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I choked back my brewing tears and smiled, squinting a little to see the woman beside me more clearly. From her voice and sense of humor, I knew she was the one who’d made the crack before about this room being the other woman’s own personal pulpit. I wasn’t quite sure what she’d meant by that, either, but if I got to know this lady better, I’d be sure to ask. With her blond curls clearly in view, I realized with a shock, this must be the model-thin mother all the men spoke about, the one who always wore her old jeans back to church after each baby. The one husbands compared their wives to. Perhaps I should have taken the seat next to the other woman after all.
A friend must show herself friendly.
I sighed. Over and over, I’d prayed for friends at the church and every time, this scripture came to my mind. Today, I needed to suck it up and obey. I’d made enough messes for one morning. “You used to do stuff like that before? Before what? It sounds like this used to be a fun place.”
The woman moved closer, extending both hands. Her baby must have been the little boy in the swing. “It was a fun place. But like I said, that was before…all the cliques, all the rules.”
“Shh! Please be quiet back there. The Word of God is about to go forth. Have some respect,” the deacon’s wife said in a much less friendly tone than she’d started with in the hall.
The woman next to me laughed quietly. “That means her service is about to begin. Listen up, you’ll get an earful. I have a feeling you’re going to be our object lesson for the morning. Don’t let it get you down, though. And don’t let this room get you down, either. It used to be called the Breathing Room. It’s only the Cry Room if you let it be.”
“Quiet, puleeeeeze!”
Lily started crying at the sound of Sister Hawkins’s loud voice, the same way she did at home lately when Ryan screamed into the phone while talking to his business partners. I tried to hush her quickly so I wouldn’t be sent out of yet another room. I’d thought myself so blessed when I got married. Ryan had what every good girl dreamed of, especially one who’d been fat all her life and never had a date.
He was a Christian, a genius and fine, to boot. No other guy loved computers the way I did, and talking with him about open-source software and graphics programs had taken many of our dates long into the night. What had never come up was his workaholic tendencies. Oh, and his freaky relationship with his mother. That one was most definitely left out of the equation.
As Dana pointed out, though, I should have had a clue when his mother took over all the wedding planning and ordered those ugly pink bridesmaids’ dresses. Straight out of Gone with the Wind those things were. I think back now and know how good my friends were to even wear them. I wasn’t thinking about my friends at the time, though; I had only one thing on my mind, becoming Ryan’s wife.
Lily tugged at my shirt and I gladly obliged her hunger. At least I could meet someone’s expectations today. Slightly louder than the music had been, the pastor’s voice filled the room. The baby grabbed my finger at the sound of the man’s rich timbre, one she’d heard often when I replayed sermons in the house.
If I was honest, Pastor Dre, the younger son of the Reverend Redding, the man who’d pastored during Ryan’s youth, was a much better orator than my pastor back in Leverhill. This young pastor’s sermons were lively and contemporary and he had a great sense of humor, but like many other up-and-coming pastors I’d met, he didn’t seem to know how to connect with people. Sometimes he seemed so focused on his programs that I wasn’t sure he even liked the members, let alone loved them.
The people seemed to regard him more as a prince than a servant, and the gold lacquer thrones that he and his wife sat on behind the pulpit had almost sent me running out of the sanctuary my first Sunday here. Still, this was my husband’s church, and somehow, I had to make it mine, too. Even if it meant losing me in the process.
“We see through a glass darkly,” the preacher said. “We look in the mirror and think we see who we are, but we’re not looking in God’s mirror, we’re seeing the reflections of other people and who they want us to be. You need to take a look in the mirror of God’s Word and see what things are really looking like. That nice suit might be looking good in the natural, but in the spiritual, well, you could be wearing rags. You might look in the mirror and see a mother with dark circles under her eyes, but when reflected in God’s Word, you are a beautiful woman, wise and valued far above rubies.”
The tears I’d been holding back broke free and streamed down my face. I’d been looking at myself, at this church, at my husband through the mirrors of everyone but God. Sure, Ryan was different from my friends’ husbands, but I was different from them, too. So breast-feeding had made me gain weight instead of lose it as everyone said it would. I was doing something good for my baby. Maybe this room, this place I’d fought tooth and nail to stay out of, would be a blessing, too.
