The Other Side of Divine

by Vanessa Davis Griggs

  He stuck the nozzle in his tank. “Breakfast it is, just as soon as I finish pumping my gas here.”

  She smiled as she walked back to her car. She opened her car door, then stopped and looked back at him. “When you finish, you can just follow me.” She got in and closed the door of her cobalt-blue 2011 Jaguar.

  Darius finished pumping, then smiled. Breakfast.

  Chapter 5

  Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?

  —Lamentations 3:39

  Darius had thought the mystery woman was planning to go somewhere like IHOP or McDonald’s for breakfast. But they stopped at an iron gate to a mansion and he was left trying to decide whether it was wise to blindly follow the Jaguar with its mystery woman inside. His indecision lasted all of five seconds as he drove in after her. The electronic gate slowly closed behind him. She parked her car in the circular driveway, got out, and waited. He parked and stepped out of his vehicle, praying she didn’t come where he was and notice all his belongings stuffed in the back.

  She smiled. “Hope you’re hungry,” she said.

  He grabbed her by the wrist and grinned. “What’s your name?”

  She bit down on her bottom lip and scanned down to where his hand held on to her wrist. “Are you scared I plan on having you for breakfast or something?”

  “Nope.” He returned the favor, scanning her from her head to her waist, loving the old-fashioned Coke-bottle shape accentuated by the leather of her coat. “I’m not scared at all, not when it comes to you. No, ma’am. I just want to know what to call you in case I have a need to call your name.”

  “You can call me Dee Vine,” she said as she smirked, pulling her wrist out of his gentle clutches, then glancing back at his SUV before turning and walking to the entrance of the house.

  Darius jogged and caught up with her. “Divine?”

  She stopped and turned to him. “Dee as in Delores, De-monassa, Devondra, Delilah—”

  He touched her elbow. “So which one is it, Miss Vine?”

  She grinned. “After breakfast, why don’t you tell me?” She opened the door and stepped inside, holding on to the door as he passed by her. He loved the perfume she was wearing—subtle and a tad fruity, but not flowery.

  “Aren’t you afraid? I mean, I could be a serial killer or something.”

  “If you are, then you’ve done a great job of flying under the radar from the police. You’ve had two speeding tickets in the past two years with one outstanding parking ticket now.” She placed her keys on a glass table perfectly centered under a gorgeous crystal chandelier in the middle of an elaborately decorated foyer.

  “So you’ve already managed to somehow check me out?” Darius asked.

  She shrugged. “Let’s just say I had a friend run your license plate number through the system. Your tag is due for renewal the first of March, by the way.”

  Darius looked around. “So, is this your place or are you merely housesitting?”

  She grinned, set her small black leather purse on the table next to her keys, and began unbuttoning her leather coat.

  Darius was mesmerized by the way she went about doing it. As she began to slip off the coat, he hurried over to help her out of it. “Delilah,” he said as he held the coat completely removed now.

  She laughed.

  “I’m right, aren’t I? Your name is Delilah?”

  She took her coat from his hand as she grinned. “Do you like grits?”

  “Whatever you want to do, I’m completely onboard with it.” He smiled as he scanned her from head to toe once more, but this time without the coat. “I see you like the color black. Black leather coat, black leather boots, black dress that, if you don’t mind me saying, was created to cling to apparently a perfectly created body.”

  “Well, Mr. Connors—”

  “Oh, please, after all we’ve been though at this point, call me Darius.”

  She smiled. “Sure, Darius. But what you need to know about me is just how much I believe in color coordination. When I commit to something, I don’t half step when I do it. I believe in going all . . . the . . . way.”

  “Go hard or go home, huh?” He rubbed his goateed chin that was definitely in need of some manicuring attention. “You, Miss Dee Vine . . . is that a miss? I most certainly pray you’re a miss.” He waited for her to answer.

  “Yes, it’s miss, although you failed to answer my question about your wife,” Dee said. “What would she say about you being here with me right now?”

