by E. N. Joy
Her first instincts were to run upstairs to her room and hide. While in her room she’d pack her bags and prepare to go away in hiding once who ever was at her door left. But where would she go? And who would she be hiding from? God? Adam and Eve had tried that little stunt in the Garden of Eden, and it hadn’t worked. So Deborah knew it wouldn’t work for her either.
She dropped her arms in defeat and went to answer the door. When she opened it, there stood Mother Doreen. Deborah looked over Mother Doreen’s shoulders to see if she was alone.
“It’s just me,” Mother Doreen assured her. “I came alone.” She brushed by Deborah, inviting herself into the house which was uncharacteristic of Mother Doreen, who always made it a point to never intrude on someone. But this morning there was something different about Mother Doreen’s demeanor, like she was on a mission or something. An assignment. She meant business. And on this day, she was about her Father’s business indeed. “I know Pastor tells us when we do drive-bys that it should be at least two or more because you never know what type of situation you’ll be walking into. But God equipped me with a legion of angels for this one. So I’m good.”
Mother Doreen walked over to Deborah’s couch and took a seat without being offered one. Deborah closed the door behind her, then focused her attention on the woman sitting on her couch. A woman, who in the past, she’d known to be very calm and settled. Yet the woman she was looking at now seemed to have a no nonsense aura about her. And one thing Deborah immediately noticed was that there were no sweat beads.
Mother Doreen picked up on Deborah’s perception of her and spoke on it. “I know... I know you’re not used to seeing me in such a forward state, but my God told me to come to you. Pastor wasn’t even finished giving the Word. Church wasn’t even over yet, but the Lord said, ‘Go see about my daughter now.’ And He said for me to come to you boldly and to walk in the authority in which He’s graced me for such a time as this. An authority that I had not exercised until this very moment.” She looked up and mumbled, “To God be the glory.”
Deborah stood silent, taking in her sister in Christ’s words. Mother Doreen even sounded different. She had such power in her tone. And again, there was no sweat. Whatever fear Mother Doreen might have walked in in the past when it came to confrontation, she had been delivered from. She had been delivered today, right along with Deborah, when she decided to say yes to God and embark upon her assignment. With the way God had moved at New Day, no one would probably leave that sanctuary the same way they had come.
“Come sit down, child.” Mother Doreen patted the spot next to her.
Deborah walked over and sat down next to the church mother of New Day. She was timid like a little girl about to have “the talk” with her mother.
“God said you ain’t finished,” Mother Doreen told her.
“What?” Deborah was puzzled as to what Mother Doreen was getting at, and it showed on her face.
“God says you ain’t finished yet. You have more to tell Him.” Mother Doreen twitched her bottom to get comfortable as she faced Deborah. “You were about to say too much back there in the sanctuary. God said what you have to say is to Him. For His ears only right now. Later, it will be your testimony. It will be your ministry, but right now, you have to give it to God first. He ain’t gon’ let you give it to nobody else until you give it to Him first. Whatever this thing is inside of you that you are holding back, give it to Him, child.” Mother Doreen placed her hand on Deborah’s stomach. “You’ve got to birth it out of you. God said He’s been trying to push it out of you Himself. He’s been using people and situations to get you to push it out, but you won’t let go. What you have inside of you is taking up space. See, God wants to birth something new in you, but you won’t make room for it because you’re protecting that thing that’s stillborn inside of you. God says what you have in there is dead. Push that dead thing out, so He can birth new life into you.”
Deborah had been in the book business for years, but never had she been read like one. And somehow Mother Doreen sat there speaking into her life as if she were an open book. But down to the very last minute, Deborah insisted on protecting that thing inside of her. “I . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Deborah lied. “You or God for that matter.” She gave off a slight chuckle that didn’t amuse Mother Doreen the least bit.
“Yes you do, dear.” Mother Doreen’s tone had softened back to its normal pitch as she placed her hands on top of Deborah’s. “God had to lay you out in the Spirit. He had to allow you to rest in Him. You were about to lose it. The time or the place wasn’t there, at church, in the sanctuary.” Mother Doreen cleared her throat. “See, some church folk with that religious spirit think the only place one can be saved and delivered is at the church altar. That’s why you got the same folks running down to the altar every Sunday with the same old stuff. God said you can give Him your stuff right in your own living room. Right in your own secret place.” Mother Doreen released Deborah’s hands and pointed to the floor. “Your time is now. Your place is right here. Go boldly to His throne of grace and give Him what you owe Him.”
