But this was almost stranger: in one breath Jeremiah would be saying I don’t deserve this, what are you doing to me, Lord, and in the next he’d be praising God. He said in one sentence that he was done, he was no longer going to speak to obstinate, unhearing people and be brutally punished for it…and in the next he said he HAD to speak, or the words burned within him.
I felt super sorry for Jeremiah. And I admired him. Deeply. He stood for something more important than himself and believed in something more valuable than his life. He would speak God’s truth no matter what the consequences to him.
What kind of faith that must take!
You won’t believe where my thoughts went next. I was jealous of Jeremiah. Yes. Jealous. If that kind of assurance could sustain him for forty years without ANY proof, then it was something I wanted. I had no idea how to get it, but I wanted it.
So I did what Jeremiah did. First I ranted and raved at God about the injustice of what happened to Lakisha, to her baby, and to me. Then I begged Him to change what was happening, at least to Lakisha. Let the baby live. And then I started crying, and told Him I wanted to believe. I wanted to believe in something, anything, that would help me navigate the constant disappointments in life.
When my tears had stopped and my thoughts had ceased flowing, I just lay on my couch with an empty head. Bo was still strangely silent throughout my tirade of emotion and outburst. She lay beside the couch, chin on her paws, eyes open.
I fell asleep after that. If you, like me, were hoping that God would plant himself on the arm of the couch and comfort me, you, like me, would be wrong. I may have dreamed about Him, but if I did, I don’t remember. There was nothing but silence. No appearance of a celestial form or heavenly wisdom.
When I woke up, I did feel a lot better. The assault had taken a lot out of me, I guess. I was not normally a big napper. I got up, made dinner (Chef Boyardee spaghetti… which is not bad…) and poured Bo a cup of her kibble. We ate while watching a rerun of Batman.
Right as Batman was tying up the villain, my phone rang. It was Lakisha.
“I went to the ER,” she said. “The bleeding stopped. They said the baby still has a strong heartbeat. They said there was nothing we could do but wait and see.”
I remembered the boldness of Jeremiah.
“We could pray,” I said.
“Ok,” Lakisha said, sniffling. “Will you do that? Will you pray for me? I don’t think God would listen after all I have done.”
Now I had NEVER prayed aloud…in fact, I had almost never prayed at all. But I felt a warmth inside me, urging me on. It was not exactly what Jeremiah described as a burning in my heart, but it did feel a little like a small flicker of a flame of faith. It sure could do no harm to pray and maybe it would do some good.
So I opened my mouth to speak to a God I wasn’t really sure was there, but who now I really wanted to be there. I hoped that was good enough to open His ears, if indeed there were heavenly ears.
“Hi God. It’s me, Ruth…and Lakisha. We are not real sure what is going on here with the baby. We feel like we are doing everything you want us to do now, even though maybe we didn’t pay much attention to you in the past. We hope you know how sorry we are for that. We sure did make a mess of things. I know I, for one, wish I had done things differently…”
“Me too,” said Lakisha.
I paused to see if she had more she wanted to say, but she apparently was done.
“So we are just asking that you would spare that little baby. He didn’t cause any of this, and we just want him to be okay. Thanks for listening. Amen.”
“Amen,” Lakisha said. “Thank you Ruth. I wish I had not taken that pill. I wish I had never had anything to do with the baby’s daddy. I wish I could just make better decisions. I knew it was wrong. I just was…afraid. Selfish. I knew Dee would not want the baby. I didn’t know he would hurt you. I am really sorry about that. I was so stupid. I knew he would hurt me. He did it a thousand times. I should have left years ago. How stupid could I be?”
Here, she was crying again. So much for my first communal prayer leading to any kind of hope or encouragement.
“Why do you think you did stay?” I asked.
“He kept saying he was sorry, and then he would be so good to me. Until the next time I crossed him. I kept hoping each time he meant it. This time he would change. But really, it just got worse. He hurt me more each time. And then I was afraid to leave. But you know what is even more stupid? Even while he was beating me up, I thought it was my fault. And when it was over, I would beg him not to leave. I loved him. I was such an idiot.”
I did understand. I had not been as abused as Lakisha had been, but I had spent most of my life attracted to men who harmed me. I don’t know if it all started with Uncle Billy or not. Probably it did. I think he made me feel I was worthless, and just like Lakisha described, deserved what he and all the awful men in my life did to me.
“Talia told me that God looks at us a whole lot differently,” I said, remembering one of many conversations with her about this. “She says He created us in His image and He looks at who we are meant to be. He sees who He designed us to be. She said He has a plan and a purpose for us, and it is for Good.”
“Then I don’t think I have found that plan, yet,” Lakisha said with a trembling voice, “Because nothing I have done so far is for good.”
“Not until you started the pill reversal, maybe,” I said. “I think that was for good. For the good of your baby anyway.”
