The Angels' Mirror Pack 2: Books Four through Seven

by Harmony L. Courtney

  How was he going to finish this? He felt like he’d been talking for an hour instead of what, maybe five minutes?

  “O’Carroll and Tuah offered me refuge if I would turn State’s witness, but I refused. They offered me witness protection, but I… I was too stubborn, and though I admitted, finally, to making the call, I insisted my name never be brought up; not in any court proceedings; not at the trial. Not written down anywhere that Arthur or his lawyer could ever find it. And by some miracle, they never did. When I… I went to visit Arthur recently, I… I confessed, basically the same thing I’m telling all of you now.”

  “And so what is your request, Mark,” Fifine asked him gently. “We want to support you, but you have to be as honest with the request as you now have been with the confession,” she continued. “Ésta es la forma correcta...”

  For a moment, Mark was perplexed. Correct what? Ah… the right way, maybe? Correct way, he thought.

  “Well, I…” He looked around him again, and then closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see their responses immediately. “The State of Oregon has decided to put me on trial. It seems that, as I had suspected, my witness is akin to, um… it’s possible that I may do some time for aiding and abetting a criminal, even though it wasn’t my intent. And I… I’m seeking God’s will in this, even if it means that I do time; even if it means I do a lot of time, and am away from my loved ones. I don’t want that to happen, but… it would only be fair if…”

  He could no longer go on, and placed his throbbing head in his hands. His eyes remained closed as those around him began to murmur and then, all of a sudden, he felt one then a second, a third, then five, six, seven people laying hands on him, and for the second time in his life, they began to pray for him.

  And they prayed hard.

  The last person to pray was Sherri, the woman who was called to speak for the day, and her prayer humbled him even more than those of his friends. This was a stranger; a woman he’d never met; he had, as Masao would say, lost face in front of her, and in front of her family… and yet, she prayed more intently for him than he could ever have imagined.

  When she was finished, everyone took a break to get something to eat. They prayed over the other requests in a roundabout, and then, it was time for Sherri Louise Forbes to speak.

  Eighteen

  “It is rather fitting today that we have had such a broad range of needs brought to our attention for prayer,” Sherri began as Edward settled back onto the sofa with a Bull Dog root beer in his hand.

  Jason sat on one side of him, and Mark on the end near the fireplace, his hand on his head as he bit into an E. Guittard Orinoco flavored chocolate bar, its signature two-tone purple wrapper hard to miss. He could smell its slight spiciness from where he sat, even as he took a sip of his soda.

  “And I say it is fitting because today, I wanted to talk to you about trials and tribulations. Not a topic you probably discuss much, other than to complain about them, am I right,” Sherri continued. A few nodded, Jason included.

  “The Apostle Paul, to the Roman church, told them time and again that the reason we have tribulations is so that we will learn to endure; that we will become more patient. At one point, he tells them that trials, tribulations… these are there to work with us, and not against us,” she continued, causing Edward’s ears to perk up.

  Hadn’t he and Justice been discussing the same thing? Whether to proceed or turn back? Whether to face what comes or give in and give up? They were facing trials, but maybe not in the same way as Paul meant. He took another sip of his soda as Sherri continued with her sermon lesson.

  “And in his day, Paul was right; they faced many trials and tribulations beyond what any of us here can even imagine. In the book of Hebrews, the eleventh chapter, we read about the great faith of Abraham, Noah, Joseph, and others, but then we read the following,” she said, picking up her Bible.

  “I will be reading from verses thirty-two through the end in The Message,” she told them as she flipped through the pages to find her place. “I could go on and on, but I’ve run out of time. There are so many more—Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the prophets…,” she began. “Through acts of faith, they toppled kingdoms, made justice work, took the promises for themselves. They were protected from lions, fires, and sword thrusts, turned disadvantage to advantage, won battles, routed alien armies. Women received their loved ones back from the dead,” she continued, turning the page.

  Someone else in the audience coughed as Sherri continued reading, the Mississippi twang in her voice becoming more pronounced as she spoke.

  The word pictures he knew were coming flew through Edward’s mind, and he shuddered.

  He had no envy for those who had endured so much more than he. His trials were a drop in the proverbial bucket, by comparison.

  “There were those who, under torture, refused to give in and go free, preferring something better: resurrection. Others braved abuse and whips, and, yes, chains and dungeons. We have stories of those who were stoned, sawed in two, murdered in cold blood; stories of vagrants wandering the earth in animal skins, homeless, friendless, powerless—the world didn’t deserve them!—making their way as best they could on the cruel edges of the world. Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised. God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours, she finished, handing the Bible to her husband, Jack, who began flipping through it as she continued to speak.

  “Now, I don’t need to tell you that some of the people who are alive right now still go through tortures and torments for their faith. I thank God we seldom do in the United States; and it isn’t nearly as extreme when it does occur here. But in other parts of the world, people are still killed for saying a prayer; they would be imprisoned for meeting in a home like this; shot for telling someone about Jesus. But we in America, we still have our trials, don’t we,” she asked, pausing a few moments as murmurs went around the room. “We do. Just not the same ones.”

