Ray of Hope

by Vanessa Davis Griggs

  “Waiting on you,” Ma Ray said, walking toward her.

  Sahara let out a sigh and a short laugh. “You’re not going to believe what happened.”

  “Try me.”

  “I decided to get out. I wasn’t planning on staying long. I started walking down the road. I saw these girls close to my age. Their car had broken down. Of course, you know cell phones can’t get much of a reception out here. I told them they were welcome to use our phone to call someone. You know, with you having a reliable landline and all. Well, it just so happens that someone pulled up with these all days—”

  “Excuse me,” Ma Ray said. “All days?”

  “Yeah. Sorry. All days are twenty-four-inch rims. You know, those things that the rubber on tires wrap around.”

  “I know what rims are.”

  Sahara smiled nervously. “Sorry. Of course you know what rims are. Anyway, it turns out the girls just needed a jump. They got it and asked if I wanted to hang out with them. They were going to this place where this cool rapper was performing along with some spoken word artists. Well, I was going to ask you if I could go, but …”

  “But…?”

  “Well, Ma Ray, I knew you would say no. And I’m seventeen years old. I’m old enough to go out without having to ask. I’m tired of you treating me like a baby. And honestly, I was a little upset with you because, even though you say you don’t think I’ve been stealing from you, I believe that you do think I’m responsible.”

  Ma Ray shrugged. “I can’t possibly think you’re too responsible for anything much. You weren’t responsible enough to feel you should let someone know what’s going on when you supposedly just went off to some rap concert with a bunch of strangers, no less. According to you, of course. And you didn’t think it was a good idea to let someone know what you were doing. If what you just told me is the truth, do you have any idea how dangerous what you just did is? Don’t you watch or read the news?”

  Sahara laughed. “Oh, Ma Ray. Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

  “That’s exactly what the last person who turned up missing or dead most likely thought. You young folks don’t get it, do you? You think you’re invincible. Well, you’re not. Stuff happens to young folks just like it happens to middle-age folks and old folks. You don’t get an exemption for doing crazy stuff just because you’re too young to know better. That’s why God gave you us. He wants us to look out for you, to guide you in the right direction and toward the right decisions. You need to thank God that you stepped back in this house unharmed.”

  “Sure. Thank You, God,” Sahara said, looking upward.

  “Now you’re trying to be funny,” Ma Ray said.

  “I’m not. You said I should thank God. And you’re right. What I did was stupid, and I’m blessed that things turned out okay. Although, I’m telling you, Ma Ray, I was really never in any danger.”

  “So, did you have sex while you were out?”

  “What?”

  “You’re not deaf; you heard the question,” Ma Ray said. “Did you have sex?”

  Sahara started chuckling. “Ewww! That’s gross, Ma Ray. I’m not about to have a conversation with you about sex. No specifics like that, anyway. Double ewww.”

  “Sahara, you’re playing a dangerous game with your life. You’re playing Russian roulette. You have to change! You have to stop and really think about what you’re doing. This is your life we’re talking about. You get one. One! And every decision you make affects your life now and even later, down the road. I’m telling you. You’d better hear me.”

  “Ma Ray, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I really don’t feel like hearing a lecture or a pep talk right now. I went out. I had a good time. I’m back here safely, unharmed. Hey—no harm, no foul. Now, if you want to punish me for going somewhere without your permission, then fine—punish me. Do what you have to do. I’m already going to be punished having to go to this boring youth conference on Friday and Saturday. We can consider that punishment enough. But for now, I’m tired—I’m sure you are, too—and I’m going to bed. So good night.” Sahara walked up the steps and refused to look back.

  Chapter 37

  And the second day they compassed the city once, and returned into the camp: so they did six days.

  —Joshua 6:14

  “Ma Ray,” Tootsie said as soon as Ma Ray answered the phone, “these young folks need us. My pastor said we have to step up and help him get some real talk across to them.”

  “I hear you, Tootsie, and I agree with both you and your pastor,” Ma Ray said.

  “Then if you agree, we need you to get on board with what they’re asking us to do,” Tootsie said.