Lakisha was quiet for a moment, considering that statement that popped out of my mouth totally unexpectedly.
“That did feel good,” she said. “It might have been the first good thing I ever did.”
“When I walked out of the abortion work for good,” I said, “I felt the same way. And you know, it is true that there have been some terrible things that still happened since then, but I feel differently about myself.”
“Maybe there is hope for me too then,” Lakisha said.
“Oh, if there is hope for me then there is hope for anyone,” I agreed. I cringed, thinking maybe that sounded like I was saying she was as hopeless as she thought she was. This was surely not Talia-caliber comforting, but I was brand new at trying to weave God into a conversation.
“Well thanks again. I will let you go. I really appreciate you praying for me. That means a lot. And talking to me. It helps.”
Really? The warmth inside me spread. Bo stood up as I ended the call. “Woooood waaaahb.”
I was pretty sure she was congratulating me, though it is possible she just wanted a walk.
Chapter Eleven
Over the next few days, Lakisha called often. She never talked for long, but updated me that the bleeding had not resumed, and so far, the baby appeared to be hanging in there. I found myself praying more and more frequently. The prayers were usually brief, and usually on my walks to and from work, but they felt more and more natural. I wouldn’t say I had made the full leap to faith, but I did think someone was listening.
Timothy came over and helped me with the online college forms. I could not submit them until I completed an essay. The essay topics were all a little overwhelming to me, but I only had to choose one. I decided to do the one about how had I made a difference in the world. I thought of Lakisha, and decided her story was tailor-made to that essay question.
I expected the essay to be a struggle for me, but once I got started, the words flowed out of me. I wondered if it was a good idea to mention God in my essay or if that would be a turn off to the people reading it. In the end, I thought of Jeremiah and how that whole book was about speaking the truth no matter what the consequences. I decided maybe the essay was a test of sorts, not from the admissions committee but from God. So I included the discussion from Lakisha the night she thought she was miscarrying and how my prayer, even when I wasn’t sure God existed, seemed to have made a difference. It wasn’t like I had cured cancer or some monumental difference in the world
like that, but I assumed there were very few college entrants who could claim that kind of an accomplishment.
I got all the forms and test scores submitted without a lot of time to spare if I were to apply in time for the spring semester. Not all colleges allowed that, but Mirror Lake University did. Since I was an older student and different from most freshmen students anyway, I wasn’t worried about being one of few Freshman students entering then. If I was accepted. A Big IF in my mind, but Timothy insisted it was a slam dunk. I did not let him read my essay. I was afraid I might burst his bubble. Now I just had to wait for the next month or so.
In that respect, Lakisha and I were in the same boat. Both of us were waiting for something we now had no control over. Her next ultrasound still showed the baby with a strong beating heart. She told me she could even see some details like the head and the umbilical cord. At the next ultrasound, when she would be about twelve weeks along, she said she would see a lot more. She asked me if I wanted to come with her. That really touched me. I said I would.
Then she asked if I wanted to go out for coffee with her. (She would have decaf, since she wasn’t allowed caffeine on account of the baby.) I agreed to that, realizing she was the first female friend my age I had had in years. None of the abortion workers were my friends, and I really had never had contact with anyone else my age ever since graduating from high school.
Talia told me that she was really excited that I had befriended Lakisha. She said so many of the women she worked with went back to the exact same environment that had led them to abortion in the first place with few if any pro-life voices helping them stay firm in a choice for life. Some returned to abort. She said I was really helpful in keeping Lakisha committed to her baby’s life.
It is true that Lakisha called regularly, but I don’t know if I did much to keep her focused on her baby living. She seemed to be unwavering in that choice, ever since Dee was out of the picture (currently in jail awaiting the trial for the assault of both of us.) I would be required to testify as would Lakisha. Both of us were scared to death, and talked about that a lot in our frequent phone calls.
Still, it was a little scary to agree to meet Lakisha for coffee. I had almost no practice in being a friend. Being a phone buddy was different from being face to face with someone. However, I knew it was important that I go.
Timothy came by almost every night, staying to work on his homework sitting next to me on the couch. I sometimes watched reruns of old movies, and sometimes I read. It was surprisingly comforting to have Timothy next to me, even though he was busy with homework. I imagine he was wondering what my thoughts were regarding marriage, but still, he never asked. He just sat next to me working away, chewing on his pencil, and occasionally smiling at me and patting my knee.
He was all for my meeting Lakisha for coffee, although he was a little worried that I didn’t really know her and her background was definitely not a good one. I pointed out that it could be no worse than my own. He said that was largely true, but I didn’t have anyone from my past attempting to murder my friends. I reminded him that Dee was in jail, but Timothy was concerned that there might be a pattern of troubled men in Lakisha’s past.
“Just be careful,” he urged on the day I was to meet her.
