The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Decked Out

by Neta Jackson

  Josh was standing in the larger of the two rooms of the small studio, arms folded, turning slowly around in a 360.

  “Josh?”

  He looked my way. “Oh, hi, Mom. So that room”—he pointed toward the smaller room—“is the bedroom. Bathroom over there. And this room was—”

  “Everything else.” I grinned. “Kitchen, living room, sitting room. Becky had it fixed kinda cute, but it just got too small with Little Andy growing up.”

  “Uh-huh. And what are the Hickmans going to do with it now?”

  “Well, they’d like to find another renter, but as you can see . . .”

  A funny grin spread across my son’s face. “I think they just found one.”

  13

  Josh disappeared down the stairs, pulled Carl and Florida aside, and in two blinks the deal was done.

  “Thank ya, Jesus!” Florida laughed like a giddy schoolgirl as she shut the front door behind the moving J crew. “I been askin’ God to bring someone to live in that oversize closet up there, but sure wasn’t expectin’Him to drop the answer in our lap before the movin’ truck even pulled away. Oh, Jesus! You are good, so good!”

  I was still blinking. The sensation that events surrounding this wedding had just hit warp speed left me emotionally dizzy. “Well.” I sat down on Florida’s couch. “My goodness.” I watched as Florida gathered up dirty towels from her front room floor. “That was quick.”

  “Ain’t that just like God, Jodi? Oh, Jesus! Hallelujah.” Florida burst into a couple of bars of “He’s an On Time God,” dancing around her living room with an armload of dirty towels.

  “But if that tiny apartment was too small for Becky and Little Andy, how’s it going to be big enough for three people?” I shook my head. “Doesn’t make sense.”

  “Now look here, Jodi Baxter. Don’t you go questioning how God supplies a need. When Mary and Joseph got to Bethlehem, ridin’ that donkey and her nine months pregnant—Lord, have mercy! Don’t know how she did it!—I think they were downright grateful when God provided a stable. Now your son and his bride need a place right quick, somethin’ they can afford. An’ we just happen to have an empty apartment where they can move right in. Humph. Makes sense to me.”

  They needed something they could afford, all right. “Like . . . how much rent?”

  Florida got right in my face. “That is none of your business. If your son wants to tell you, fine with me. But he’s grown now, Jodi. He and Edesa are workin’ things out—an’ looks to me as if God is workin’ things out too. Say, you mind pickin’ up all them paper plates and napkins? I gotta get a trash bag for these towels so we can take ’em to the Laundromat later on.” She disappeared into the kitchen.

  Thank Me for My provision, Jodi.

  I took a deep breath. Right, Lord. It wasn’t up to me to work out all the details of this roller-coaster ride. I only had a walk-on part in this drama, but it was an essential one: Don’t worry . . .Trust God . . . Pray . . . Praise God for all His benefits.

  All His benefits. Like a washing machine.

  “Hey, Flo!” I hollered, as I started picking up the paper trash scattered all over the compact living room. “Let me take those towels home and wash ’em, okay? You’ve got enough to do without a trip to the Laundromat. I’ll bring them to church.”

  IF I THOUGHT the move was the biggest event of the day, I thought wrong. When Denny and Amanda picked me up at the Hickmans’ after moving Becky into her new apartment, Amanda was bouncing all over the seat. “Mom! Estelle is going to make Edesa’s dress for the wedding, and mine too! But we need to buy the material—is that okay? I mean, it’ll be cheaper than going to Nordstrom or Lord & Taylor or someplace.”

  Lord Taylor! Ha! Never in a zillion years had I even considered the possibility. Bless Estelle. “Um, sure, honey. Has Edesa got a pattern picked out?”

  “No! That’s what so neat. She said I could pick out a pattern I liked since she’s only having one bridesmaid. But she’d like red material, since it’s Christmas. Do you think red is my color?” Amanda prattled on, but it suddenly occurred to me that I was going to need a dress for this wedding too. The only thing I had in my closet remotely dressy was black and slinky. “ . . . pick out the material today since she only has a week to work on it.”

  “Today?” Of course today, you nincompoop. The wedding is next Saturday. I tried not to panic. I’d been looking forward to getting off my feet for an hour, making a Christmas gift list, maybe doing some Christmas baking—not to mention I’d offered to wash Florida’s towels, we still had to shop for groceries, and I had papers to grade. I needed two minutes to think.