  “She’s pretty much already spoken. See, she put me out and we’re legally separated at this juncture.”

  “But not divorced?” Dee went and hung up her coat in the foyer closet.

  Darius waited for her to walk back toward him before answering. “Not divorced. But what it does mean is that it’s perfectly all right for me to be here about to devour . . . breakfast”—he grinned—“with you.”

  She walked over and picked up her keys and purse, putting her keys in her purse and snapping it back shut. “If you like,” she said, “you’re welcome to get whatever you need out of your SUV and bring it inside. I’ll show you to a room with a bathroom connected where you can . . . freshen up maybe.”

  “How did you know—?” He raised his arm and took a whiff.

  She laughed. “You don’t stink. I just happened to see those things in your vehicle that suggest you’re possibly in need of a place to crash. Besides, you look like a man who slept in his car last night. So I’ll show you to a room, you can go get what you need to take a shower and dress, and I’ll make us breakfast.”

  He nodded, scanning her once again from head to toe as she started toward the staircase.

  She turned back to him. “You’re going to have to stop gawking though. I hate when men gawk.”

  “I apologize. It’s just I was always taught to appreciate the beauty and blessings of God. And believe me, I know when God finished creating you, He couldn’t do anything but shake His head on His accomplishment and say, ‘That’s very good!’ ”

  “Another thing: I’m not one of those religious zealots. So if you can, also can the God references, and we’ll get along just fine.”

  Darius raised both hands in surrender. “Not a problem.” He smiled. “I can see right now that you and I are going to get along splendidly. Absolutely splendidly.”

  She walked a few steps ahead of him. “We shall see, Mr. Darius Connors. We shall most certainly see.”

  Chapter 6

  And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

  —Exodus 3:14

  Six months pregnant now, twenty-eight-year-old Paris Simmons-Holyfield sat in the morning service at Followers of Jesus Faith Worship Center next to her thirty-four-year-old husband, Andrew Holyfield, who couldn’t have been happier. After years of trying, they were expecting their first baby. From all indications, the baby was developing beautifully. Paris had put on weight, which wasn’t her favorite thing about being pregnant. But Andrew made her feel like she was the most stunning woman who’d ever walked on the face of the earth.

  “You wake up even more beautiful than when you go to sleep,” he never failed to say to her every morning as she awakened.

  Andrew was concerned that Paris was laughing a little less these days. He questioned her on why she didn’t seem to smile much after learning she was finally going to have a baby. She played it off as hormonal. But the truth (which she knew but couldn’t tell him) was that she couldn’t fully relax and enjoy the pregnancy knowing that there was a good possibility the baby they’d prayed so hard to conceive may not even be his. In truth, she couldn’t tell anyone, not her mother or any of her friends. At this point, the only people who knew were she and Darius. And it was eating away at her.

  “Secrets can tear you up inside,” Pastor George Landris was saying from the pulpit. “You see, people don’t understand the tactics of th
e devil. They don’t understand that when it comes to spiritual warfare, when it comes to where the battle is being fought, the battleground actually is in the mind.”

  “Amen,” people in the audience said.

  “Let me tell you something that you need to know,” Pastor Landris said as he stopped and looked out into the audience. “The devil wants so much to be like God, but he’s not. Yes, people believe that the devil has power. But do you know that God is omnipotent, which means He has all power. God is omniscient, which means He sees everything. And God is omnipresent, which means He’s everywhere all at the same time. God knows your thoughts. But even more, God is sovereign, which means God reigns.”

  “Preach it, Pastor!” someone yelled out.

  Pastor Landris nodded as he came closer to the edge of the platform. “What you need to know is the power God has given you. God gave you a mouth to speak. God has given you the power of life and death in your tongue. Satan doesn’t have that power, but Satan knows where power resides. So Satan sends out his little imps to mess with you. They get all up in your thoughts, not that they know what you’re thinking, but they whisper things to your mind.” Pastor Landris walked over to the other side. “Oh, y’all had better recognize!”