Deborah all of a sudden heard a wailing noise. A cry out as if someone was in pain. When her knees hit the floor, she realized it was her. “I can’t. I can’t do it, Mother Doreen.”
“Yes, you can. God is calling you higher, but you can’t even excel because something is weighing you down. Something is keeping you from what God has for you. He wants to use you mightily, but He can’t because you are holding onto something that you feel makes you unworthy of being used. Give it to God, child. Take authority over this thing and give it to God.”
“Jesus!” Deborah cried out. That was the only thing that would flow from her tongue. “Jesus!”
“That’s all right, baby. Let it out. When you can’t say anything else, call Him! When your brain can’t relay the words that are on your heart, just call Him! Call on Jesus!” Mother Doreen stood up and began to pace and speak in tongues. This was something Mother Doreen rarely did outside of her secret place, but she needed to stand in the gap for Deborah right now. She needed to send up a prayer to God that the devil couldn’t interpret.
“Jesus!” Deborah continued to cry out. “I’m sorry. You died for me, and yet I’ve been holding on to something you took to hell for me already; my sins. I’m sorry. Lord, help me! I’m sorry for the sin of fornication, and I’m sorry that instead of covering the sin with Jesus’ blood, I tried to cover it by killing my baby.”
“That’s right!” Mother Doreen shouted, then followed up with some tongues. “The accuser been standing up there telling God all about it. Now is your time to shut the accuser up. Send him back to hell, Deborah,” Mother Doreen ordered with authority. “Send the accuser back to hell with nothing more to say to God about you that you haven’t already told Him yourself.”
“I killed my baby, God. Not my baby, but yours. You give life. I had no right to take it. I repent from the depths of my soul, oh Lord. I’m sorry. Forgive me. I’m sorry that I couldn’t even forgive myself. I’m sorry that although I know what your Word says about forgiveness, I didn’t believe it to be true for myself. I’m sorry for what I did that day, and for holding onto it for so long.” Deborah’s cries were uncontrollable as she thought back to that day in the abortion clinic.
Most of the women in the clinic waiting to abort their babies, hardly looked pregnant at all, especially the girl who sat next to Deborah. Her stomach was as flat as a washboard while the fact that Deborah was with child couldn’t be denied. She’d wished she’d invested in just one more “fat suit” to wear to the clinic. Fat suit is what Deborah referred to as all of the oversized clothes she’d worn to hide her pregnancy. Deborah could sense the woman next to her stealing periodic glimpses of her belly. Finally, Deborah looked in the woman’s direction and caught her staring down at her belly. That’s when, cold busted, the woman decided to speak to Deborah in order to play it off.
“Hi, how are you?
” the woman had asked.
Deborah had merely nodded and smiled. A nervous, mental wreck is what she was. But back then, just like she’d done for all those years in between, she hid her true feelings with a smile.
“I’m Helen,” the woman had said, extending her hand to Deborah.
“I’m—”
“Pregnant,” Helen had finished Deborah’s sentence. “Very pregnant.” She rubbed Deborah’s growing round belly. “Did it just kick?” she asked Deborah in surprise.
Deborah ignored the girl’s comment and simply shook the woman’s hand, fighting back tears at the thought that maybe her baby had kicked. According to the medication the doctors had given her to take, there is no way that baby inside of her should be in any condition to move. But what if the meds hadn’t worked? What if what Deborah was about to do was no better than burying her baby alive? Why had she waited so long? Why? Why? Why?
Now, once again, Deborah was full of regret, she regretted waiting until her fiancé, Elton, had come back home from playing basketball overseas to tell him that she was pregnant. She was pregnant with his child, whom she’d learned was a son. She’d wanted to tell him face to face. He’d always made his five-year plan clear. It included playing basketball overseas, tightening up his game so that the NBA couldn’t deny him a place in the league, marrying the girl of his dreams, who was Deborah, and then having 2.5 kids and a dog . . . all in that order.
He’d been successfully playing basketball in Chile for a full season and things were looking good. He’d proposed to Deborah right before he left the states to let her know that no matter how many miles were between them, she was his girl. Deborah had been attending New Day at the time, and the women of the church even threw her and Elton an engagement party. Pastor had blessed them and even given them a counseling session before Elton left the country. Deborah felt so blessed that God’s anointing was truly on their pending marriage. Elton and Deborah even agreed that they would abstain from sex until they were married, which they felt wouldn’t be so hard considering they would be living in two different countries. Deborah even stopped refilling her birth control prescription, since she no longer had a need for them.
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.