My neighbor’s fingers reached out for mine. She held my hand tightly for a few seconds and then let it go. She didn’t turn to look at me or even say a word, but it meant so much just to have someone touch me, to have someone care.
The room blurred as I held my baby closer and let the pain of the morning run out of me with hot, wet tears. Unfortunately, Lily was used to my silent crying and she finished her feeding quietly. The morning had started off with me on the pew next to Ryan, praying he’d notice my new perfume and the prepregnancy skirt I’d worked out every day the week before to squeeze into. (Again, there was elastic in the waist, but still…it counted for something.)
I tried to remind myself that Ryan had fallen in love with me while I was heavier than this and he loved me now that my pregnancy pounds seemed stuck to my frame.
But today, he didn’t notice my skirt. He didn’t notice me at all. He’d spent most of the time before service explaining to his mother why I didn’t usually pass Lily down the row to her and the other older women.
“Lily will start to spend more time with you as she gets older. For now, though, Tracey’s trying to be a good mom and I think she’s doing a great job.” He’d actually sounded proud of me in that moment and I remember smiling and feeling beautiful. Feeling strong.
Those feelings were short-lived.
Ryan was the king of church etiquette now that we’d moved back to his home church, though he’d been a free spirit when we were both in the singles’ group back at Broken Bread Fellowship in Leverhill. No matter how much you think you know a person, you never really know every part of them. You’re lucky if you really get to know yourself. Dana tried to tell me that, too. Oh well.
Although the embarrassment of being ushered out of the sanctuary by my own husband weighed heavy on my mind, it was his words that pressed the hardest against my heart, not his actions.
Get over it.
It was the same thing he told the managers of his company all the time. Still, he’d never said it to me.
Until now.
“Church family, please welcome the newest member of the ministerial team here at Promised Land Worship Center, Ryan Blackman! Many of you will remember his father, Robert, who served here for many years. Ryan is an accomplished businessman, as well. Some of you are running his software on your computers at home. His wife is back there with the baby, but you can shake both their hands on the way out today. Ryan will be heading up the youth division of Christian Education. Give him a hand!”
My tears stopped and the Cry Room came into view again, this time allowing me to see my husband approach the pulpit. Say what? The minister of whom? My heart seemed to stop as Ryan took a seat behind the pulpit, next to the pastor. I could hear Sister Hawkins groaning from where I sat. My heart seemed to stop, but I knew it couldn’t have, because I was still breathing. (I was, wasn’t I?)
“All these years that my Reginald has been a deacon here and then Pastor goes and puts another young guy on the ministerial staff. Well, that’s how it goes, I guess.” Sister Hawkins looked over at me, no longer beating around the bush. “You’d better get your act together though if you’re going to deal with those ministers’ wives…they’ll eat you alive, honey.”
“Like she would know,” my new friend the next seat over whispered, barely moving her lips.
I could only watch in shock as my husband was congratulated. Youth? Was this some kind of joke? Ryan barely had time for his own daughter. How could this be happening?
The woman next to me extended her hand again. (Why couldn’t I remember her name? Probably because I’d been calling her Skinny Woman in my mind since coming here.) Brenna Ross. I’d seen her name and face on the screen as one of the ministers’ wives. Her husband was the minister of music, a dark-haired hunk who all the visiting college girls went crazy for. At least I didn’t have that to deal with. She pulled me toward her and hugged me.
“I hope you were listening to the sermon,” Brenna whispered. “Get the tape and hear it again. See yourself as God sees you. You don’t have to look good in anyone else’s mirror. Keep your eyes on Christ. He’s got his eyes on you. Call me. I’m in the directory.”
I nodded and swallowed hard as she let me go, thankful for what seemed to be my first real friend since coming here. Thankful too that the glass separating me from my husband, the glass that I’d once thought was a mirror, seemed to have a different purpose after all—to make me see a new me, a woman made into Christ’s image instead of her own.
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