The Words I Speak (Anyone Who Believes Book 2)

by Jeffrey McClain Jones

  By the time she sat down, Willow wondered whether she had made a mistake. The post-meeting dive in energy seemed extreme that night, and not just for her. She could see Andrew and a couple of the others sinking into energy-saving mode. Then Willow livened up the group with an unplanned stimulation.

  As soon as their waitress, a twenty-something with artificially black hair and pale skin, came to take their order, Willow knew she had a message for her. To compensate for the extracurricular derailment that was on the way, Willow made sure she knew exactly what she wanted before it came her turn to order.

  Connie Whiting ordered first. She was one of the singers with the worship band, a single woman about thirty years old, with pierced ears and one nostril pierced to match. Her hair, too, was died, but more toward dark purple. For Connie, this look always struck Willow as an effort to disguise her Barbie Doll looks. As is usually the case, it didn’t really work. Andrew was next and then it was Willow’s turn. She thought to pass and arrange to be last, but something about that seemed wrong, though she didn’t take the time to figure out what.

  The waitress, Talia according to her name tag, looked at Willow, who dutifully offered her concise choice of food and drink, and then added. “Before you go away, I want to give you a message that I think comes from God.”

  Talia just stared. She had heard all kinds of things from people when waiting tables. Apparently she hadn’t heard that one before. This, however, would be surprising, given how close that restaurant was to the main meeting place of Willow’s church. Giving prophetic words or healing to waiters and waitresses was common practice, like handing out tracts was in other churches.

  Recovering her wits, Talia said, “Ah, I’ll get back to you,” and proceeded to take the remaining orders. However, after she finally got the last order from Oliver Thomas, the lead guitarist for the band that night, Talia couldn’t escape before gathering all the menus.

  Oliver started where Willow had left off. “Yeah, I think I have a message for you too, Talia. I think God might be saying that you don’t need to worry about the troubling relationship you’re trying to get out of. I think God’s gonna make a clean break for you.”

  Willow was impressed, Oliver was taking a chance to deliver that word without checking first about the existence of such a relationship. But she was also impressed because the word she had was similar. She didn’t wait for Talia to stop gaping, and just added her bit.

  “That’s very similar to what I was hearing,” Willow said. “And I believe that God is taking you through a transition to make way for a move to a different kind of work. Breaking clean of that relationship will be the first sign that it has begun.”

  Now Talia was shaking her head. “How did you guys know about that?” was all she could think to say. She wasn’t able to even begin the process of ticking off believable answers to her own question, too tired at the end of a long shift. The clearest thought she could form had to do with their messages seeming too good to be true.

  Andrew stepped up to help Talia with the processing. “So, does that all sound familiar to you?” They all knew the answer, but they wanted to get Talia over the shock and into the point of the message.

  Talia nodded. “I just can’t believe it would all work out that good. I mean, what did I do to deserve that?”

  Here Karl Bechler spoke up. “Well, that’s just it. God gives us stuff that we don’t deserve all the time. In fact, what we deserve is so pitiful compared to what he has to give, that he rarely waits for us to even get close. We can’t earn his love. He just loves us ‘cause he made us.”

  Talia started to object, “But I don’t believe all that.”

  Willow smiled in a motherly way, or so it seemed to others at the table, and said, “That’s okay. He’s showing you right now that he is real, and he’ll just keep offering and waiting. It’s what he does.”

  Still shaking her head, even as she looked from one to the next of her seven strangest customers, Talia said, the only thing she could think of: “Thanks.” And she staggered toward the kitchen to put in their orders.

  The round of adrenalin that came with taking a chance to talk like that to the waitress woke up the table. Muriel and Bill Jackson, seated at the opposite end of the table from Willow, laughed at their brothers and sisters seated there.

  “I’m glad you let her go,” Bill said, with a chuckle, “you guys were blowing her away. I was about to step in and call a timeout.”

