A Sad Soul Can Kill You

by Catherine Flowers

  As the service came to an end, the pastor offered the invitation to anyone wanting to accept Jesus Christ into their life.

  “Are you ready?” he asked everyone sitting in the pews. “If you die today, do you have your ticket? Romans 10:17 says, ‘Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.’

  “And Hebrews 11:6 tells us, ‘. . . without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.’”

  Lorenzo stood up. He looked down at Tia and extended his hand. She smiled up at him, then stood and took his hand. Together, they walked to the front of the pulpit.

  The pastor continued. “Acts 2:38 says, ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’”

  More people joined Tia and Lorenzo at the altar, ready to answer the call, eager to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. The pastor began confirming each person’s public declaration. When he got to Lorenzo he took his hand. “Matthew 10:32 said, ‘Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven,’” he said.

  The pastor looked at Lorenzo. “Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and that He died on the cross for your sins?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you believe that on the third day, He rose from that death and now lives in heaven with God the Father?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you admit you’re a sinner, and have you repented of your sins?”

  “Oh yes,” Lorenzo said nodding his head fully. He squeezed Tia’s hand.

  The pastor continued. “Mark 16:16 said, ‘Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.’ Have you been baptized, brother?”

  “I have,” Lorenzo said. “But I want to be baptized again and rededicate myself to the Lord.”

  “Praise the Lord,” the pastor said shaking his hand. He motioned to Tony and another member of the congregation. “Please take Lorenzo and prepare him for water baptism.” The congregation began clapping their hands and praising God.

  The pastor approached Tia, and she gave him the card she’d filled out earlier. After he read it, he spoke. “Brothers and sisters,” he said, “Tia Sparks stands before God in repentance.” He looked at the card again. “And she’s rededicating herself to the Lord. Let us praise God for her decision.”

  The congregation began clapping again as Tia shook the pastor’s hand. She smiled at Serenity as she returned to her seat. After she sat down, Shari reached over and squeezed her hand.

  The past few months had been an accumulation of all that had been going on in Tia’s life. She knew she hadn’t done so well spiritually or emotionally. She had strayed from the path and taken a detour which had only led her to a cold and dark place.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the opening of the curtains behind the pulpit. She saw Lorenzo standing in a long white robe. Then Tony led him into the pond of water as the sanctuary grew silent.

  “Brothers and sisters,” Tony began, “Lorenzo Sparks has confessed that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and upon this confession I baptize him in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

  He lowered Lorenzo into the water and brought him back up swiftly.

  Applause broke out again as the congregation began to sing:

  “What can wash away my sins,

  nothing but the blood of Jesus . . .”

  After the church services ended, members of the congregation stopped to give Lorenzo a hug or handshake as they congratulated him on his baptism. They hugged Tia and all the other members who had rededicated themselves to Jesus, offering them many words of encouragement.

  “Praise the Lord,” Tony said giving Lorenzo a hug.

  Before he could say anything, Shari was next in line. “Congratulations,” she said as she gave him another hug.

  “Thank you,” he said. Lorenzo was elated. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so free. For the first time in his life he actually felt right . . . like what he was doing was the right thing to do. And this was only the beginning. He wouldn’t stop with just being baptized. This time, he intended to live a life that fully reflected his love, reverence, and praise for Jesus Christ. He would be the example of a man, a Christian man, that his family had needed for so long.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Tony and Lorenzo lingered behind as Shari and Tia headed to the church parking lot with the girls.

  “So, I guess I won’t be seeing you at the clinic anymore.” Lorenzo said to Tony.

  “Nope,” Tony said adjusting the wool collar on his coat. “Tomorrow I start my new full-time job.”

  The counseling position at the Christian-based treatment center in Waukegan had reviewed Tony’s online application and had called him in for an interview. During the interview, Tony had been up front about his five-year crack addiction. That, along with his testimony of having been delivered, and then staying clean for more than twenty-two years, resonated well with the director of the clinic. Days later, when Tony’s cell phone rang, he heard the words he’d been praying to hear.

  Not only had the director presented him with an offer for the job, but the position also came with an increase in pay. Now, he and Shari could get caught up on their bills a little faster . . . including the utility bill set for disconnection.

  “God is good,” Tony said smiling.

  “Yes, He is,” Lorenzo said. “Congratulations, man.”

  “I may not be at the clinic,” Tony said pulling on his leather gloves, “but I’m still just two houses down from you, and you know you can call me anytime.”

  “I know, and I do appreciate that.”

  “I mean I was never your counselor anyway,” Tony continued. “But now that I’m not working there, it’ll be easier to talk to you and support you without me having to worry about any kind of conflict of interest.”

  “Yeah, I hear you, man.”

  They opened the church doors and exited the building. The snow that had once covered the branches on the trees had dissipated into a thin layer. Lorenzo looked up toward the sky. Soon, the promising warmth from the sun would remove all visible traces of the icy remnants.

