Ray of Hope

by Vanessa Davis Griggs

  Sahara stomped off.

  “And stop that stomping!” Ma Ray said, hollering behind her.

  Crystal stood there grinning.

  “What are you so happy about?” Ma Ray asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing, huh?” Ma Ray smiled back equally as devious. “You just make sure you behave yourself with Aaron, Missy. I see how the two of you are with each other.”

  “Ma Ray! Stop that!”

  “What? Rock, paper, scissors and the winner gets a peck.”

  “You’re not supposed to be talking like that,” Crystal said, her eyes bucked.

  “Oh, but it’s okay for your know-nothing friends to tell you stuff that have to do with that.” Ma Ray slightly mocked Crystal. She grabbed Crystal gently by her shoulders and turned her squarely in front of her. “You see this face?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You see these wrinkles and these sags?” Ma Ray said, pointing at her own face.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, I want you to know that I earned every one of them. This came from years of living. That means I know a thing or two. If you really want to know something and you want to know the truth, and you want to know the truth from someone who has your best interest at heart, then you come to this face or your mother’s face and you talk to us about it. Your little friends, and even Sahara, don’t know jack! Not really. They’re merely experimenting, doing trial and error, just like you. We older folks already have what people call ‘bought sense.’ Already paid for. That means: there’s no reason for you to go out and purchase some sense again. Just come to us and get what we have for free. Save your money, your time, and your experience. Use your experience on some good stuff and skip the bad. Believe me, all that’s yellow and shines ain’t gold. Sometimes, it’s simply fool’s gold.”

  “Right,” Crystal said, sounding more like she was merely humoring Ma Ray.

  “Oh, you’re just trying to patronize me now. All right. If you mess around and get your wagon stuck in a ditch after this, don’t come hunting for me,” Ma Ray said.

  Crystal started laughing. “You’re so funny, Ma Ray. You don’t have to worry about my wagon getting stuck in a ditch, because I don’t have a wagon.”

  “All right, Little Miss Smarty-Pants. But seriously, though—wagon or no wagon—if you ever find yourself in trouble, just know that I’m here for you.”

  When Sahara and Crystal returned from the youth conference later that evening, Sahara stopped by the kitchen where Ma Ray was busy cooking.

  “Thanks a lot!” Sahara said to Ma Ray in a slightly nasty tone.

  “You’re welcome,” Ma Ray said, cheerily. “Supper is almost ready.”

  “I didn’t really mean thank you,” Sahara said.

  “Really now.” Ma Ray began to put homemade rolls onto a greased pan.

  “That was a day, all right. And just like I told you, some of the people there thought I was with Andre. It was like, just because some of those emos saw me getting out of the car with Andre, they were making an effort to try and take him from me.”

  “Emos? What are emos?” Ma Ray asked as she put the pan in the preheated oven.

  “Emo is short for emotional. You know, people who are suicidal, depressed, or dealing with emotional stuff. Emos.”

  “Oh.” Ma Ray sang the word. “That terminology could apply to a bunch of folks I know. Emo. I’ll have to remember that one and use it. Tootsie is always trying to throw out some newfangled word to show how hip she is. Wait until I throw this one on her.”

  “Ma Ray, can we please stay on topic?” Sahara said. “I’m trying to tell you that because you made me ride to church with Andre, now those girls are stepping up their game, as though they could really take him from me.”

  “Why do you care? You don’t want him, anyway. Let them step it up. Although I do feel sorry for poor Andre. He’s such a nice young man. But I’m sure he knows how to handle a gang of little women.”

  “None of them could take him from me,” Sahara said, defiantly.

  “I know,” Ma Ray said.

  “Would you please stop trying to use reverse psychology on me,” Sahara said. “I’m not interested in Andre, and I’m not going to fight to keep him. If any of those girls want him, they are welcome to have him. Most of them are a hot mess, anyway. And if he’s interested in them, it only shows how shallow he really is and that he has no taste. And I definitely am not interested in a guy who has no taste.”