  Laughter ringed the table. “Yeah, it’s a sort of momentum that gets going when God starts talking to someone and they start drinking it in,” Andrew said.

  Willow looked at him, having heard him say just what she had observed many times before. Then she said, “She was willing to listen, even if she was shocked.”

  Oliver said, “I think that makes a big difference, don’t you, when people are sort of drawing the word out of you?” He was looking at Willow, whom they all acknowledged as the reigning expert in this kind of ministry.

  Willow nodded and then looked at Karl. “You’re an evangelist. I didn’t know that.”

  Karl looked at Willow as if she had just told him the color of the underwear he was wearing. He hesitated, and then tried to speak, “I...” He stopped there, beginning to look just like Talia.

  “It was pretty obvious to me too,” Andrew said.

  Karl just smiled now, looking like a man on the verge of fist-pumping and hooting. His restraint was admirable.

  “It’s nice to be known,” Andrew said.

  “And recognized,” Willow said.

  Again Willow felt the collegial ease she had with Andrew, and wondered whether something was starting between them. But that bubble burst a few minutes later, when Muriel spoke through a lull in the conversation.

  “So, Andrew, is it true? You gonna ask Robin to marry you?”

  Andrew blushed. Something that would have been attractive to Willow, if it weren’t for the words that proceeded that involuntary reaction.

  Looking around the table, as if assessing who he could trust, Andrew reached for his pocket.

  As Willow watched him pull a black velvet ring box from his jacket pocket, she realized that Andrew was close friends with everyone else at the table. She was the odd one there, the one most disconnected, the one most surprised by what was in that little box.

  Andrew popped open the box to show a diamond set in yellow gold. “I’m trusting you all to keep this quiet. I’m seeing her tomorrow night, and I’m gonna pop the question.”

  Robin Meriwether was just over thirty years old, as far as Willow knew. In fact, when she had seen Andrew with Robin she had assumed that it was a sort of big-brother-to-little-sister relationship, even before she started entertaining her own possible interest in Andrew.

  Willow was glad no one at that table could read her thoughts. She felt more embarrassed than she had in a long, long time.

  But she survived, as always.

  ~FRANKINCENSE~

  After the near disaster with Andrew, Willow decided to take a step back from her new sense of permission to pursue a possible romance. She realized that she was not just out of practice; she was entirely without experience at anything beyond making friends. At the same time, she felt a gentle prod from her father, during her prayer and listening times. She suspected that there was a lesson for her beyond a new relationship, but couldn’t tell yet whether this lesson was the whole point.

  After a peaceful Saturday, which included time both with Annetta and with her mother, Willow attended the early service on Sunday. She usually went to the later service, but felt one of those unexplained urges to make a change this week. Sitting with one of her old friends, Sheila Carter, Willow listened to the welcome from one of the pastors. She was just beginning to stand up in preparation for the music, when someone grabbed one of her arms and whispered in her ear.

  “Now, you behave yourself. I’ll be watchin’ you.”

  She turned to find Jamie Whitaker grinning impishly at
her. Willow leaned over the chair to grab a hug from the familiar stranger. She couldn’t help feeling as if God had a thumb in the middle of her back giving her a bit of a push.

  “Okay, okay, I get it,” she was saying internally.

  Externally, she said to Jamie, “Good to see you. You staying around for a while?”

  The first song started with a tribal drum beat that drowned out half of what Jamie said in reply, but his glistening eyes and dimpled smile at least communicated that he was glad to see Willow.

  Turing back around, Willow focused now on the worship time, instead of on navigating the uncharted waters of romance. Though she spent hours each week in private worship, nothing elevated Willow’s mood more than worshipping through music with a group, whether twenty or two thousand. That morning, she sensed that Katie Wiggins, who was leading that morning, was all in, holding nothing back. That made Willow feel like she wouldn’t be flying alone. Katie was leading a huge flock into flight and Willow welcomed every tear-soaked minute of it. She often joked that she not only worshipped with her voice, her hands and her feet, but also with her nose and tear ducts. She was always all in.

