He wanted to take a little time to shout and jump and scream over what the Lord had just done for him, but there was no time for that now. The line was growing longer, and Lamont and Isaac needed help. JT waded into the water and stood to the left of Lamont and bade the people to come his way. Now three of God’s men stood baptizing and calling what was once unholy, holy again.
Twenty Three
"What is taking that doctor so long?" Walt questioned after waiting two hours to be released from the hospital.
"I'm sure the man has other patients, Walt. You're not the president of the United States. He doesn't have to drop everything he's doing to come and answer your crazy questions," Cynthia said while flipping through a magazine and trying her best to look any and everywhere but at her husband.
Walt slowed his roll and looked at his wife for a moment. He had loved Cynthia from the moment he'd seen her. Had been willing to do anything to please her. And then somehow, as the years wore on, he'd only been interested in pleasing himself. He had a lot of making up to do for the pain he'd caused her. Walt just prayed that he hadn't come to his senses too late. Adjusting himself in the bed, he told her, "I get that you are ticked with me."
She put the magazine in her lap and gave him an 'oh really' stare. Then she said, "You must be a genius if you get the reason I'm ticked off. Because I doubt if any other woman in this world would be angry if her husband's woman shot him and then his other woman pulled her away from her husband while she's trying to comfort him."
Ouch. He was trying to find something to say to that when she continued.
"And now, lucky me, I get to take care of you for the rest of my life."
Walt lifted a hand. "No, you shouldn't be stuck taking care of me. The only thing I'm asking from you is that you get me to this revival... I have a feeling that God has a blessing for me out there. Can you do that for me?"
***
"What is taking so long, it seems as if we're just traveling in circles?" The healer rolled down the window that separated them from the driver and asked.
"Honestly sir, I do not know. My GPS says that the park is about one block over, but every time I drive over there, I can't figure out where to let you off, because I can't see the park."
Mega church pastor was on the phone with his assistant. She was saying, "I've received calls from numerous radio and television stations. They have been trying to find you at the revival so they can get a quick interview."
"I know that," he snapped. "I'm trying to get to the park, but this idiot driver doesn't know how to follow a GPS. Instead of driving us around, he needs to be riding on a little short bus."
The other two pastors laughed at the insult. Then one of them told the driver, "Just take us back to the spot your GPS has directed you to and let us out." He then rolled up the window and rolled his eyes to high heaven.
The driver drove back to the place he'd circled around for the last hour and opened the door for the men. "Have a nice day," he said with a smile. Even though his shoulders were slumped.
As the three preachers got out of the limo, they were able to see clearly that the park was in front of them. The preachers opened their mouths to give the driver one last piece of their minds, but then one of the preachers saw reporters headed their way and zipped it.
The driver got back in his car and sped off.
The preachers turned back toward the park after the driver left. At that moment they saw what their driver had been seeing... absolutely nothing. The angel that stood in front of them blocked their view so that they couldn't see the miraculous things that were taking place on that day.
***
By the time Cynthia arrived at the park with Walt, the line had finally gone down. Walt prayed that he hadn't arrived too late for God to do a miracle in him. Cynthia took the wheelchair they left the hospital with out of the trunk of her car and helped Walt into it. She pushed him down to the lake where a multitude of people stood around, dripping wet and smiling from the joy of it all. JT, Lamont and Isaac were in the water, baptizing all who came forward. As she pushed Walt closer and closer to the lake, she witnessed Margie run over to Lamont and then she saw him dunk her down deep into the water, as she came up, she was laughing and crying at the same time.
Cynthia turned toward Isaac and in front of him stood Tony Denario. Tony lifted his hands, appeared to be reciting words after Isaac and then he was taken low into the water. She frowned as Tony came up speaking in tongues, for she knew what a horrid life he had led.
"Push me up to the edge of the water," Walt said.
"All right, but if you fall in, don't blame me."
***
As Walt reached the edge of the water, JT looked up and saw his old armor bearer and friend. He had prayed that Walt would find his way out there today, but since JT didn't know what condition the man's heart was in, he'd left all of that up to God. But as he looked directly into Walt's eyes, JT knew without a shadow of a doubt that God had worked on Walt's heart that weekend. He rushed over to him and bent down in front of Walt. "I'm surprised that the doctor let you go so soon."
"I can be mighty persuasive when I need to be. I'm doped up on pain killers right now, but I wasn't going to let that stop me from participating in this miraculous event." Walt put his hand on JT's shoulder and asked, "Would you baptize me, Pastor?"
JT smiled. “Has God touched your heart this weekend?”
“In ways you couldn’t even imagine. I have been so wrong and God helped me to see that this weekend.” Tears streamed down Walt’s eyes. “I truly want to live for Him.” Walt pointed toward heaven.
JT had Lamont help him lift Walt out of the wheelchair. They carried him into the water. JT said, "I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost... all in Jesus’ matchless and magnificent name." At that point he dunked Walt until he could be dunked no further, as he brought him up, Walt began to squirm in his arms.