  “Talk to you later,” he said to Tony as he hurried to the car and opened the passenger door for Tia. He listened to her giggle—a sound he hadn’t heard in a long time—and he knew that not only was God giving him a second chance at life, He was giving him a second chance at his marriage.

  Lorenzo knew it would take a lot of work and effort on his part, but God, in His awesome mercy and grace, had heard his cries and had forgiven him. And Lorenzo would not take that for granted.

  Serenity ran to the car and climbed into the backseat. She looked at the back of her father’s head, and the image of him lying unconscious on the living-room floor suddenly returned to her memory. That’s what had started it all. She’d been scared, and in her panic, she’d ended up in front of that crazy man’s house. If her father hadn’t been on drugs she would have never . . . She stopped herself.

  She could see that Lorenzo was changing. She’d been watching him since he’d started going to the treatment center. She noticed how he didn’t slur his words anymore and how he wasn’t always sleeping on the couch like he used to. Since the kidnapping, her father had actually begun standing at the front door every day waiting for the school bus she rode on to pull into the cul-de-sac.

  “You don’t have to do this every day,” she’d told him. “It’s okay.”

  “Yes, I do,” he’d responded. “This is my way of making sure I stay on top of what’s going on.”

  She remembered his sad smile, and she’d wanted to believe what the youth pastor had said—that parents weren’t perfect but really did love their children.

  “I should have been doing it any
way,” he’d mumbled as she’d shrugged and walked past him into the house.

  Lorenzo turned to look at Serenity. “Got your seat belt on?”

  She pulled the latch down and across her waist until it caught in the holder. “Yep,” she said.

  “What’s the matter?” he looked at her intensely. “Why are you looking like that?”

  “Looking like what?”

  “Like you’re thinking about something real serious.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, remember what I told you,” he said.

  “What?”

  “About my story.”

  “Oh, that,” Serenity said. Lorenzo had revealed his story of abuse to Serenity shortly after he’d told Tia. “I wasn’t thinking about that.”

  “Okay, I just want to make sure. Because that’s what I was doing—thinking about that for twenty-seven years—and look where it got me.”

  She nodded her head.

  He reached back and gently squeezed her cheek. “Thank God for delivering me,” he said.

  Serenity smiled as he turned back around. Something her grandmother had said to her during one of their visits suddenly returned to her memory.

  “A sad soul can kill you,” her grandmother had said. “You remember that.”

  Somehow Serenity knew she always would, and in the backseat of the car she whispered “thank you” to God for keeping her father alive.

  Tia sat in the front seat next to Lorenzo silently thanking God as well. Her emotions, fractured as they were, had begun to reconnect. Her heart expanded as she looked over at him. And she thanked God again for what she was feeling.

  Through her darkest days, God had continued to love and nurture her like no one else could. He had placed her feet back on solid ground, and she would not make the same mistake twice. Her soul had been replenished, her strength renewed. She knew that whatever else was to come she would overcome it just as long as she called on the name of the Lord for her strength.

  Tia turned the volume up on the radio as Lorenzo pulled out of the parking lot. The sound of a woman’s powerful voice sang in an upbeat tempo, and halfway through the song Tia joined in with the singer.

  Both Serenity and Lorenzo listened to Tia’s voice, strong and clear, as she sang “I Got The Victory” from the bottom of her soul.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  The following week, Tia and Lorenzo were on their way to their first counseling session together. As Tia drove past the cemetery, Lorenzo’s thoughts returned to the water baptism he’d received on Sunday.

  “You know what was odd about my baptism?” he asked Tia.

  “No, what?”

  “The water.”

  “The water?”

  “Yeah,” he said passionately. “It was ice cold going under, but I kid you not . . .” he repositioned himself, “. . . I felt this warm sensation when I came back up.”

  Tia continued driving as Lorenzo silently watched the tombstones erected above the ground pass swiftly before his eyes. He turned his head until he could no longer see any of the grave sites.

  “There but for the grace of God go I,” he said.

  “Amen,” Tia said in agreement.

  Lorenzo turned his attention back to the counseling session he and Tia would soon have. “Now that Tony’s been offered a full-time position at the treatment center in Waukegan, I guess I won’t be seeing him at the clinic anymore.”

  “You sound like you’re a little sad about that,” Tia said poking him softly in the side.

  “Maybe a little. I mean, he wasn’t my counselor or anything, but he was the one who did the initial intake, and, I don’t know, he really made me feel comfortable.” He stared out the window. “Especially when I found out he used to be on drugs.” He turned back to face Tia. “Did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t. Shari never told me.”

  “I guess the past is the past,” Lorenzo said. “Unless you’re using it to help somebody else, there’s no point in going around saying, ‘Hey, look at me. I used to be a drug addict!’”

  They both laughed at the silliness of what he was saying. But the part about using the past to help someone else remained in Lorenzo’s thoughts.