  “For one, the trial is cancer, like this woman’s friend,” she said, pointing at Eugenie, “or facing the consequences of a long-ago mistake, like this man,” she pointed to Mark, who had the decency to cringe. “For someone else, it might be an addiction, or finding oneself in a situation unforeseen by what the past has dictated,” she continued.

  Edward was thankful she hadn’t pointed to Rose on either count, even as she continued. “For me, it was… and I hate to say this in front of my kids, but they know. They know. For me, it was a few different things. I’ve had trials that bring patience, and trials I brought upon myself with my decisions; I’ve run into tribulations at work and in the community, simply for being a southern Christian woman living in the None Zone,” she continued. “You know this is part of the None Zone, right? You realize most people in this area of the country mark “none” in the religion box, right?”

  Edward nodded his head along with several others, and took another sip of his soda. Mark held out a box of Moonstruck for him to choose a chocolate, and he did as he kept listening.

  “I belong to three different anonymous groups, but I believe that God is calling me to reveal the things that have caught me unawares; maybe it will encourage some of you, I don’t know. Maybe it won’t be today, but someday in the future you can think back and say, Sherri Louise Forbes taught the truth, and she showed she was real, too,” she said. “Jack, will you read first Corinthians ten thirteen for us, please, before I continue?”

  The man stood, his face a vibrant, embarrassed-looking red, and slowly, loudly, delivered the verse: “No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; he’ll always be there to help you come through it.”

  He sat back down, closing the Bible, and l
et it rest in his lap as his wife continued.

  “You see, nothing that we face is too much. Not when it comes from within, not when it comes from other sources,” Sherri began again, her hands moving rapidly with her speech.

  “And me, I’ve faced both. I’ve been where some of you are right now; and I’ve been some other places, just as ugly,” she continued. “When I was fifteen, I became pregnant. And this wasn’t your everyday boyfriend-girlfriend pregnancy, if you catch my drift; I won’t go into the details. Needless to say, my mother – a single parent at the time, with a live-in boyfriend – was mortified. She worried about my future; the future of our family; our reputations, and so one day,” she said, tears beginning to roll down her cheeks. “One day she told me she needed me to go with her to see a doctor.”

  She paused and looked at her children. “I know they know the gist of this, but could some of the older children take my kids in the other room, please,” she asked. “I can’t bear to…”

  Cherish, Clayton, and Lindsay stood and held their hands out toward the children – a beautiful moonfaced Down’s syndrome girl and two hyperactive, distracting boys who all seemed to be under ten years old – and led them away while Sherri took a few deep breaths.

  The audience was restless, and Edward really didn’t blame them: the woman’s testimony already was sad; riveting, and it had only begun…

  “Mother took me in the car, and to this day, I can remember the tears in her big green eyes as she drove through the night, taking me to a doctor over in another state. I was asleep when she finally pulled in, and when I awakened, it was seven in the morning; she was tired, but there was a smile on her face. I looked up, and began to cry: we were at an abortion clinic. There was no doubt in my mind then what she had planned all along; I wasn’t sixteen, she still had the right to make the choice for me, to some degree, and besides that, I didn’t know my rights; I just knew my Mother was happy again, just when I was becoming sad.”

  Sherri paused and drank some of her water, not bothering to wipe away the tears that flowed down her somewhat sunken cheeks.

  “When we returned to Mississippi, she had her little girl back, and I had a hole deep inside of me that, for the next twenty years, never went away. Never. The children God has blessed me with, by some amazing grace, have not taken the place of the child that was removed from my body that day. My marriage didn’t assuage the pain of what I had experienced to cause the pregnancy to begin with. But that was only part of the story.”

  “By the time we arrived home, my mother’s boyfriend had left us, realizing that there might be trouble for him; he had fathered my child. I had not consented. I felt I had no choice in the matter. And so, in some weird way, we both felt abandoned. He was the closest thing to a father I had ever known; he had lived with us since I was nine years old…. He had taken photos of me that, to this day, God alone knows where they might have gone. And he exposed me to photographs no child should ever see,” she said, stopping for a few more deep breaths.

  Her husband squeezed her hand, and it startled her before she smiled down at him, squeezed it back, and continued.

  “After he left, pornography became the only thing that remained between he and I. It had been what he’d used to bond with me. He told me that… that all good fathers made sure to share the beauty of their daughters with the world. While something inside of me knew this couldn’t be true – because none of my friends had ever said anything about photos; I had never seen any of them naked on a computer – still, his words, repeated over time, remained in my mind. By seventeen, I’d had three more abortions, and these, willingly; I had begun to experiment with smoking and alcohol. Occasionally, I was offered a needle, but, thank God, I refused,” she said, her glance flittering around the room before she continued, a frown barely perceptibly on her face.

