frey. Beth tells me how you have been taking real good care of her.”

  Pastor Frey swallowed hard.

  “Checking on her regularly while she was at the hospital and praying for her and all.” Uriah was specific.

  Pastor Frey appeared to exhale. “Oh, yeah. Well, uh, it was no problem at all. It’s always an honor to be doing God’s work. I’m just blessed that He chose me.”

  “Well, my wife and I are blessed that God chose you too,” Uriah told him. He then looked to Mother Doreen. “Looks like I’m gonna get to have dinner with my sister-in-law after all. Why don’t we all have dinner together?”

  “Oh, no,” Mother Doreen was quick to say, holding up her hand in refusal. “You and your wife spend this priceless time together with your children.”

  “Are you sure?” Uriah asked. “Beth, the kids, and I would love for you two to join us. Right, honey?” He looked to his wife, who was still standing there waiting on a response to the question she’d posed moments ago.

  “Doreen, you said you were having dinner with Pastor Davidson,” Bethany said in an almost scolding manner. “This don’t look like no Pastor Davidson.”

  Mother Doreen felt like a child being caught after curfew by her parents. Being caught by her parents after curfew with a boy. Being caught by her parents after curfew with a boy on her front porch smooching. The flesh inside of her wanted to stand up, point her finger in her little sister’s face, and tell her that she wasn’t the boss of her and that she could have dinner with anybody she wanted. But thank goodness she’d prayed herself up and that the spirit man prevailed.

  In a nice, kind, and gentle voice, and with a smile plastered on her face, Mother Doreen looked to Pastor Frey and said, “Will you excuse me for a moment, Pastor Frey? I need to go to the ladies room.”

  “Oh, by all means.” Pastor Frey stood while Mother Doreen stood to her feet.

  “Bethany, can you come with me?” Mother Doreen, with the smile still resting on her face, looked back and forth between the two gentlemen. “I guess it never seems to matter what age a woman gets, we always have to go to the bathroom in pairs.” After letting out a chuckle, and the men returning a chuckle of understanding, Mother Doreen took Bethany by the arm and led her into the women’s bathroom.

  “Have you lost your God given sense?” Mother Doreen said to her sister once they were behind the closed bathroom door. “If I didn’t think there was some funny business going on between you and that Pastor Frey before, well your actions sure did confirm it just now.”

  “Puhleeze! I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Bethany’s arms were now folded, and she was tapping her foot. She was in full temper tantrum mode.

  “The heck if you don’t, and I’m not gonna stand here and let you force me to even spill the words out of my mouth. For starters, since when do congregation members call their pastors by their first names? That’s a sign of disrespect.” Bethany didn’t respond. “Huh?” Mother Doreen questioned, adding enough bass in her tone
to make Bethany jump. “Out there was my second time hearing you call that man Wallace. Sounds a bit too personal for me.”

  Bethany thought for a minute. “It must have just slipped, I mean, after all, that was the man who came to see about me dang near every day and prayed for me every day. I can’t help it if I feel a sense of closeness toward the man, enough to call him by his first name . . . outside of church.”

  “Keep on lying to yourself, you hear? But child, you the only one you’re lying to. Heck, if I noticed how foolish you were acting out there, like a jealous girlfriend catching her beau with another gal, then you best believe your husband did too.”

  With her arms still folded, Bethany turned up her nose. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about. And if you are trying to insinuate what I think you are, that’s nonsense. Wall—I mean, Pastor Frey is fifteen years my senior.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, they make little blue pills to fix that problem.”

  Bethany turned her nose up in the air. “You should be ashamed of yourself, allowing such filthy talk to come out of your mouth.”

  Realizing that she wasn’t going to get her sister to confess anything, not now anyway, Mother Doreen decided to end their conversation before things got real ugly. That prayer and holy oil she’d anointed herself with before leaving the house could only get her so far, and she could feel her flesh battling on the inside. “Like I said, I’m not going to stand here and let the truth, as I’m starting to see it, spill from my lips. It’s your sin to confess, not mine.” On that note, Mother Doreen went into a bathroom stall, then heard Bethany exit the bathroom in a huff.