  “Tell it, Pastor!” a few folks yelled. “Preach!” others said.

  “Satan’s strategy is to get you to use the power God has given you against you. Did you hear what I just said?” Pastor Landris walked over to the other side. “Okay, I don’t know if they’re hearing me over on the other side so I’m coming over to this side and say it. I said that Satan wants to get you to use the power God has granted you against you.”

  “Pastor, we hear you!” people shouted. “Go on and tell us the truth up in here.”

  Pastor Landris smiled. “People of God: Why are you listening to the thoughts being planted in your mind, then putting power behind negative thoughts by speaking those things into the atmosphere with your mouth? Huh? Why? I know you may be saying that you hear things in your mind and you’re not sure if what you’re hearing is from God or the devil. Well, let me help you out here.”

  “Come on, Pastor! Help us out!” some people said.

  “Remember I told you that the devil wants to be like God but he’s not? Well, God can hear you when you have thoughts in your mind. The devil can’t read your mind, can’t hear your thoughts, doesn’t have a clue what you’re thinking until and unless you open your mouth and speak those thoughts out loud or your actions clue him in. You can think things all you want, but Satan doesn’t know for sure until you give him a sign. And just like a fish about to bite into a fisherman’s hook, some of you need to learn to keep your mouths closed—”

  “Pastor, you’d better say that thang!” someone yelled while others stood clapping and making their own comments.

  “Some of you need to quit saying how tired you are of certain things because all you’re doing is telling the enemy how to get to you,” Pastor Landris said. “You’re running around telling folks how broke you are and wondering why you’re still broke.”

  Some people in the audience laughed. Others shrugged and nodded.

  “You’re speaking about who hurt you and how, then wondering why you continue to get attacked . . . to be hurt in that same area. It’s simple: You told the enemy your weak point. You told the enemy how to bring you down. You’re speaking words into the atmosphere, giving power to those words. I’m sick, you say, and then wonder why you’re sick. Satan is in your ear whispering words to destroy you, and instead of you saying what God says about the situation, you’re repeating what the devil is whispering in your ear.”

  “Preach! Preach! Preach the Word, Pastor!” Paris heard as she turned to see that the words exploding so loudly in her ear were coming from her own husband’s mouth. Andrew was on his feet clapping, shouting, and pumping and waving his hand in the air in testimony.

  Pastor Landris nodded. “Two things I’m going to say, and then I’m going to be through.”

  “Take your time, Pastor,” someone yelled. “We ain’t in no hurry! Not today!”

  Pastor Landris smiled as he shook his head and walked back to where his Bible lay on the Lucite lectern. “I need you all to know the power behind the I am. I need you to understand what it means to be, as my subject for today stated, ‘On fire for the Lord.’ Listen to me good because I need you to hear and understand. Before Moses became the iconic Moses we all like to talk about, he was the Moses who first encountered a burning bush that burned but was not consumed. A bush that I submit to you was on fire for the Lord. And when God told Moses to tell His people that He’d seen and heard their afflictions and for him to tell Pharaoh to let His people go, Moses knew the importance of names to the Jewish people. Moses asked God when the people ask of him what is God’s name, what should he say to them.”

  Pastor Landris picked up his Bible and began reading Exodus 3:14. “ ‘And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.’ I know some of you probably missed it, but when asked God’s name, God told Moses to tell them ‘I AM’ is His name. Now stick with me on this for a minute. God is Yahweh. God is Adonai. But God’s memorial name is I AM, perfect present tense. That means anytime you use ‘I am,’ you’re invoking God’s name, and after using God’s name to begin the declaration, whatever you say after I am, you’re giving authority and power to it.”

  Some people began clapping and praising, standing to their feet.

