It Won't Prosper: Parable On Infidelity In Marriage

by Genevieve Woods

  “Good Morning, Sister. The Jesus in me loves the Jesus in you. The Jesus in me loves the Jesus in you, you’re easy, so easy, you’re easy, easy to love.” Camille blushed. What could a girl do after that, but smile and enjoy the remainder of the service.

  Paige watched the two lovebirds as the choir sang. She could not wait to get to the bottom of this musical chair act between Benjamin and Camille. However, for now, she had to key into the service. Kevin had given her notice that she had to change. More than his notice, Paige knew she needed to change. This was the best place for her to start. The choir was singing “This Is Holy Ground.” Paige had to admit this choir could really sing.

  No, it’s the anointing, she thought. Paige smirked. Listen to me already feeling a shift within my spirit. She rose to her feet, pulled her hands together to her breast, and closed her eyes as she let the lyrics break up the fallow ground in her heart and mind.

  This is Holy ground,

  we’re standing on Holy ground

  For the Lord is here

  and where he is, is Holy

  This is holy ground,

  We’re standing on Holy Ground

  For the Lord is here

  and where he is, is Holy

  We are standing on Holy ground.

  And I know that these are angels all around

  Let us praise Jesus now

  We are standing in Your presence, on Holy ground.

  With each visit to Liberty, Kevin was drawn into this Protestant way of worship and lifestyle. It was vastly different from his Catholic upbringing, but he could feel the presence of the angels that the choir just finished singing about. He was also blown away by the luggage on display. Kevin was anxiously anticipating what Pastor Caine would lecture about using luggage. In his bulletin, there was a note card with a question, “What is your baggage?”

  Kevin likened the service to a college course. He supposed that this was the best way to deliver instructions that could be applied by anyone who heard. According to Elder John, all the services were televised and streamed online, so there could actually be millions of people hearing the word of God. Kevin sat up in his seat as Pastor Caine came on the stage with luggage chained to his body. The lead pastor was about to fall face forward, but he caught himself and began to deliver what Kevin, and most in attendance, considered a timely word. Pastor Caine delivered a message about “Traveling Light.” He started.

  “To do that in today’s society is difficult because we are weighted down with baggage. There are four types of baggage: 1) Personal, 2) Work, 3) Church, 4) Other People’s.”

  Kevin was intrigued by this analogy. Pastor Caine was on the mark with him when it came to personal and work baggage. He listened as Pastor Caine continued.

  “As individuals, we try to be light and happy. We try to leave our unhappiness at the door. As the ushers escort us to our seats, we put on a smile trying to forget our failures, fears, and regrets but the personal baggage is stuck to us like glue. It is chained to us.”

  Kevin could agree to that in his mind, heart, and soul because his personal baggage was flowing over to his work baggage. It all was becoming too heavy, causing him both doubt and anxiety. As a public figure, he had to be transparent in all aspects of his life. Could he hold on to Paige and continue up the corporate ladder? Could he let go of the regret when perpetrators went free because of the negligence of his office, leaving victims hurting? He wanted to release these burdens, but another issue was plaguing his heart. He always understood Peter was the rock that we should lean on for strength to be the Christian example. This is what he learned from the nuns. Jesus told Peter, “Upon this Rock, I will build my church.” Kevin shook that off. He assumed that was church baggage he needed to cast away. The more he attended the services and classes at Liberty; the more he believed that Jesus Christ himself was that rock.

  As Kevin pondered those questions, Paige could do nothing but close her eyes as Pastor Caine continued the message that was nothing but the truth for her. Pastor Caine had one baggage for personal. Paige, if she was honest with herself, had dozens of personal baggage chained to her. As Pastor Caine explained how personal baggage came to be, he was telling the story of her life. Her baggage began before she could remember. Her mother was addicted to drugs, causing her to care for herself as a toddler. That began her need for self–preservation, by any means necessary, to take root. Add to that every family hurt, including being sexually violated, verbally abused and continually neglected—Paige was left chained and bound. Tears began to stream as she received Pastor Caine’s words of redemption.

  He explained, 1 Peter 5:7. “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” Paige repeated that last phrase silently to herself. “He cares for me.” She had a heavenly father that cared for her, and who wanted her baggage. Instantly, her mind went to Kevin who wanted her to release the anger, venom, and vicious self-protection mask. Now, she knew the Savior above wanted the same thing for her. Paige looked in the bulletin and grabbed the blank note card that read, “What’s your baggage?” She began to write down every heavy burden that was chained to her.

  Camille was already writing down her baggage. She was weighed down with personal issues. Fear of telling Karen that they were possibly sisters, and the disappointment that her father was not the superman she believed he was all of her life. Her disappointment was leading her to doubt if Benjamin was her Adam, or like her dad, too good to be true. Her work baggage was full of imbalance, and the need to work long hours to prevent her fear of failure. Just this morning Camille strapped on baggage for church hurt. Mrs. Carol gifted that piece of luggage with her ugly remarks and mean spirit. Nevertheless, she was determined to cast all these cares on the Master. According to Pastor Caine and Peter, He wanted her burdens and anxiety.