  “Absolutely,” Ma Ray said. She stopped and smiled at Sahara. “Well, tomorrow you won’t have to worry about riding to church with Andre.”

  “Really!” Sahara’s eyes lit up. “I won’t?”

  “Nope.” Ma Ray tapped her on the nose. “Tomorrow, I’ll be driving you and Crystal to church.”

  “You’re driving us?”

  “Yes, I am. I was asked to be one of the morning speakers.” She hunched her eyebrows up a few times like Groucho Marx. “How about those apples?”

  Sahara’s smile instantly left. “What? You’re speaking and you’re taking us?”

  “Yes, I am. So that’s one more thing you can thank me for.” Ma Ray checked on the rolls. “Now, go wash up and tell Crystal to get off the phone and come on down for supper.”

  Sahara turned in a slight huff to leave.

  “Oh, and Sahara, try not to stomp when you go upstairs. I have a sour cream pound cake in the bottom oven and, even though it doesn’t happen like it used to when I was growing up, I don’t want to take any chances with my cake possibly falling.”

  Sahara turned back around, squinted her eyes, and shook her head. “You’re doing this to punish me, aren’t you?”

  “Child, please. Trust me when I say this: the world, and the people in it, truly … truly does not revolve around you!”

  Chapter 39

  And it came to pass at the seventh time, when the priests blew with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the people, Shout; for the Lord hath given you the city.

  —Joshua 6:16

  Sahara dragged into the eleven o’clock session. She was not looking forward to this one at all. She would never let Ma Ray know this, but all of the other sessions from Friday until this point had been really quite wonderful. She’d had a lot of fun, despite her objections and her having set herself from the start that she was not going to.

  Crystal had been right about the church and the pastor. Pastor Weldon was really in tune with all the people he was the undershepherd over. That’s how he referred to himself: an undershepherd under Christ. The young people loved him just as much as the older crowd. He was funny. He kept your attention. And he had, so far, orchestrated an event that had been both informative and entertaining. Sahara was already starting to rethink things in her life. She wasn’t completely ready to do a 180-degree turn just yet, but a 45- or 90-degree change was positively probable.

  Now they were set to hear from the senior citizens, or the seasoned-salt folks, as was printed on the agenda. The pastor came up first to set the atmosphere as to why he wanted and requested this session. He prayed for the speakers and for the young people to have ears to hear. Some of the young people snickered; Sahara understood why. They had ears, they could hear fine, so why pray for people who have ears to hear? That never made sense to her.

  The first person that spoke was okay. She did a one-woman show demonstrating how going along to get along can get you more time than you may want, in places you don’t want to be. Her name was Jessie Mae Wooten. They soon heard how she’d spent time in prison because she’d hooked up with the wrong crowd that ended up killing a man while trying to rob him. She wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger, but her being there was just the same as though she had. Sahara never really considered herself as a follower. So even though she heard what Ms. Wooten was trying to say, she didn’t feel the friends in her life were a problem. She would just need to be sure she didn’t get framed, along with people who could be doing the wrong thing. Lesson
received. Check.

  Then Ms. Tootsie got up, coming with real talk on the dangers and pitfalls of alcohol and drugs. She told how she started drinking at the age of twelve. After she couldn’t get the same feelings she’d gotten with drinking, she stepped up to soft drugs, then the hard drugs. Eventually, she met someone who told her how much God loved her. It was rough, but she was finally able to get clean.

  “Unfortunately, one of my daughters ended up walking in the exact same path as I,” Tootsie said. “I can’t even begin to tell you how bad I felt when I learned my daughter was doing the things I’d done myself. I felt like it was all my fault. I’d started this curse, looking for my own pleasure, to ease my own pain. And somehow, I passed the curse on to someone I love dearly. I watched my daughter literally ruin her life. And there was nothing much I could say or do to get through to her. It’s hard to get people to listen to you when you’ve done things equal to it. Mostly because they think you’re just trying to keep them from having fun after you’ve had it. Like it’s fun to be so wasted that you wake up in places you don’t even know how you got there. To wonder what you’ve done, and with whom, that may come back and bite you big-time later.”