"Let me go," Walt told JT.
JT did as he was commanded and Walt swam in the water like a fish born to it. As he circled back around, he stood up next to JT. He was still crying as he said, "I told that nurse I wasn't going to need physical therapy."
JT hugged him. "Boy, you are truly a wonder. Good to have you back."
"And I'm glad to be back."
Cassandra and Nina got in the water. The crowd was winding down, and they were not going to miss their blessing. Cassandra asked JT to baptize her and Nina asked Isaac.
Walt looked around for Cynthia. When he spotted her, he could tell that she had become emotional over his healing because she was crying. But what he didn't understand was the fact that Cynthia hadn't ran into the water as Cassandra and Nina had. She was headed in the opposite direction, back to the car.
Walt got out of the water and followed after his wife. "Cynthia, Cynthia," he called.
She didn't stop, just kept crying and walking away from him.
Walt caught up with her in the parking lot. "What's wrong, baby? Why don't you come back and let JT baptize you?"
She shook her head and turned away from him.
Walt held onto her arm. "Cynthia, please don't leave. I know I messed up, but I believe we can work this out... I'm planning on quitting the ministry."
She turned to him in amazement. "But I can see the glow of God all over you. How can you leave God now?"
Walt shook his head. "I'm not leaving God. I plan to serve Him for the rest of my life, in whatever capacity God chooses, but I'm not called to be a pastor... I think you know that. I sure figured it out."
She turned away from him again and unlocked her car door.
"Things will be better for us now, Cynthia, I promise you that. Just give me a chance."
She opened the car door, but just before getting in, she said, "You just don't get it do you?"
"Get what? Whatever is wrong, God can fix it, just give us a chance," he pleaded.
She closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head. When she focus
ed on Walt again she admitted, "I paid a man to shoot you in the head this weekend. If your girlfriend hadn't shot you in the stomach, you would be dead right now." With that, she got in her car and drove out of his life.
***
The sun was going down as Lamont baptized Margie’s mom and then the last few people in line. The captain of the host lifted his sword from the water and he and the other angels that had diligently guarded the park so that the work of the Lord could be done, ascended back up into heaven just as quickly as they had descended.
Lamont looked out at the crowd of people who were still hanging around and said with a loud voice, “The Lord showed Himself mighty here today, now hear the command of the Lord… don’t ever forget to live holy again. Let your light shine before men, so that they will see and want to know more about the hope that lives in you.”
Epilogue
JT and Cassandra went out to dinner with Isaac and Nina. They had worked hard and long so they enjoyed their time of fellowship together as they broke the fast. Lamont had begged off, saying that he was so tired, he just wanted to go home and sleep for a month.
After dinner, that was exactly what JT wanted to do, also. Cassandra drove him home, while he rested his eyes. As she pulled into their driveway, she tapped him on the shoulder. “We have company.”
“Say it ain’t so,” JT said as he opened his eyes and caught sight of Diane sitting on their porch. He said again, “Say it ain’t so.”
“Make this quick, JT. This has been a long, eventful weekend and I am tired, too.”
JT put his hand on his wife’s arm, leaned over and kissed her on the cheek and then said, “Let’s go see what she has to say.”
They got out of the car, and as they approached Diane, Cassandra said, “The kids aren’t here. We left them with my mom this weekend.”
Diane stepped off the porch, and walked towards them. “I figured the kids wouldn’t be here.” Then to explain her comment she said, “I watched the rest of the revival on television.”
“I wish you had come back, the baptisms we did today were something out of this world. God really blessed today,” JT said.
Diane nodded. “I know He did. Look, I just came by to apologize for the way I’ve been acting. And to tell you and Cassandra that things will be different from now on.”
Both JT and Cassandra were speechless for a moment.
Diane continued. “Well, anyway, that’s all I wanted to say.” She walked down the driveway, got in her car and drove off.
JT put his arm around Cassandra and pulled her closer to him as he said, “The Lord really did bless today.”
Cassandra kissed the tip of his nose. “Sure did, Pastor Thomas, He sure did.”
***
Lamont had stayed at the park a little longer than expected. He sat at the bank of the lake, taking in the calmness of the water. It hadn’t been so calm an hour ago. The wind and the waves had been ever flowing as they baptized one believer after the next. At that moment, Lamont smiled, because God had answered his prayers… He had troubled the water and brought physical and spiritual healing to His people.
“Young man.”
Lamont heard someone calling out to him. He looked up and saw three prominent preachers that he looked up to and had even reworded a few of their sermons. He stood and wiped off his pants. “Pastors,” he said, with excitement in his voice at seeing them.
“We have been walking around for hours trying to find the place where the baptisms are being done. We came to help with the work of the Lord. Can you help us find the location?” Pastor Larry asked.
“I’m so sorry that you missed it, but God has already finished His work today. Everyone has been baptized and they have gone home with victory.”
At hearing this the three men turned with slumped shoulders and went away without thanking Lamont for the good news.