  “Everything happens for a reason and in divine order,” Mother Doreen mumbled to herself. “None of this that transpired tonight was a coincidence. God, you wanted to show me something, which is why you made it so that Pastor Davidson had to cancel his dinner with me and have Pastor Frey meet with me instead. My sister’s actions are just confirmation to what you are trying to show me.”

  Mother Doreen had been just as shocked as Bethany had been to see Pastor Frey at the restaurant when she showed up. For a moment she was going to cancel altogether, telling Pastor Frey she preferred to meet with Pastor Davidson when he could fit her into his schedule. But then Pastor Frey mentioned that the reason why he’d asked him to fill in was because his schedule was quite full, and he didn’t know when he’d be able to meet with her again. It was almost as if Pastor Davidson had covered every reason as to why Mother Doreen should go ahead and meet with Pastor Frey.

  If she were being honest, Mother Doreen had to admit that the last person she wanted to be keeping company with was Pastor Frey. But figuring she could turn a bad situation into good, she decided to relent, hoping to find herself in a position to have a little talk with Pastor Frey regarding her sister. So she looked at the entire situation as a divine set up.

  It was a set up all right. It was all confirmation to Mother Doreen as to why God had her in Kentucky. The look on her sister’s face when she spotted her and Pastor Frey having dinner together. Her attitude, her tone, and disposition. She now knew exactly what she needed to pray for. Mother Doreen only hoped, though, that while she was praying for her sister, someone would be praying for her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Didn’t your mama ever teach you that it was rude to sit outside of somebody’s house and blow your horn?” Unique spat as she made her way to Lorain’s car, her three children tagging close behind her. The month of May was approaching, so each child wore a nice spring, hooded jacket.

  Lorain was not looking forward to their little Saturday afternoon meeting at all. Unique hadn’t even made it in the car yet and already she was running her mouth.

  “My bad,” Lorain said sarcastically, figuring she’d speak Unique’s language.

  Unique paused at Lorain’s mocking tone, rolled her eyes, then proceeded to put her children in the backseat and buckle them up. “I’m sure when your mama talked to you about boys picking you up, she mentioned to you how it was a sign of disrespect for them to sit in the car and blow their horn instead of walking up to the door,” Unique continued her rant. She took a moment to give Lorain the once over from the backseat. “Or didn’t you have any boys coming to your house?”

  Everything in Lorain told her to simply brush off Unique’s insult, but she couldn’t let it go. “Whether boys came to my house to pick me up or not doesn’t matter.” Lorain gave Unique’s children the once over. “But I guess it’s safe to say that at least three came to yours.” Lorain let out a Morris Day laugh that irked Unique, but she didn’t have a quick enough comeback, so she let it go.

  “Can you roll these windows up?” Unique asked as she got in the passenger’s seat and put her seatbelt on. “I’m not trying to have that wind blow my hair.” She pat at the clump of weave she’d worked in an up-do with a few strands hanging down.

  Lorain shook her head, wondering how in the world the wind was going to mess up that capped on bird’s nest. Still she obliged Unique by rolling up the windows, leaving hers cracked to Unique’s dismay.

  “Can we stop at McDonald’s or something?” Unique asked as they backed out of the driveway. “I didn’t get a chance to feed my babies yet.”

  Lorain knew this was going to be a long day as she made her way to the nearest McDonald’s and pulled up at the drive-thru. Once the voice boomed through the outside intercom asking for their order, Unique rattled off the order of three chicken nugget Happy Meals. Lorain proceeded to the first window as instructed after the order was taken.

  “That will be ten dollars and fifty-three cents, please,” the cashier said.

  Lorain looked over to Unique and held her hand out. Unique was fidgeting through her purse.