  “Therefore!” Pastor Landris said, pointing a finger into the air. “When you say I am healed, then you’ve used the ‘I AM’ name of God and the power now added to what you’re proclaiming . . . what you’re declaring, and healing is there. I am blessed! Glory to God, you’re blessed! I am the head and not the tail. I am above only and not beneath. I am blessed coming in and blessed going out. I am more than a conqueror. I am the righteousness of God. I am victorious!”

  The entire congregation was on its feet now, including Paris.

  “Things may be rough on this side, what we may call the other side of Divine. But Jesus came all the way from Heaven to the earth, was born, laid in a manger, He walked on this earth showing us how to deal with the things we encounter down here, He left the Divine and came here to show us how to live while we’re here on this side. He was beaten, hung on a cross, and crucified, not for anything He’d done, but for the sins of the world . . . for your sin”—Pastor Landris began to point randomly into the audience—“and your sins and your sins . . . and mine. Jesus paid the price on that cross and the veil that separated us from God . . . the veil that kept us out of the Holy of Holies was ripped from the top down. They took Jesus off that cross and buried Him in a borrowed tomb. But thanks be to God, who always causes us to triumph, Jesus didn’t really need anything more than to borrow that tomb for a few days. Because on that third day Jewish morning!”

  The noise level in the sanctuary was almost deafening with shouts and praises now.

  “On that third day morning, Sunday . . . the first day of the week, Jesus arose with all power in His hands. And because He arose and is now sitting at the right hand of the Father, I am redeemed! If you’ve accepted Jesus as your personal savior, then you’re redeemed. We may be on the other side of Divine right now, but one of these days, in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, we shall all be changed. This corruptible body shall take on incorruptible. We shall be like Him . . . we will be like Jesus! We’ll be forever in paradise with the Lord! No more tears. No more you’re right and I’m wrong. Every day will be divine and there will be no more good-byes.” Pastor Landris moved his head from side to side like a boxer preparing for a fight.

  “If you’re not saved,” Pastor Landris continued, “if you haven’t confessed Jesus as your Lord and Savior, will you come? Will you come? You may be on the other side of Divine right now, but there’s a day coming! Jesus said the same way He left, He’s coming back again. Every now and then I look
up to the sky, looking to see Him coming back on a cloud, coming back for His people. Will you be in that number when He comes back? If you want the peace of God that surpasses all understanding, then come. If you want the joy of the Lord, then come. If you want the love of God . . . a love that will lift you when you’re down, make you laugh when no one is saying anything funny, be there with you no matter what you may have done, assuring you that when He said He’d be with you always, He meant always. I’m talking about through the good times and the bad, through your ups and your downs. Will you come today? It doesn’t matter what you’ve done or how bad it is in the world’s eyes, Jesus will forgive you. What can separate us from the love of God? Nothing! Nothing that you’ve done as long as you come to Him and ask Him to forgive you. Come to Jesus. Come!” Pastor Landris stood with his arms open.

  Paris stood and almost ran down the aisle, taking hold of Pastor Landris’s outstretched hand. She fell to her knees and cried. And Andrew was right there along with her. He kneeled down as well, placing his arm around her.

  “Lord, forgive me!” Paris cried out. “Lord, please forgive me! I want to be saved! I want to be right! I want to be Your child! Oh, Lord, have mercy on me!”

  Chapter 7

  And we being exceedingly tossed with a tempest, the next day they lightened the ship.

  —Acts 27:18

  Paris had confessed Jesus when she was eight years old. But she didn’t feel now that she’d done it with the right heart. In fact, she and her three friends had merely made a pact to go up together so they could get it over with. Even more, so they could finally take part in communion services with the little crackers and the small cute glasses of what the preacher referred to on first Sunday as wine.

  She and her friends felt duped the first time as they braced for the impact of having wine during Communion, only to learn it was nothing more than Welch’s grape juice. But it was okay because at least now (they were told) they were saved and would go to Heaven.