  Benjamin’s chained baggage was that he held other people’s baggage. Pastor Caine’s message was divinely inspired. Benjamin received from it that he could help carry Mrs. Carol’s burden of grief by praying for her, giving her a listening ear, helping her enroll in counseling, and showing her love. However, he could not let her refusal to heal from grief become his baggage. The light bulb went off for Ben. If he continued to carry Lauren’s mother’s grief, he would lose his future. Ben wrote a one-liner on his baggage card, other peoples.

  In twenty-two minutes, Pastor Caine delivered a message of deliverance. As he ministered, he started to unlock and remove the chained luggage on his person. He explained Hebrews 12:1, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

  Pastor Cain finished the sermon asking a key question.

  “Have you entered the race with Christ? If you are not in the race, you must accept Jesus as your personal savior. If you are in the race, you must prepare yourself to finish the race well. A runner when racing dresses light so they may run a diligent race. We, as Christians, cannot diligently run if we are loaded with baggage. Therefore, we must cast and throw down the weights of not forgiving others, anxiety, and doubt. We must do away with sins, doing things, we know are wrong. We must look to Jesus for our help. It is not always easy to do this. Liberty Church is here to help you. We offer free counseling for individuals, couples, family, and grief counseling by licensed therapists.”

  Pastor Caine extended his hands toward the congregation. “The praise and worship team is coming to minister to our hearts through song. Please take your notecards and list the baggage you want to release today. Come throw it on the altar and leave it there. The elders are here to pray with you, and the spirit of Christ is here to heal you.”

  The praise and worship ministry began to sing Tasha Cobb’s version of “Break Every Chain.” The aisles of the sanctuary were filled with people eager to release their baggage and lay aside their weights and sin. Kevin, Paige, Camille, and Benjamin were among those people.

 
; Not one of them would ever be the same again.

  An excerpt from Book Two

  After Church:

  Chapter 1

  Reflections

  It was five o’clock in the morning as Karen walked barefoot along the shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean. She was taking in the picturesque scenery. It was the first morning of her honeymoon with Frankie, and their three-year-old daughter, Nikki. Frankie and Nikki were asleep in their condominium. The thought of being someone’s wife made Karen smile and shake her head in disbelief. She thought about the charming ceremony and reception she had yesterday. Although, something did not sit right with her about her cake collapsing; nevertheless, she and her friends were able to pull together a fabulous day in just two weeks. It was a long and exhausting day. The night was made even longer as she and her family caught the last flight from Memphis, Tennessee to Hilton Head, South Carolina. They were staying at the Disney Resort on the island. She and Frankie had chosen to bring Nikki on their honeymoon because she was the catalyst that allowed their love to be possible.

  It was after midnight when they arrived, and Karen was exhausted. However, she was up at 4:30 a.m. too excited to sleep. She was full of nervous energy from the events of the past twenty-four hours. She didn’t want to wake her husband and daughter, so she decided to go for a walk to think. As she walked down the beach, she was in awe of how life could change so quickly.

  Karen inhaled fresh air from the breeze that came off the ocean’s waves. She stopped to admire the exquisite site of the slow sunrise while the cool waves forcefully came up to her ankles. How wonderful that God spoke this into existence. It was marvelous, and she gave thanks to the Creator of All for this beautiful day that He had made.

  Karen began to walk again, smiling at the other early risers along the way. Some were walking while others were riding bikes. She could not wait to experience this magnificent island and the rich traditions it held with Frankie and Nikki.

  Karen began to recall the countless moments that she had experienced trauma and disappointment in her life. Knowing where she came from simply made her present situation unbelievable. Karen had kept her past buried within herself, only telling Camille vaguely about her mother’s death, and how she lived on her own as a teenager. Her past life was a deck of cards she preferred to hold close to her chest. She rationalized that it did not matter where she had come from, only where she was now, and where she would be in the future.

  However, sometimes like now, when all was right in the world, she had to look back at all she had escaped. She had committed some unimaginable deeds to get where she was. She had been through so much, starting with losing her mother to murder as a child—a murder that had eventually been classified as a cold case. Karen was then awarded, by the state of Tennessee, to an aunt she had only met a couple of times. Aunt Esther, who lived in Little Rock, Arkansas, had always seemed okay the couple of times Karen met her; but living with her proved differently. Aunt Esther treated Karen awful. She used Karen for housekeeping, babysitting, and entertainment needs. If Karen didn’t do a task to Aunt Esther’s satisfaction, she was physically beaten. Surviving the pain of her adolescent years, and not being consumed by it all, was because of the Lord’s mercy. That thought reminded Karen of one of her favorite gospel songs by Eddie James. She pulled out her mobile and pulled up the music app. She scrolled down to her encouragement playlist, that her best friend and boss Camille had made for her, and selected “Great is thy Faithfulness.” Karen listened to the lyrics that could have been written exclusively for her. The song spoke of looking back over one’s past and seeing that the Lord has always been there, blessing and protecting them. It referenced Lamentations 3:22-24: “It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”

  Karen allowed her mind to go back to the horrors she endured day after day with Aunt Esther, who saw her as nothing more than a means to an end. One way was the monthly government check she received. Aunt Esther rarely purchased Karen anything outside of the two meals she ate daily and the roof over her head. In addition to the check, there was the money that came from the men that Aunt Esther would force Karen to be with. Karen endured sexual abuse for years until she couldn’t take it any longer. At the age of sixteen, she ran away from what should have been a home but was nothing more than a brothel. She lived as a ragamuffin on the streets and soon joined a gang called the CREW. The gang members were her family. She took care of them, and they did the same for her.