  Jamie’s comment about watching Willow completely disappeared from her mind. For Jamie, this was purely a tease. He was familiar with Willow’s total abandon during the musical worship at church, but he usually missed most of that due to his own ecstatic focus on his father, and his own flight of celebration. Back when Jamie had been a regular part of that church, he had played bass guitar in one of the worship bands. He first caught Willow’s attention back then as the most demonstrative and mobile bass player she had ever seen on a church stage. She loved it. Jamie refused to inhibit himself in worship just because he had a big electric guitar strapped over his shoulders. It worked for him because he was a natural musician who had played various kinds of guitars since he was ten.

  When the final song for the morning began to wind toward its close, one of the pastors, Juan Cisneros, took the microphone and spoke.

  “I believe the father is rejoicing in the pure and beautiful fragrance of this worship. We’re here on the day that Christians around the world celebrate the Three Kings, or at least the three gifts they brought. And one of those gifts is frankincense, which was used in worship. The wise men knew that this baby was going to be worshipped. They prophesied with their actions about days like this, when people around the globe would worship the one born in a manger.”

  Though she rallied behind the main point Juan was making, Willow also heard in his encouragement a reminder that she should be more open to prophetic actions, as well as mere words. That was typical of Willow, hearing the point that was meant for everyone, but also exploring another level of truth just for herself. She assumed that the spirit inside her was using both of those levels to communicate to her.

  As was usually the case, that Sunday service revived Willow’s energy for the rest of her week, a week that would see much more worship and even a few more gatherings for corporate song and ministry like this one. That night, in fact, she was scheduled to take a team of people from the Oak Tree to another church, in Denver.

  During the high at the end of the service, Willow met Jamie again in the aisle, on the way out of the auditorium. She spontaneously invited him to join her team for the local ministry trip.

  “I’d be glad to have you along,” she said, after explaining where they were going.

  Jamie tipped his head. His eyes were saying yes, but Willow could see some kind of hesitation.

  “I’d love to join you. But a friend of mine is also visiting this weekend. He’s thinking of moving here and I promised to show him around,” Jamie said.

  The way he spoke, Willow assumed this was someone Jamie was going to meet later. But, instead, he turned and grabbed the shoulder of a tall man with dark, wavy hair, who was talking with someone else.

  “This is Scott, my partner in the mission to Thailand I wrote you about,” Jamie said, pulling his friend into the little space he and Willow had claimed in the middle of the dense crowd passing down the aisle.

  Scott finished his other conversation and waved goodbye to someone that Willow couldn’t see through the tight mob. He focused a look at Willow that actually made her uncomfortable. She felt as if he were looking into her soul. For Willow, this was a matter of standing at the other end of the telescope, for a change. She almost cringed, but realized that it probably wasn’t anything Scott was doing that inspired that. She was focused on Jamie, and felt Scott’s intrusion into their space. Scolding herself silently for this kind of thinking, she tried to recover.

  “Scott, good to meet you. I’m Willow Pierce,” she said.

  “I know,” he said. “I’m so happy to meet you. You’re one of the reasons I chose to look at this church.”

  Other people had said things like that to Willow before. Her reputation had a life of its own around the country, and even the world, in certain church circles. But Scott’s bold assertion seemed like another intrusion, to Willow. She noted how odd her response was and began to wonder if her intuiting equipment was out of whack that morning. That possibility seemed odd, given the wonderful worship service she had just enjoyed. But this relationship stuff was messing with her mind.

  In response to Scott, Willow just raised her eyebrows and pasted on a practiced smile. Her face said, “I am trying to look enthusiastic about what you just said.” She didn’t fool anyone who was paying attention.