  Fifteen minutes later, they entered the clinic, and Lorenzo checked them both in at the front desk. He sat down next to Tia and noticed a man sitting in the chair right across from him. Lorenzo recognized the look of despair in the man’s eyes; a little over a month ago, he might have been looking at a reflection of himself.

  Since he’d started counseling, Lorenzo had come to understand that his addiction to the pills was really just a symptom of his underlying issue—one that had gone unresolved for too many years. Turning to pills may have started out as a method of escapism from a painful past, but once the pills became a habit, his escapism quickly transpired into a ball and chain.

  He’d come to realize that all he’d ended up doing was trading the memory of a painful past for a recurring and unpleasant experience in the here and now. And he hadn’t even had enough sense to see that.

  But for the grace of God he would still be imprisoned. He knew Jesus was the answer just like Tony, the other counselors, and all the members in his group meetings said He was. Jesus held the key. Lorenzo may have opened the door at some point, but he never really let Him in.

  A counselor came to the door and called out a name. The man sitting across from Lorenzo stood up and walked slowly toward the counselor. Lorenzo watched him until the door swung close behind him. Then Lorenzo leaned toward Tia. “Guess what.”

  She turned toward him. “What?”

  “I think I want to be a counselor.”

  She arched her eyebrows. “Really?”

  “Yeah,” Lorenzo said as he scanned the room. “I do.” He counted twenty-one other clients all waiting to be seen by a counselor. They stood or sat with their shoulders slumped and their spirits broken, making small talk and joking with one another while their eyes conveyed a message of lost hope. “I want to do what Tony and all the other counselors did for me.”

  “You mean getting you off those pills?”

  “No, that was God,” he said staring off into space. “Tony and the other counselors were just the tools God used to get to me. Now, I want Him to use me to do the same thing for other people.”

  “I think that’s beautiful,” Tia said.

  “Yeah, and with God’s help, I’m going to get my act together so I can counsel others and share my testimony too.” He began nodding his head. “One day, I’m going to be the light for somebody else.”

  “You already are,” Tia said and squeezed his hand.

  Lorenzo smiled. Yes, God had delivered him out of the darkness, and he was going to be a living testimony to what the power of God can do for anyone who calls in earnest on His name.

  God was the true path to deliverance and freedom. It was a proven truth, a proven cure, and Lorenzo knew he couldn’t keep that to himself. His heart and soul would not allow it. Not this time.

  Epilogue

  Homer sat at the table in the county jail and looked at the attorney the court had appointed for him. He took note of her polished ability to stare him straight in the eye and try to fool him with her smile. He didn’t trust her. He knew she was just like everyone else . . . smiling in his face while determining which part of his back that knife she kept sharpened would go into. And just because she was all dressed up and called herself an attorney didn’t make her any different. That’s just the way women were, and that’s exactly why he wasn’t going to admit to any wrongdoing.

  “I’m not pleading guilty,” he said to the attorney. “Let’s get that clear now.”

  “If you go for a trial jury,” she said, “it’s not going to look good for you.”

  Homer was adamant. “I’m not pleading guilty. I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t do anything those girls didn’t want me to do.”

  The attorney sighed. “You realize they were mino
rs, and that makes it against the law, right?”

  “I didn’t do anything they didn’t want me to do,” Homer repeated.

  The attorney closed her notebook and stuffed it, along with all her other papers, into her briefcase. She looked at him once more before she stood up to leave. “We’ll talk again next week,” she said before leaving the visitor’s room.

  Homer snickered to himself as he watched her walk away. He was escorted back to the common room and walked slowly to one of several round tables that were scattered throughout the room. The tables, with four metal legs connected to small round areas for sitting, reminded Homer of silver spiders bolted to the floor.

  He sat down at an empty table in the corner of the room and began to look at the books situated on an antiquated bookshelf several feet away. He scanned the variety of paperback and hardcover books on the shelf and suspected they were just as old as the piece of furniture they sat on. He heard a voice behind him and turned around quickly.

  Three inmates were lowering themselves down onto the remaining round metal seats. One of them was a tall, athletic man who the other two inmates referred to as Big Butch. The second one was just as tall but slender, and the third inmate was short with a stocky build.

  The voices blaring from the television bolted on the wall blended in with the voices of all the inmates. Homer pointed to his ear.

  “I said what are you in here for?” Big Butch repeated.

  Homer waved his hand. “Just some bogus charges,” he said.

  “What kind of charges?”

  Homer studied the massive bulge created in the inmate’s arms when he placed his elbows on the table. “Some girls accused me of doing some things I didn’t do.”

  “Oh yeah?” the short stocky inmate said and glanced at Big Butch. “What kind of things?”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” the slender inmate said. “We’re being rude. We didn’t even introduce ourselves. I’m Stony,” he said. He pointed to the short, stocky inmate. “This here is Chunky.”