  Some in the audience lowered their heads.

  “Oh, some of you have been there or you know someone who has?” Tootsie said. “Honestly, that breaks my heart. You know why it breaks my heart? It means some of you have been in pain to the degree that you were trying to self-medicate and make the pain go away. Some of you are hurting so bad that you don’t want to be conscious as you go through life. That’s just wrong. None of you should be in that place. None of you should be throwing your life away like that. I know what you’re thinking. I’m an old lady who’s had her fun. I don’t have the problems nor have I experienced your problems.” Tootsie nodded.

  “Okay, let’s see now. My daddy used to beat my mother so bad that she couldn’t get up and walk for days. Then he would beat her again because she hadn’t gotten up and cooked and cleaned in days, because she’d been beaten so bad that she couldn’t get up. I couldn’t go to school much because me and my siblings were needed to help out on the sharecropping farm during that time. People made fun of us because we didn’t have anything, and everybody in the community knew what kind of a father we had. At fifteen, I met this fellow who showed me a lot of attention. We drank, did lots of drugs together. A few days after I turned eighteen, he overdosed. Right in front of me … dead. Just like that, he was gone. I don’t know if you’ve ever been with someone who died right in front of you, but suffice it to say, it affected me hard. It caused me to see where I was headed myself. That it wasn’t a game; this was real life. And except for Jesus, nobody gets out of here alive.”

  A girl sitting directly in front of Sahara began to cry. She cried so hard, Tootsie stopped talking for a minute and went over and hugged her. Tootsie held on to her as she continued to speak. “Young folks, there’s a better way. You don’t need alcohol or drugs to make it. Ybu’re better than that. Ybu’re stronger than that. You’ve already shown how strong you are just by making it to this point in life. Now, let that other junk go. That’s the devil’s way of trying to steal from you, trying to kill you, trying to destroy you. Can’t you see it? Please, I’m begging you. If you’re doing these things, make up in your mind that you’re going to change your life today.” Tootsie walked back to the front.

  “We’re going to have a time today where you can talk to somebody and take steps to get help,” Tootsie continued. “This is not about taking away your fun. This is about you realizing how valuable you are and having the right kind of fun. It’s about seeing the truth, which is: Satan wants to take you out. Satan doesn’t want you to experience the abundant life Jesus gave His life for you to have. And I’m not talking about life after you leave this place. I’m talking about life while you’re here on earth. You want to get high, then get high on Jesus. You need a drink, take a drink from the Living Water. You know: there’s nothing like getting drunk on the Holy Spirit. He’s a sweet, sweet Spirit.”

  Everybody clapped when Tootsie finished. What she said hit Sahara harder than she cared to admit. She wasn’t heavy into drugs by any means. She’d tried marijuana, but she’d also learned that marijuana really wasn’t her thing. Maybe there had been times when she’d gone along to appear cool, which the more she thought about it now, the more she was able to see how foolish that was. She was smarter than most of the people she hung out with. But she was acting dumber by letting them make a fool out of her. They were showing their strength. Not her. But after this day, she would definitely make a change and not, as Ms. Tootsie had said in her talk, “go along just to get along.” This was her life, and she had to take it back … completely. Completely. Not a piece of it—all of it.

  “We’re taking the city,” Pastor Weldon was saying. “We’re taking the city!” He was hyped. “After we march, we’re going to shout the walls down, and we’re going into God’s Promised Land!”

  Chapter 40

  And the city shall be accursed, even it, and all that are therein, to the Lord: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent.