  “Yeah. Edesa and Delores are coming by to pick up Estelle and go to Vogue Fabrics in Evanston. Estelle said this would be the best time for you and me to go too.”

  Denny had zoned out of the conversation, intent on jockeying the minivan through the ice ruts in our alley and into the garage. For a nanosecond, I was tempted to say, “Oh, you go ahead.”Me, the martyr with the banged-up ankle.

  I took a deep breath. Nope. My daughter was asking me to go along. God was in control, wasn’t He? All things were going to work together for good . . . Time for plan B, Jodi. Don’t worry. Trust God. Pray. Praise.

  “Ah . . . okay. Tell you what. I need to get off this ankle for a while if we’re going to go shopping. So I need you to wash these muddy towels for Florida—I promised to bring them back to her tomorrow.” Denny, bless his heart, didn’t know it yet, but he was going out again to do the grocery shopping.

  “GUESS WHO CAME by while you were gone?” Denny said as I flopped onto the couch after our marathon shopping trip to Vogue Fabric.

  “Can’t guess,” I moaned. “I’m exhausted. Put five women age eighteen to fifty-two in a fabric store, trying to choose a pattern and material for an opinionated teenage bridesmaid, while the bride and the ‘mother of the bride’ are arguing in Spanish half the time and . . . you get the idea.”

  “Who’s fifty-two? You’re only forty-six.”

  I closed my eyes, sinking deeper into the couch cushions. “Estelle,” I murmured. “She’s amazing. She cut through the non-sense . . . now she’s got Edesa and Amanda upstairs taking measurements and fitting patterns.” I opened one eye. “Who came by?”

  “Hakim Porter.”

  “Hakim!” I rolled up on one elbow. “What did he want?”

  “Asked if we wanted our walks shoveled again.”

  I vaguely remembered a shoveled walk when we returned from shopping, which is what it needed after yesterday’s snowfall. I snickered and sank back on the cushions. “You sucker. You said yes. Did you get a chance to talk to him?”

  Denny sat down on the hassock and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Not really. He seemed disappointed that you weren’t here. Asked a couple of times if you were all right. But, funny thing, he was wearing shades . . . ”

  “Oh, you know, kids want to be cool.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t think so. He seemed nervous, like he didn’t want me to get too close to him. But when I gave him the money for shoveling the walks, I got a closer look . . . and I’m pretty sure he had a black eye and some bruises on his face.”

  “Oh no!” This time I sat up. “What happened? Did he say?”

  Denny shook his head. “I asked, but he brushed it off. Disappeared pretty quick after that.” He frowned, and then eyed me thoughtfully. “Any chance someone at his house is hitting him?”

  “What? You mean his mother? No, no, I don’t think she’d . . .” No, I couldn’t imagine Geraldine Wilkins-Porter abusing her child. But then again, how well did I know the woman? She had had a lot of anger, true, but it had been directed at me—angry that her oldest child was dead, angry that the charges of vehicular manslaughter against me had been dropped. But Hakim? She was overly protective of him, if anything. At least she had been when he was in third grade.

  “Oh, Denny, now I’m worried. What if some gangbangers beat him up? Or . . . I don’t know. We nee
d to pray for him.”

  Denny nodded, taking my extended hand. I could tell he was worried too.

  THE HOUSE WAS still quiet when I schlepped into the living room in the blue half-light of early morning with the laundry basket of the Hickmans’ clean towels. Shivering inside Denny’s bathrobe, I plugged in the Christmas tree. Instantly, the multicolored lights bathed the room in quiet expectation. A childhood joy bubbled in my chest. It was beginning to look like Christmas.

  Except there wasn’t a single gift under the tree.

  But the stable was there under the branches, with its wooden cow and donkey, and a tiny manger filled with bits of straw. Amanda had hidden baby Jesus until Mary and Joseph—currently “riding toward Bethlehem” along the windowsills—arrived on Christmas Eve. The shepherds and their assorted wooden sheep were already “abiding in the fields” on the coffee table; the three magi and their wooden camels, of course, had to start out in the dining room, the closest we came to a “far country.”

  It was a game Amanda and Josh had played ever since they were small, moving the nativity figures closer and closer to their destiny under the tree Christmas Eve.