A bit bewildered by the actions of the three preachers, Lamont made the climb back up the hill and through the park toward his car with a grumble in his stomach. As his car came into view, so did Margie. She was sitting on the hood of his car holding a picnic basket. Lamont smiled, that woman was always anticipating his needs. As he moved towards her, Lamont felt as if he was moving towards his destiny.
Margie got off the hood of his car and held out the basket to him. “It’s time for you to eat.”
With a mischievous grin, he said, “I can think of something that I need more than food right now.”
“What’s that?”
Lamont stepped to her, took the picnic basket out of her hands and set it on the hood of his car. He looked into her eyes as he said, “I need you in my life. I want to marry you, Margie, can you handle that?”
“B-but.”
He bent down and kissed her softly on the lips. “No need to stutter, hon. God has shown me that you are the one for me.”
Tears streamed down Margie’s face as she hugged Lamont. “I thought something was wrong with me for feeling the way I’ve been feeling about you.”
As Margie released Lamont from the hug, he said, “I only have one request, Margie.”
“Tell me what you need.”
Lamont put his arm around her as he walked her to the passenger side of his car. As he opened the door for her he said, “No more fights at church, okay?”
Margie blushed. “I just retired my boxing gloves.”
The End
Excerpt of
FORGIVEN
Book II in the Forsaken Series
By: Vanessa Miller
Prologue
Crouched down between a rusty old Lincoln with a playboy symbol on the driver’s side door and a red Pontiac with a busted rearview window, while a maniac wielded a tire iron that had already clipped her in the leg once, Diane Benson decided it was time to call her husband and beg for his forgiveness.
She had left Cleveland, Ohio about eight months ago after leaving her three oldest children with her husband, Joe Benson. She then drove to Pastor JT Thomas’ house and left her three month old daughter with him and his wife. The way Diane saw it, every child needed to be with his or her own daddy and she didn’t care how JT and Cassandra’s life was disrupted. JT got what he deserved anyway. What kind of man pastors a church while sleeping with the deacon’s wife? But JT hadn’t only been sleeping with her. Diane could have understood if he had slipped into sin because he just couldn’t resist her voluptuous curves and Angelina Jollie pouty lips. But that hadn’t been the case.
JT would sleep with anything in a knee high skirt willing to kick her pumps off and get busy. Too bad she got pregnant before she figured that one out. She had been prepared to leave her husband for JT so they could start a new life with their baby. But JT suddenly developed a conscious and realized that a husband’s place was at home with his wife. He expected her to just continue living a lie with Benson. JT never imagined that she would tell Benson the truth. But she had, and Benson beat the snot out of him.
Soon after JT got his beat down, Diane had become fed up with the whole matter. So after dropping Lily off with her daddy, she left town with Brian Johnson. Brian had been the mechanic at the auto dealership her husband owned. But Brian was fixing more than automobiles and Joe hadn’t had a clue about it. Brian had been her side kick. When JT wasn’t acting right, she spent her free time with Brian. She may have imagined herself as first lady of Faith Outreach while fooling around with JT, but Brian was the one who made her weak at the knees. She couldn’t lie if she wanted to, that man held some type of demonic power over her and she lived to do his bidding. Actually, Lily could have been Brian’s baby just as well as JT’s. But Brian said that since she had been sleeping with JT more than him around the time that she’d gotten pregnant, Lily more than likely belonged to JT. Funny thing was, when the DNA test came back and it proved that Brian had been right; JT was Lily’s father, Brian got so mad that he up and left her in Jacksonville, Florida with only twenty dollars to her name.
That’s when she met Darryl Mil
ls. Darryl was a house flipper. Since the economy turned and not many people were buying homes, he’d given Diane the key to a fabulous four bedroom home in the suburbs. Diane loved the house and was trying to figure out how she could convince Darryl to give it to her instead of putting it back on the market. Diane almost had Darryl convinced, until his nosy wife figured out that she was living in the house rent free. That’s why Diane was crouched between two cars right now. The maniac with the tire iron was Darryl’s wife.
“You might as well come out from between these cars. ‘Cause I really don’t care if I bang these cars up, just as long as you get banged up in the process.”
Crawling on the ground, trying to move further into the jam packed parking lot and away from the tire iron, Diane said, “I don’t even know you, lady. Why are you doing this?”
“You know me well enough to sleep with my husband,” the woman said as she angled her obese body between the two closely parked cars and swung at Diane.
Thankful that the woman missed her that time, Diane stood up and ran as quickly as she could through the maze of cars.
Darryl’s wife was simply too big to move any further in between the Lincoln and the Pontiac, so she couldn’t catch Diane, but she screamed as loud as she could, “I’m throwing all your stuff out of my house and onto the street. If you come back here to get any of it, I’m going to shoot you.”
Once Diane was a safe distance away from certain death, she used the cell phone that Darryl bought her to call Benson. When he answered she said, “Hey, Joe, I was just calling to check on the kids. How are they doing?”
Forgotten (Book 3--Forsaken Series) Page 15