  “Tootsie, nobody has asked me to do anything. I don’t even go to your church.”

  “I understand that, but this is not about groups, it’s about the Kingdom. This is Kingdom work, and we need all hands on deck. For this youth conference coming up, my pastor is sending out an S.O.S.—Saving Other Saints—for every willing and skillful, sanctified laborer to grab a rake, a pick, a shovel, a hoe … whatever you have that you can use, and to come help. We got some cleaning up to do. Pastor Weldon is sending out the distress signal for anyone who can help to come help.”

  “Tootsie, those young folks don’t want us at their conference, and you and I both know that. This is their thing.”

  “It might be their thing, but they can’t just do what they want to do. Pastor Weldon says our youth are in trouble and we have to step up and do our part to help save them. It’s time that we throw out the lifeline and send out those little boats…. What do they call those little boats that be on those big ships?”

  “Boats. Rafts.”

  “Yeah … rafts. We need to get some rafts out there and help pull our drowning children in and back safely on the Rock. And we know that Rock is Jesus!”

  Ma Ray laughed. “Tootsie, you know you can get wound up.”

  “Of course I can. Who wouldn’t get wound up when you’re talking about Jesus? You and I know what Jesus has done for us. He saved me. I was sinking deep in sin, do you hear me? Sinking! God took time out to send His Son to save me. Then your husband, God rest His sweet soul, took time out to bless me and my family by sharing with us what Jesus truly did for somebody like little ole me.

  “You know what God did in your own life. I know what He did in mine. It’s high time you tell it, Ma Ray. Can’t nobody tell your story like you can tell your story. It’s time we get off the cruise ship, get into the little boats … the rafts, and go rescue as many of these precious, drowning youths as we can. Drugs, sex, bullying, gangs, huffing, puffing, texting, sexting: you name it, these precious ones are having to deal with it. We can’t sit on the sidelines any longer. We can’t let any more of our children get snatched up by the devil while we sit in our comfy little homes, on our comfy little chairs, waiting on the Lord to make a way or to call us home to glory. We just can’t!”

  “Fine, Tootsie. Whatever you need of me, I’m willing to do.”

  “Good! I’ll let Pastor Weldon know,” Tootsie said. “That young preacher knows he’s a powerful man of God. Most of these young folks, including these preachers these days, seem to be trying to push us old folks out of the way and over to the side. But Pastor Weldon says God has need of us. We are the salt of the earth that has not lost our flavor. We are seasoned salt who not only have flavor but favor! And Pastor Weldon, for one, will not allow us to retire. Not on the Lord, and not in doing the Lord’s work.”

  “I’ve never said I was retired,” Ma Ray said. “As long as I have breath in me, I want to be used in the service of the Lord.”

  “Well, from what Pastor Weldon told me, he’s planning to have a session with us older folks talking to the younger folks. He’s calling the session, Let Me Rap to You. I couldn’t help but laugh. Young folks think they came up with the word rap. They don’t have a clue. That’s what Jacob, the man who eventually became my husband, said to me when he was trying to talk to me. ‘Hey, gi
rl. Let me rap to you.’ That man’s rap was so strong, I couldn’t help but to end up marrying him.”

  “Whatever is needed of me, just let him know I’m more than willing to do it. If Pastor Weldon needs me to march around the city and keep my mouth closed, I’ll march around the city and hold my tongue. If he wants me to shout unto the Lord when he gives the command to shout, I’ll shout with all that I have. We’ll bring down the walls that are separating us from God’s promises. Then we’re going to go into that land, and take what God has already given us, and take back what the enemy has stolen from us. Sign me up. I got my war shoes on, and I’m ready for battle,” Ma Ray said.

  Tootsie laughed. “Listen at you. You’re a bit radical, don’t you think?”

  “Hey, whatever it takes to do what God has called, I’m ready, willing, and able,” Ma Ray said. “I’m not sure how the young folks will receive us, but it’s not about us.”