  I sat on the hassock, the room lit only by the Christmas tree lights, and pulled the laundry basket of clean towels within folding distance. Today was the last Sunday of Advent. Next Sunday was Christmas Day. Between now and then . . . Ack! I didn’t even want to think about it.

  Just enjoy the hush of this moment, Jodi, the Voice in my spirit seemed to say. Carry that inner stillness with you into the coming week. Think about the old, old story which is ever new.

  I folded the Hickmans’ towels, one by one, trying to meditate on the Christmas story. But I found myself thinking about Hakim, who just happened to show up on our doorstep unannounced, two and a half years after I’d been his third grade teacher. Jesus, I don’t understand why You brought Hakim back into my life right now. I mean, it’s not as if he’s the only one in the world who could shovel our walks. Why Hakim? Why now? A quirky coincidence? Or . . . did You send him for a reason? I’m worried about him, Lord. Please protect him. Don’t let anyone hurt him.

  The Voice in my spirit was assuring. Keep your eyes and your ears tuned to My Voice, Jodi. You’ll understand the reason . . .

  I put the last folded towel back into the basket and reached for my Bible. I’d been reading Paul’s letter to the Colossians in the New Testament ever since Avis quoted something from that book to encourage me a week or two ago. But now was as good a time as any to reread the Christmas story from Luke’s Gospel.

  The familiar words brought with them a flood of memories. The first time a youth group leader in our Bible church back in Des Moines, Iowa, had told us Mary was probably a teenager, maybe fifteen or sixteen, just like some of us, we were deliciously scandalized. Pregnant! No husband! No one believed her, of course. Not Joseph. Not her parents—

  Huh. At the time, I always identified with poor, misunderstood Mary. But what about her parents? The Bible didn’t say anything about her parents. But they must have been so disappointed. And then terrified. What if Joseph denounced their daughter’s “unfaithfulness” and had her stoned? But he was a good man, who said he would just break off the engagement “quietly.” And then, the next thing they knew, Joseph wanted a hurry-up wedding. He would take responsibility for the child as his own! Because (he said) an angel had told him in a dream not to be afraid.

  Their parents must have thought they were crazy!

  Just like me . . .

  The Bible slipped from my lap. I stared at the stable, the humble birthplace of Jesus, under the tree. Joseph and Mary had put themselves on the line for a Baby who messed up all their plans—just like Josh and Edesa were doing for little Gracie. Even though their parents and others didn’t understand. Even though there was “no room in the inn” for them . . .

  It’s time, Jodi, whispered the Voice in my spirit. Time to make room in the inn of your heart for this hurry-up wedding and this unconventional child.

  14

  I can’t explain it. It was almost as if an angel had shown up in my living room and said, “Don’t be afraid. The child I’m giving to Edesa and Josh is God’s child, and I’ve chosen themto be her parents.”

  Nothing had changed . . . and yet a sweet joy started to bubble up within my spirit, tiny flutters of excitement reminiscent of the magic I used to feel as a child at Christmastime—except this was real Christmas, and the exhilaration was deeper and more urgent. I wanted to run . . . run like the shepherds and tell somebody, tell everybody, that what the angel said was true! God was alive among His people, working out His purpose—and I didn’t need to be afraid!

  Instead, I made a beeline for the kitchen phone as fast as my gimpy foot allowed, and dialed Josh’s cell phone. It rang six times before he picked up. “Yeahumph?”

  “Josh? Oh. Did I wake you?”

  Two seconds of silence. “Mom. It’s only, uh . . . 6:50.”

  “I’m sorry. Just wanted to tell you that you and Edesa are doing the right thing—going ahead with the wedding and the adoption, I mean. God told me it’s all right.”

  Another brief silence. “Thanks, Mom. That means a lot.

  Really.”

  “School doesn’t let out until Friday, which is a huge bummer! But if there’s anything I can do . . . ”

  “I’m sure there’ll be something, Mom. Just take care of your-self.” I heard a click.

  I hung up the phone sheepishly. “Huh. That was kind of dumb, waking him up just to tell him that,” I murmured aloud, the way I used to do when Willie Wonka was underfoot. But I grinned. I didn’t care. Back in the living room, I put on a CD of Christmas carols by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, selected the funky Caribbean track I liked, and turned up the volume. “Christ-mas!Christ-mas! First day of the Son . . . !” Made me want to dance.