“I will,” I promised. “In fact, Bo is coming with me. It’s such a nice day we can sit outside at the Mirror Lake Café.”
Bo had saved my life when Dee attacked me. I figured she had earned the right to be my body-guard. Timothy agreed.
He turned out to be right about Lakisha’s past. As we sat sipping our coffee, Lakisha poured out a tale that I had a hard time believing, except I saw no reason for her to lie. She was raised by a single mom. She saw her brother murdered by drug addicts in front of her horrified eyes. Then they came after her but she ran and managed to dodge the bullets. Her mother gathered her terrified little family and moved North, to avoid testifying at the trial. She knew that they were all in danger if they tried to finger the perps. She also knew that if she and her little girl were to survive, they needed to leave that place.
They moved in and out of shelters, and sometimes lived on the street. Finally, a cousin took them in and the mom managed to find work and for a while, Lakisha had a relatively stable life. That peaceful interlude lasted till Lakisha graduated from high school, at which point her mother was diagnosed with cancer and died. Here, I let her know we shared that same particular trauma. She squeezed my hand and said her mom’s death sent her into a tailspin.
Lakisha met Dee, who offered her a place to live other than yet another shelter. Dee started off full of promises and kindness but that only lasted a few months. Drugs and gangs caused continual upheaval and soon Lakisha was back in the brutal world she and her mom had tried so hard to escape. Dee began beating her but she had no one to turn to, no place else to go. She kept hoping her love could change him.
“If I hadn’t met you and Talia, I would still be with him, killed my baby, and wondering if the next time he punched me would be the one that smashed my skull.”
I didn’t know what to say. My past world was bad, but could not hold a candle to horror like Lakisha’s world did.
“For the first time in my life, I feel hopeful again.”
“I thought you and your mom were all alone, “ I said, “But you live with your sister now. How does she fit in the story?”
“She was older. She left home while I was still a baby. She was determined to make something better out of her life. She was angry with my mom. Never spoke to her again after leaving, until right before she died. That is when she connected with me, but I was furious with her for abandoning our mother. It took me all the years I was with Dee to get over it. When he was arrested, the hospital found her. She was the only next of kin I had left. She has a kid, 6-years-old, and a good job. It broke her heart when Mom died and I left without telling her where I was going. She feels like she is making up to my mother by caring for me now.”
“I thought you told me your other child lives with your mom?”
“That’s not my real mom…but I call her my mom. She is an old neighbor who loved us and watched after us when mom died. When DSS tried to take my baby, she offered to adopt her.”
What a tangled web of misfortune follows terrible choices. I knew that from experience.
However, the entire coffee meeting was not total sorrow. She showed me photos of the latest ultrasound. We could even see the baby’s little hand. The doctor was confident that her pregnancy would proceed as normally as any pregnancy at this point. The baby was doing well and growing at exactly the expected rate. It was a miracle.
“God is giving me a second chance,” Lakisha said, “And I don’t plan to waste it. I just wish my mom were here to see that I am ok…and to see her grandbaby.”
Tears filled my eyes. I had the same wish. Mom had missed most of my life but she was always the one happy memory from my childhood.
“My mom always told me that God sent angels to watch over me,” Lakisha said. “That’s what you are.”
“Oh I am no angel,” I said. “Not by a long shot. If I had wings, they would be black.”
“You and Bo saved my life,” Lakisha said, “And my baby’s life. Talia helped too. Two angels I have.”
“Breeeeeeeeee wowowo.” That was from Bo.
“Right, three…” Lakisha agreed.
“What will you do now that Dee is out of the picture?”
“I will keep working. My sister says she will help with childcare. She says the place her daughter goes after school takes babies and there is a discount if two are from the same family. I will figure it out. Mom also said what God brings you to, He will bring you through.”
“My mom used to say that also,” I said smiling at the memory. “I didn’t really agree with her. He didn’t bring her through cancer.”
Lakisha slapped her hand down on the table, making Bo jump up from her curled-up nap at my feet.
“Now that’s the thing
I don’t get either. You could not meet someone more devoted to God than my mother. We didn’t lead the best life by a long shot, but she prayed, went to church, talked about God like He was her best friend. So when I get to have a few words with God, this is what I am going to ask Him: whazzup with killing my mom who was your biggest fan?”
I thought of Jeremiah. Amazing how that book dealt with the exact same issue.
“I want to ask the same thing. I started reading the Bible more. Really…for the first time. Just started. I guess I was mad at God about all that happened to me. Not that I didn’t deserve it. Most of my problems I brought on myself. I didn’t really bother with God. That’s what I read about in the story I was reading a few days ago. It was about the prophet Jeremiah.”
“I remember Him. Mama used to tell me he was a bullfrog in a pond of alligators. There was some song she used to sing that was popular at the time.”
Leashed to Faith Page 9