  Edward glanced at her, too, and noticed that her cheeks were flushed; she looked down, biting her lip. She looks like she wants to bolt, he thought. I know Sherri’s trying to incorporate what she’s learned today into her teaching, but does she have to go about it quite as… bluntly?

  “No matter how much I prayed for the images in my head to go away, they wouldn’t. No matter how long I stayed away from computers, I kept going back. I couldn’t stay away from the one thing that kept me feeling dirty and alone and abandoned. And, honestly, some days, I still struggle. I have to get out of the house; I have to unplug every computer in the house, and unplug the television.”

  The woman’s candor was surprising, and yet, touched Edward at a place deep within.

  No, he had never shared her addiction, not her horrible abuse, but he had lived through traumas of his own; a splintered family, with a stepparent. Could he have just as easily become obsessed with dangerous behaviors? Things that might tear his family apart, like Mark once had? Like Rose, with the drugs that wooed her all the way to Louisiana?

  He took a long swig of his root beer, draining the rest of the bottle as he kept listening, handing it to Jason when he held his hand out to take it for him and set it aside.

  “It wasn’t until nine years ago, when I met this man,” Sherri continued, looking at Jack with love in her eyes, “that things began to change for the better. I had already met Christ… I thought I had. I’d had a religious experience or two; I read my Bible a few times a year, in spurts of long texts, a book here and there throughout the years. I even went to Bible College… but it wasn’t until Jack shared his life story with me – which I won’t go into – that I began to realize that life could be different. That it could be better. That God wanted more for me, and more from me.”

  Continuing with her story, interlaced with a handful of other Scripture references, Sherri spoke for the next fifty minutes on the power of redemption and the patience that only comes through persevering though the pains, the trials that all believers – and, indeed, all people – face.

  “But it is those who believe in and on Jesus Christ, who allow Him to work in their lives through the Holy Spirit, faith, loved ones, and prayer, that truly come to understand that trials are there to make us stronger,” she said as she began winding it up. “Maybe not stronger in a physical sense; maybe not even in an emotional one sometimes, but stronger in Him. As weak as we are, He is strong through us. For if we have been baptized into the body of believers; if we are truly part of Jesus Christ, then we have, indeed died already. And He lives in our stead.”

  Nineteen

  Eugenie tried to pay attention to the words Sherri was speaking, to no avail. She heard them, but once the woman had admitted her own sins and trials, Eugenie’s concentration was shot; she got the point.

  Who am I to judge Sherri, or Mark, or anyone else, she thought as Sherri continued to tell her tale. And who am I to tell his story? To step out of place like that? It was for him to tell; for him to decide, and I forced him out of the hibernating place of his mind simply to feel better about myself? What, more validated as the scorned woman? More cheated out of a good life than the rest? But for what? Ten minutes of attention, and another long while where we all prayed for him?

  Of course he needs prayer, but is it up to me to say why? Is it for me to say his business; to broadcast it in front of friends and strangers, alike, she asked herself.

  I don’t like when he speaks about me as though I’m not there… I don’t like it when he springs negative surprises on me, and yet… I pushed back on his trust in me, as much as he’s pushed me away with his own dishonesty and unreliability. Who am I really, Lord, to judge? You tell us in Your Word we are but dust; we’re like the withering grass, here today, but tomorrow isn’t promised. So forgive, please… forgive me. I’ve been just as selfish as my husband. And aren’t I meant to build him up, not tear him down?

  Tears slid down Eugenie’s face as her heart began to soften toward her husband once more; as her heart turned more fully to God.

  If anything, I should honor him more now; he’s done the right thing, even if it wasn’t what I wo
uld want. Even if it was more than twenty years after the fact. He’s trying to make amends; to become more of what You want for him, and less what he himself wants… isn’t he, God?

  As Sherri closed in a final prayer, Eugenie quietly made her way to the back room to check on the children; to let them know if they wanted to join the rest, they could now.

  “There are still more snacks available if you’re up for something to eat,” she told them, smiling through teary eyes, with shaking lips. “There’s plenty.”

  “Mom,” she heard Majesta whispering behind her, causing her to jump. “Are you alright?”

  “I’m…”

  There was no way she would lie to her daughter; she had been through enough. “I’ll be alright. There are just some things I need to… process, that’s all. I’m realizing….”

  She let her words fade as others began to move toward them, there in the hall. “I’ll talk with you after we’ve all had time to think, if that’s okay with you. I think we just need some time to…”

  She paused again, and Majesta shrugged her shoulders, reminding Eugenie not for the first time of shoulder pads.

  How had she and Mark produced someone so square-shouldered and assured looking? So regal and yet so childlike?

  Taking her daughter’s hand in hers, the pair followed the other children back to the living and dining area, and they got in line for a second round of food. There were a good fifteen or eighteen people ahead of them, but she didn’t mind.