  It was time for Denny and Amanda to get up anyway if we were going to get to church on time.

  Not that they came out of their bedrooms singing and dancing. In fact, I got a bleary look from Amanda on her way to the bathroom, and a shout from Denny: “Jodi! Where’s my bathrobe?”

  I tossed Denny’s robe into the bedroom and headed for the kitchen in my sleepshirt to make waffles. On my way through the dining room, I lit the fourth candle on our table Advent wreath and smiled. Well, let Denny and Amanda hear their own angel.

  THE TEENS HAD decorated the sanctuary after the potluck last Sunday, and the room glowed. White lights outlined the large “storefront” windows, garlands of artificial greens and more lights adorned the walls, and a stunning banner in purple, red, and gold hung on the wall behind the low platform, proclaiming IMMANUEL! GOD WITH US ~ WONDERFUL COUNSELOR,MIGHTY GOD, EVERLASTING FATHER, PRINCE OF PEACE.

  I drank it in, reflecting on each of the beautiful names of Jesus. But curiosity got the best of me. I said aloud to no one in particular, “Who made the beautiful banner?”

  “Estelle Williams, I am told,” said a familiar accent behind me.

  The hairs on my neck stood up, as if someone had shuffled their feet across a carpet and zapped me with static. I whirled.

  “Hoshi!” I screeched, throwing my arms around the tall, willowy young woman standing behind me. Then I held her at arm’s length, drinking in the very sight of her. Hoshi Takahashi’s jet-black hair hung long and silky down to her shoulders, softening her long face. Her bow-shaped smile pushed up her cheeks, turning her almond eyes into happy slits. “Hoshi Takahashi, you nearly gave me a heart attack! What are you doing here? When did you get back? You didn’t tell us!”

  “She told me.” Peter Douglass leaned over Hoshi’s shoulder and grinned. “I picked her up at O’Hare last night.”

  “So Avis . . . where’s Avis! She knew, too, and didn’t tell us?”

  Peter moved off, chuckling.

  “I am so happy to see you again, Jodi!” Hoshi took both of my hands in her long, slim ones. “I have missed Yada Yada so much. When I got Edesa’s e-mail about the w
edding, I could not wait.” She glanced around the large room. “Will Josh and Edesa be here today?”

  I giggled. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything! They’re trying to plan a wedding . . . trying to move . . . trying to adopt . . . it’s been a bit crazy around here.”

  I saw Florida and crew coming in the door, letting in a blast of frigid air, with Stu and Estelle right behind them and knew bedlam would break out when they saw Hoshi. I grabbed her in one last hug. “Oh, Hoshi, thank you so much for coming home.”

  THE ADVENT DANCERS that Sunday were even lovelier than before. Their dance was relaxed and lyrical, and I caught them glancing at Amanda, their dance coach, proud to show how well she had taught them. The lighting of a candle as we sang each verse of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” heightened the sense of expectation that had been building all month. And then the fourth candle was lit as we sang:

  O come, Desire of nations, bind

  All peoples in one heart and mind . . .

  A promise yet to be fulfilled? It seemed like God had a long way to go to “bind all peoples” into one heart and mind. And yet—it was happening, in spite of governments and war and politics. Hoshi had come to us as a student from Japan . . . Edesa from Honduras . . . Nony had gone back to South Africa . . . I grew up in Iowa . . . Florida and Yo-Yo had been raised on the streets of Chicago . . . Delores’s extended family was still in Mexico . . . Chanda had immigrated from Jamaica. Every one my sister because of Jesus. Jesus had made us one.

  I was drained by the time the service was over. Even the scripture that morning from Isaiah 40 had rained like new words on my ears: “‘Comfort, yes, comfort My people!’ says your God . . . the crooked places shall be made straight, and the rough places smooth; the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”

  I still wasn’t sure what had happened to me that morning. I couldn’t begin to explain it to Denny, or to my Yada Yada sisters who swarmed all over Hoshi after the service, excited to meet at Avis’s apartment that night and hear all about her months in Japan. All I knew is that the reality of Immanuel—“God with us” was not just something that happened two thousand years ago, but was still happening right now, in my life—me, Jodi Marie Baxter—and I felt comforted.