  Willow managed to cover her phony smile with a proposal. “Well, if you’re showing him around, maybe he could come along with us tonight too.” She said this, looking at Jamie and only glancing perfunctorily at Scott.

  The men both thought that was a great idea and Willow gave them the time to meet at the church building, where they would all rendezvous for a ride in a church van that night. Though they would all be missing the evening service at the Oak Tree, they would be sharing a venerable tradition of their church, in which they freely shared what God had given them with any congregation that wanted some of the same.

  That afternoon was purposefully uneventful, Willow resting and refueling for the evening service at a church called The Loft. When she arrived back at the parking lot from which she had driven toward home just five hours before, she felt as if she had never left. Though she had changed into sweats at home, she wore the same clothes for the ministry trip that she had worn for the morning service, jeans and a sweater. She silenced the internal voice that thought she should dress up a little, given the company she would be keeping that night. Willow didn’t stop to figure out where that thought came from, she just rebuked it and tried to keep being plain old Willow. Other than Gretchen, she rarely dressed up for anyone or anything. She felt no need to change that now.

  All of that struggle made her laugh when she saw that both Scott and Jamie were looking particularly rumpled in the same clothes they had worn that morning. Scott apologized.

  “Jamie’s had me running from pillar to post all afternoon without a break. Sorry if we don’t look our best.”

  In response, Jamie said something that seemed to stop Willow’s heart for one beat.

  “Look at the straight man apologizing for not looking fresh,” he said, in a voice with more feminine inflection than Willow was used to hearing from her old acquaintance.

  Jamie saw the shock on Willow’s face, as she stood there in the damp cold of the parking lot, waiting for the van driver to pull into place. He laughed.

  “From the look on your face I’m guessing you never figured out that I’m gay,” he said.

  Without intending to, of course, Willow simply increased the intensity of the shock plastered on her paling face.

  Scott intervened, looking at Jamie. “Why are you shocking Willow? It’s like all those cups of cocoa have killed off your inhibitions.”

  Jamie nodded. “Clearly too much sugar and caffeine.”

  Willow could see the rest of the team arriving even as he van rounded the building to the app
ointed meeting spot. But she wanted an explanation in the brief time the three of them had alone.

  “What are you telling me?”

  Jamie smiled and patted Willow on the cheek with his black leather glove. “Sorry, dear. I thought you knew. I haven’t been interested in women as long as I can remember. I finally got used to the fact while we were in Thailand. I knew I had to face it when I made a pass at him,” he poked a thumb in Scott’s direction, “I got the same shocked look you’re giving me now.”

  Jamie paused to see if Willow was adjusting to the news. “He wasn’t interested in me, by the way.”

  Scott again felt the need to provide more information. “It’s not like he’s outta control, hitting on guys all the time. That was just a crisis point.”

  Jamie nodded, forming a straight line with his mouth. “I’m being a good boy. Keeping my hands to myself and keeping my mind on the work.”

  Willow nodded. “That sounds good.”

  Then Jamie let go another caffeine-induced statement. “So I came out as gay,” he said, lowering his voice as others approached. He looked at Willow, “When are you going to come out as straight?”

  Willow reverted to that shocked face, but then felt the timeliness of Jamie’s irreverent words. She started to laugh.

  To the confused looks that laughter inspired, Willow said, “I came out just a couple of weeks ago.” And she continued her merry laughter.

  The three people approaching on foot heard those words and assumed Willow was referring to getting out of jail. In a way, she was.

  ~MYRRH~

  In contrast to Jamie’s revelation and challenge, their visit to Denver settled into a more comfortable pattern for Willow: a ride of forty-five minutes, meeting the pastors and worship leader at The Loft, and then the meeting. To the Willow of twenty-five years ago, this would not have been comfort-zone activity unless someone else was leading the team. She loved to meet new people through delivering an encouragement or insight from God. But standing up front and speaking to a crowd of hundreds, followed by prophetic words and healings, had now become her place of business, at least during evenings and weekends.