  “You got that right! Well, I can tell you that Pastor Weldon put me over this part of the program. All I need is for you to bring something to the table that will get these young folks’ attention in a big way. They need to hear some truth. As my grandson Andre likes to say—Real Talk. It’s time out for us trying to hide things God has delivered us from. It time out for us trying to uphold some image of us being perfect all of our lives. These young folks need some real talk. They need to know there really is nothing new under the sun. They need to hear some truth and some straight talk. And Ma Ray, I believe you can bring it, if you’ll keep your thoughts on the end goal here. Sometimes, Ma Ray, we have to show our scars, to let others know that we’ve been in battle before and we came out victorious, anyway. Our scars may show that we’ve been battered, but our present lives prove it was God who brought us through.”

  Ma Ray was quiet for a second. “I don’t know about showing our scars, Tootsie. I mean, that’s in the past. It’s over and done with.”

  “Ma Ray,” Tootsie said, “if it saves one life … one soul, then there is a purpose in what you’ve come through. It shows others that if God did it for you, He will do it for them as well. God is no respecter of persons. These are our children. They’re all our children. This is war, Ma Ray. The enemy got my daughter; I’m not going to let him take any more of our children. Not when it’s in our power to stop him. And God has given us everything we need to do what He’s called us to do. Everything!”

  Ma Ray sighed. “You’re right, Tootsie. I’m fired up and ready to go! I’ll pray on what God will have me to say.”

  “Well, whatever you talk on, it needs to last no more than twenty minutes. There will be three of us during this session. I’m going to tell the truth about my alcohol and drug abuse problems. A woman named Jessie Mae Wooten is going to speak on the dangers of hooking up with the wrong crowd.”

  “Jessie Mae Wooten? Is she that woman that went to prison for killing someone?” Ma Ray asked.

  “Yep. That’s her. Hopefully, she can keep someone from experiencing what happened to her. She thought she was being cool by hanging out with the ‘in’ crowd. And when that murder went down, she found herself smack-dab ‘in,’ all right. In the middle of being charged with pulling the trigger as though she had, even though she didn’t. She thought she was hanging out and having fun and found herself incarcerated for fifteen years. She’s a good Christian woman now, but she lost a lot of her life, rotting away in that prison cell. Jessie Mae Wooten has a powerful testimony.”

  “So,” Ma Ray said, “do you know how you plan to talk about yours?”

  “Not right this minute. But you can believe I’m going to pray about what God will have me do. And I’ll bring it just like you and Jessie Mae had better bring it. Just make sure whatever you plan on talking about is not boring or sounds like some old person trying to tell young folks what to do. Young folks hate that. They tune out when we do that.”

  “I know you’re not trying to tell me what to do,” Ma Ray said with a short laugh.

  “Yeah, well, we all know you, Ray. You’re so prim and proper most of the time. The last thing we need is for us old people to be up there looking down our noses at the young folks, like we ain’t never done a wrong thing. We have to let them see that we were young once upon a time. Truth be told, I still feel like I’m seventeen on the inside. My mind ain’t aging a lick. It’s this old body that’s trying to betray me,” Tootsie said.

  “What you talking about,” Ma Ray said, agreeing. “When I look in the mirror sometimes, I say, ‘Who is that old woman staring back at me?’ My body is quick to remind me, though, that although my mind is telling me I can still do some stuff, it ain’t gonna happen. And I’d better go sit my old self down somewhere.”

  “You mean like when you think about doing a fifty-yard dash and you discover you’re doing good just to stand up without wobbling?” Tootsie said, chuckling.

  “Precisely. If we could only get young folks to understand. We are definitely not the enemy.”

  “Well, turnabout is fair play. We didn’t want to hear none of this junk when we were coming up,” Tootsie said. “Now, we’re on the other end.”

  “I know. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve wished I could go back and have a little chat with the young me? I would tell that child to not be in a hurry to grow up. To enjoy every minute of life while she can instead of wishing her days and years away. And to let her mother and father love on her, for as much and as long as she can, while she can. That’s what I’d tell the teenage Rayna Armstrong. Oh, and to make some better decisions.”