  “Dang it—” Unique fussed. “Where’s my—” Fidget. “I know I didn’t—” Fidget. “I changed purses—” Fidget. “Left my dang on—” Fidget. “Wallet.”

  Lorain knew exactly what Unique was getting at, but she continued to hold her hand out, waiting for Unique to miraculously come up with the cash to put in it so that she could pay for the food order.

  “I cannot believe this,” Unique said, visibly giving up her search as she closed her purse and threw it down. “I left my wallet in my other purse. I changed purses last night when I—” Unique caught herself. She’d been out last night at a house party for one of her girlfriends, but she didn’t want Lorain to know. She didn’t trust her. The next thing she knew, Lorain would be sitting outside Pastor’s office just waiting to leak that bit of information in order to make Pastor reconsider her being co-leader of the Single’s Ministry. Although she detested the fact that her first leadership role at New Day was underneath the likes of Lorain, she wasn’t going to let Pastor down. She wasn’t going to let herself down. Most importantly, she wasn’t going to let God down. She was determined not to let the devil drive her out of doing work for God, even if the devil was disguised in a tight blouse, mini skirt and pumps.

  “Do you want to drive back to your house and get you wallet?” Lorain asked Unique.

  “Naw, just forget it,” Unique sighed. “Don’t nobody feel like going through all that drama.”

  “Aw, man,” the four-year-old middle son stated. “Does that mean we ain’t getting no McDonald’s?”

  “Getting any McDonald’s,” his older brother corrected. “Does that mean we are not getting any McDonald’s.”

  “Yeah, boys. I’m sorry,” Unique apologized. “Mommy left her money at home.”

  Unmoved by the little charade Unique had tried to put on, Lorain asked Unique, “Are you sure you don’t want me to take you back to your house to get your money?”

  “No, I’m good.” Unique waved her off.

  Lorain twisted her lips and pulled out of the drive-thru line in disbelief that Unique had tried to pull the oldest trick in the book on her. Not even the weeping three-, four- and five-year-old behind her made her go into her own pockets. For all Lorain knew, Unique had trained her kids to
put on that act. Real tears probably weren’t even falling from their eyes.

  Lorain looked into the rear view mirror to peek at the children. Okay, so real tears were falling. Little actors, were they? Still Lorain wasn’t falling for it. They’d probably pulled this trick on many people prior to her. They could probably drop a tear at the drop of a dime, but Lorain wasn’t falling for it. No siree!

  A few minutes later, Lorain pulled up in front of her townhouse and led her guests up the sidewalk to her doorstep. She usually parked in her attached garage, but she’d hoped, no, she’d prayed to be in and out of there in under an hour. The night before, she’d put together an agenda of things for her and Unique to cover in order to speed things right along. Although she was given the name Unique, to Lorain, she didn’t look like someone who could come up with original thoughts and ideas to save her life.

  “If you don’t mind, can you take your shoes off at the door?” Lorain asked as she unlocked her front door. On second thought, she’d wished she had used the garage entrance that would have led them straight into the kitchen where she planned on having the meeting. That way she wouldn’t have to trot the troop through her house since she hadn’t gotten around to packing and putting away some of her breakable, valuable items.

  I don’t know what I should be more afraid of, Lorain thought to herself as they all entered the house and removed their shoes, whether they are gonna break my stuff or steal it.

  “What are you, Japanese or something?” Unique asked as she stepped out of her shoes. “Or you just don’t want our kind dirtying up your nice little carpet?” Unique rolled her eyes, not expecting an answer. Lorain didn’t give her one.

  “I figured we can work in the kitchen,” Lorain said after ignoring Unique’s sarcastic comment. “I made out an agenda.” She led Unique and the children into the kitchen.

  On the bar that separated the cooking area from the eating area, Lorain had two notebooks and pens set out for her and Unique. On the table she had three Bible story coloring books and some crayons she’d picked up from the dollar store laid out for the children. She hoped that if she kept them busy enough, they wouldn’t ransack her house.