  —Joshua 6:17

  My name is Rayna Towers, but everybody calls me Ma Ray. I’m the mother of two grown children, the grandmother of six grandchildren. I prayed about what God would have me tell all of you here today. The funny thing about God is, sometimes, He will have you to do the uncommon thing to reach those He loves the most. I know when you young folk look at folks like me, Ms. Tootsie, and Ms. Jessie Mae Wooten”— Ma Ray nodded at the other women—“all you see is what we’ve become. You think that what you see now is who we always were. Well, God has instructed me to let you know that where we are is not where we started from. God told me I had to bring you a true ray of hope. To let you know that you may be going through a terrible storm, but God will always give you a ray of hope.

  “A ray of hope can be a powerful thing. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen sunlight peeking through a crack. But that one small ray can affect its surroundings. A ray can bring light to a dark place. When you look in the mirror, what you see now is what we used to see. By that I mean, we were once young and vibrant, and we thought we knew everything, much like many of you do now.” Ma Ray pointed her finger and made a sweeping motion. “Like you, we were beautiful—”

  “Handsome,” Aaron said as he did his head and neck like a rooster scratching while strutting. “Guys are handsome.”

  “Excuse me, young men. I definitely mean no disrespect to any of you young men present today. So, as I speak, please adjust the girlie references accordingly,” Ma Ray said with a smile. “Let me say this before I continue. I really didn’t want to tell this today. I didn’t. In fact, I’ve kept this a secret for most of my adult life. My own children certainly don’t know it. And I will be completely honest with you: I argued with God something fierce about me having to come before you and reveal this at this time. But you know what? This truly is a testament to just how much God loves you. He loves you so much, He’s impressed upon me to tell this, so that I might be able to help at least one”—she held up her index finger—“of you. Of course, I’m hoping for more than one because, believe me, this is not an easy thing for me to share with anyone. If you know me, you know it’s not. But if this helps at least one, then it will be more than worth it.

  “This is made even more difficult for me because I’ll be sharing this for the first time in front of my two lovely granddaughters.” Ma Ray briefly glanced at Sahara and Crystal. “I imagine this won’t be easy for them to hear, either.” Ma Ray again looked over toward Crystal and Sahara and swallowed hard. She could already see the plea making its way on Sahara’s face for her not to do or say anything to embarrass her.

  Ma Ray took a deep breath, released it, then smiled. “I want to talk with y’all about sex outside of marriage and all this other stuff you teenagers and young adults are so gung h
o to engage in. And if the shoe happens to fit, any of you older folks here, too.”

  “Oh, no,” Jessie Mae Wooten said, standing and waving her hand in the air. “I don’t know if that’s something that ought to be discussed in a place like a church. Not by us Christians.”

  Pastor Weldon stood and directed his comments to Jessie Mae Wooten. “Ms. Wooten, if the church doesn’t address this with our youth, then where and from whom do you think they’re going to go to learn it? At least learn it God’s way?”

  Jessie Mae Wooten nodded slowly. “You right, Pastor. I’m sorry. Go on and testify, Ms. Ray.” She sat back down.

  Ma Ray continued. “I know what it is to be young and to feel like you can conquer the world. To my young women, I especially know, as a young woman myself with curves in all the right places, the power you feel in garnering young men’s attention. I can only imagine, as a young man, the effect of seeing us in all of our glory has on you. It can be quite intoxicating. But to my young women and my young men, let me tell you this: your body is the temple of the Lord. I don’t know if you truly understand what that means.”

  “It’s where God chooses to dwell,” Andre said. “Instead of the church building, God actually dwells inside of those who have invited Jesus into their hearts and lives.”

  “Absolutely correct,” Ma Ray said. “And when you’re doing things that are displeasing to God … that offend God, especially after you’ve invited Him to come and live … to dwell, to set up residence inside of you, I want you to remember that God is there with you, having to be present and to witness whatever it is that you’re doing at the time. Sex outside of marriage is wrong. It’s a sin. Period. It doesn’t matter how you try to fix it up, dress it up, put perfume on it—it’s wrong. And every time you’re doing what you do, God is right there with you.” Ma Ray took a swallow of the water she’d been given. “At age eighteen, I became a prostitute—”