  Taking care of the CREW was not as straightforward as Aunt Esther’s demands; she committed crimes in the name of the “family” against others. She had gone from bad to worse. She did not enjoy the illegal and dark parts of gang life, but what could she do? The CREW members protected her from the worst elements of street life. By the time she was eighteen, she was in love with her best friend Mario Clemmons, another run-a-way who was making his way up in rank with The CREW.

  Karen grimaced. As a mature adult with a daughter, she realized what a risk she had taken by joining The CREW. She would never want that for Nikki and would do everything possible to keep her from making the same mistakes. The fact that she joined a gang to have some semblance of family, she knew was sad. Back then, she didn’t know any better, and it was her only way to survive. The only person that loved her was dead, and if she had continued to live with Aunt Esther, she would have become a murderer. Her anger, hatred, and resentment ran that deep for Aunt Esther. Karen was never able to have any type of closure with her aunt. She was contacted by the State of Arkansas several years ago to claim Aunt Esther’s body. She had died of a stroke. Karen went back and claimed the body, paid to have it cremated, and sold the house. She donated the proceeds of the sale to a local charity for homeless teens. Remembering herself as a teen, she thought she needed The CREW. They made her feel wanted. It was the first time since her mother’s death she belonged to someone other than herself.

  Little did she know when she joined that she did indeed belong to The CREW, and there was only one way out of their “family.” She found out how on a fateful night that changed her life forever. The night she was robbed of her soul and whipped within an inch of her life.

  After spending years in The CREW doing things she would take to her grave, it was a miracle she was never arrested for her crimes. Mario was the reason for that. He always made sure that no evidence pointed in her direction. She wanted out of the life before that changed and she was locked behind bars like so many of her CREW family. She convinced herself she would be okay with conveying that to Leroy, her block captain. Karen thought she had a great reason for them to let her go; she was twenty-two years old now and pregnant. She wanted to enroll in junior college. When Mario started making enough money to pay their bills, she went to night school, studied for the test, and earned her GED. She desperately wanted her baby and to have a gang-free life.

  She did not tell Mario about her plan. She felt she could handle the backlash from him after it was over. She knew Mario had her back and would take care of her, he always had. She had been so wrong. Karen had been naïve to think that she could just say, “Hey, I have decided to be a normal citizen. I plan to go to college and have my baby. Thanks for allowing me to kick it with you for the past six years and for making sure I survived the streets as a runaway. Deuces!”

  Karen’s entire being still quaked when she recalled the way Leroy’s eyes changed from a light brown to nearly black, and his hand lifted and came down on her face with a resounding slap. Karen’s ears began to ring. Blood escaped from her mouth and gushed from her nose. Leroy shouted, his spittle landing on the side of her burning face.

  “There is only one way out this mf’er, and that is with a life! It can be yours, that seed in your belly, or both, doesn’t matter to me shorty, but that is how you resign from the CREW!”

  In a flash, the beating resumed and left her with a detached retina in one eye (that was currentl
y held together by a surgical buckle), a broken arm, and emotional scars that remained to this day.

  After Leroy had been satisfied that he had beaten Karen close enough to death, he called Mario. Leroy informed him that a runner had dropped Karen off at the emergency room. After Mario had eyeballed the injuries Leroy had inflicted on his love, he was in a frenzy. He comforted Karen and assured her of his love. He promised her she would have their baby, a beautiful little girl. He made a vow to her that everything would be ok. When Karen drifted off to sleep that night, Mario went to confront Leroy. However, Mario did not receive an explanation for his concerns, nor did he receive a beat down like Karen. Leroy quietly took out his gun and shot Mario in between the eyes while members of The CREW watched. Mario’s body was disposed of, and Karen never got a chance to say goodbye.

  Karen was in the hospital when she received the news and suffered a miscarriage. Their little girl would never be. She was left feeling guilt for Mario and their unborn child’s death. She carried the guilt, pain, and shame silently. That night haunted Karen in her dreams incessantly.

  To ensure she never forgot all she had lost, she celebrated annually the anniversary of the night she lost it all. It was her very own holiday of lamentations and regrets. On that death day—D-Day— she would drink herself into a stupor. She would drink until she had lost all feeling emotionally and was physically numb. She felt she deserved to be miserable; everything that happened that night was her fault. Therefore, each year on D-Day she would lose herself in alcohol and some type of drug. She would grieve for what and who she lost due to her poor choices.