  “Girl, if I could go back in time … I would tell myself to put more of my money in the bank instead of trying to buy everything I saw. ‘Cause nothing ever seems as great as when you thought you first wanted it. I have dresses right now that I bought, and they still have tags on them, hanging in my closet. I can’t even fit in some of them anymore.”

  “Sounds to me like maybe you should be telling your old self to tell your old self a few words of wisdom.”

  “Okay, I can tell it’s time for me to get off this phone now. Anyway, we’re on program to do this Saturday, at eleven that morning. All Pastor Weldon asks is that we bring it.” She giggled. “That’s how he talks, you know. He said, ‘Mama Tootsie, whatever you all decide to do, I need you to bring it, and to bring it hard.’ He’s a good pastor. And I’m just thankful that my grandsons are being so touched and blessed by this man of God.”

  “It sounds like you’re being touched and blessed a lot yourself,” Ma Ray said.

  “If you can bring the Word of God, you have my attention. Well, I’m getting off of this telephone here. I need to work on my presentation. ‘Cause I know you’re going to try to show off with yours.”

  “Oh, Tootsie, now that’s not a Christian thing to say to your fellow sister in the Lord.”

  “Yeah, well, I know you. And you’re not going to have me looking bad because you brought it while I was trying to be nice. I’ll talk to you later,” Tootsie said.

  Ma Ray looked up. “God, direct my path. Let me know what You want me to do for this event. Let me decrease while You increase. It’s not about me. I know this. It’s for Your glory. I want You to get the glory through whatever I do. Whatever You direct me to do, I’ll do. Please, just use me, Lord, in Your service. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.”

  Chapter 38

  And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they rose early about the dawning of the day, and compassed the city after the same manner seven times: only on that day they compassed the city seven times.

  —Joshua 6:15

  Sahara and Crystal were getting ready to go to the youth conference on Friday morning. Andre and Aaron were coming to pick them up to keep Ma Ray from having to take them and drop them off. Sahara had countered that idea, volunteering to drive them. But Ma Ray told her she didn’t care to be at the house without her transportation at her disposal.

  “You just don’t trust me,” Sahara said. “What do you think? That I’ll not go to the conferen
ce? Or that I’ll go but then sneak off and go somewhere else? You have two cars here. You could let me drive one of them. I’ll happily drive the deuce and a quarter. Ma Ray, I’ve apologized for the other night. I promise you: I’ll drive your car straight to the church and straight back home after it’s over. Crystal will be with me. She’s gung ho about this conference. If I were to sneak out or anything, you know she’d tell it.”

  Ma Ray cut her eyes at Sahara and merely smiled. “Ma Ray, are you listening to me?” Sahara said. “There’s no reason for the Woods twins to come and get us. People may get the wrong idea. You know if we arrive with them, people will think we’re their dates or something. And I don’t want anybody thinking I’m with Andre. Ms. Tootsie is letting them drive themselves. Why won’t you let me?”

  Ma Ray smiled again. “You need to hurry and finish getting ready. They’ll be here in about twenty minutes. You know how they don’t believe in being late for church.”

  “Ma Ray, why aren’t you listening to me?” Sahara said, stomping her foot a few times. “Now you’re just making me not even want to go to this stupid conference.”

  “Sahara, don’t start with me. My patience can only be worn so thin.”

  Crystal started laughing. “You sounded just like Mama when you said that. Mama says that to us all the time.”

  “I guess that means she must have gotten it from me. And we know what they say: The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. That’s also a great lesson regarding the people you choose to hang around. Before you know anything, you’re doing some of the same things they’re doing without you even realizing it.”

  “Ma Ray, please. I’m begging you. Please let me drive your deuce and a quarter to the conference. Please.” Sahara gave Ma Ray her best puppy-dog look.

  “Okay, so now you’re begging me to drive the car you usually act like you don’t want to be seen dead riding in?” Ma Ray said with a chuckle. “Sahara, please finish getting ready. You’re not driving the car, either car, and that’s final.”