Been There Prayed That (9781622860845) (21 page)

Broady looked among the congregation. “But I was sick. I knew I was sick; that I had a problem. I knew it was something that nobody or nothing could fix. Not a judge and not time in prison. The same way the name of Jesus had delivered me from catching that bullet in the head, I knew only the name of Jesus could deliver me from that demon inside of me. The same way the power in just the name of Jesus had delivered me from the angel of death, I knew if I sought Him to deliver me from the pedophilic demon, He would do that too, and He did. I came out of prison a changed man after serving a five year sentence.”

There were hallelujahs and Amens among the congregation.

“Of course I was stripped of my license to work in the state of Arizona school system, so I came back here to Ohio, where to this day I still walk in my deliverance.” Broady said this with such proudness. He was glowing in victory. It was apparent the devil had been defeated in his life.

“Once delivered,” he continued, “like anybody who's ever gotten delivered from something, there is always a chance of backsliding if you choose not to walk in that deliverance. I needed to know that a watchful fleshly eye, not just the eyes of God, were watching me; holding me accountable for my actions. That's why I make it a point to share with those in my life that thing I've been delivered from. And it don't make me feel ashamed that the other youth ministry leaders won't leave me alone with the youth during any youth ministry events and functions. It don't make me ashamed that neighbors won't let their children come over my house and swim in my pool unless the parents come with them. It's just a constant reminder that God has His hand on me and my deliverance through His people. And I thank God for all of you.” Broady's voice began to break as tears filled his eyes. “Especially for my wife-to-be, who didn't hold my past against me. Who still agreed to take my hand in marriage and marry the man who I am today, not the man I was yesterday. Glory be to God!” he shouted.

Eleanor walked over and embraced her husband-to-be as the congregation shouted out praises unto God for delivering their brother in Christ.

Lorain's eyes filled with tears as well. She felt so embarrassed, and it showed all over her face. She wondered if her mother would ever forgive her for humiliating her fiancé in such a way. But a half hour later, after offering and benediction and when stepfather-to-be was walking Lorain and Eleanor to their car, the same way God had restored and forgiven Broady, both Eleanor and Broady had done the same for Lorain.

“Again, Mr. Broady, I'm so sorry,” Lorain apologized. “It's just that all these visions started popping up in my head, and I didn't know what was going on. Then Mother put me on the spot—”

“It's okay, sweetheart. Really it is,” Broady said as he put his hand on Lorain's shoulder. Lorain turned to look at him. Something about her seemed so familiar to him. Truth be told, he thought she'd looked familiar the first time he'd seen her. “You know, you look like somebody I know. I just can't put my finger on it,” Broady pondered.

“Uh, hello,” Eleanor said, clearing her throat. “Could it be her mama? The woman you are about to marry?”

“Oh, yeah, I guess that's it,” Broady concluded, although in the back of his mind it felt like he knew Lorain from somewhere else. Then again, perhaps Eleanor was right, so he just shook the thought away. “What do you two say we go eat somewhere? How does that sound? My treat.”

“Sounds good to me,” Eleanor declared. “Since you're buying, you lead the way to where you want to chow down, and we'll follow you.”

Broady headed to his car as Lorain and Eleanor got inside of theirs.

“Viola Lorain,” Eleanor said to her daughter, calling her by her real first name and middle name, “I thought I was gon' have to ring your neck back there in God's house.” She laughed.

“Oh goodness, you're calling me by my first name, that means you would have really let me have it. Mama, you know I haven't gone by Viola since high school. I hate that name. I can't believe you named me that.”

“Don't let your great-great grandmother Viola here you say that.”

“She's been dead for years, so I'm sure she won't.” Lorain chuckled as they waited for Broady to back out of his space and lead the way.

When he pulled out of his space, he drove past where Lorain and Eleanor were parked. Eleanor, who had driven her car, pulled out behind him. As the two women followed Broady's car, Lorain stared at his license plates. They read Leary 01. He'd had those personalized plates since the day he got his first car.

Staring at those plates, Lorain pictured them on the back of a teal green Buick, the car Broady drove back when he was Lorain's guidance counselor. The car where he'd had his way with her in the backseat. Just like in church, flashes and visions of her as a young girl and Broady began going through her head.

“Oh my God.” Lorain said it softly under her breath, but she hadn't really meant to say it out loud at all. “I was the one, the situation he was running from here in Ohio.”

“Excuse me? Did you say something, sweetie?”

Lorain looked over at her mother who was bubbling with joy as she followed behind her fiancé. So much was starting to come back to Lorain now. Things she wanted to tell her mother at this very moment, but she didn't want to make the same mistake she'd just made at church and embarrass herself. She believed in God and knew that she served a mighty powerful God. Yes, He was a God who could deliver a person from the pedophile spirit, even the homosexual spirit. And she was sure that God had, in fact, delivered Broady, and that God had forgiven him along with the rest of the church, including her mother. Her mother had to forgive him for his past in order to be even thinking about marrying that man. But Lorain couldn't help but ask herself if her mother would still be willing to marry him if she knew that her very own daughter was one of his victims.

Once again, looking over at her bliss-filled mother, Lorain decided that that would be something perhaps she'd never know.

“Can I get you anything?” Mother Doreen peeked into Bethany's bedroom and asked.

Bethany simply shook her head without saying a word. She hadn't said a word in a week, since being released from the hospital. The death of her husband and now her baby had taken its mental toll.

Mother Doreen looked over at the untouched dinner plate she'd delivered to her sister's room an hour ago. “I'm going to leave your plate, honey. You gotta eat something. Okay?”

This time Bethany didn't even nod. Mother Doreen shook her head in sadness, then pulled the door closed. She turned around to see Sadie and Hudson standing behind her.

“How's she doing?” Sadie asked.

“The same,” Mother Doreen sighed.

“This is all my fault.” Sadie began to weep.

“What did I tell you about that? Don't you say that, honey.” Mother Doreen embraced her niece. “Like I told you before, God don't make mistakes.”

“Auntie Doreen is right,” Hudson told his sister, “it's not your fault.”

“That's right,” Mother Doreen agreed with her nephew.

“It's my fault.” Hudson's comment caused both Mother Doreen and Sadie to direct their attention toward him. “If I didn't have a baby on the way, then you couldn't have told Mama about it, and none of this would have happened. No one would have been arguing and Mama wouldn't have fallen and—” Hudson became too choked up to go on. He had to pause. “Anyway, Aunt Doreen, I hear what you're saying and all, but I think this time God did make a mistake. Maybe not with the baby, considering the circumstances. But I think God made a mistake when He took my father.”

“Oh, Hudson, I understand.” Mother Doreen opened one arm and invited Hudson in on the hug. Before anyone knew it, the three of them stood weeping in the hallway. They didn't even notice that Bethany had opened her bedroom door and was standing in the doorway.

“It's no one's fault,” Bethany said, gaining everyone's attention. “Nobody but my own.”

“Mommy, you didn't ask for this to happen,” Sadie cried.

“I'm sorry to put you kids through all of this. And I couldn't lay in there and listen to you blame yourselves.” She directed her comment toward her children. “It's my fault. I just didn't want to be alone. With your father on the road all the time—I just—” Bethany's words trailed off in tears. All anyone could make out of her next words were, “I just—didn't want to be alone—he was there for me—he's always been there for me—thought—he loved me—but—when I told him about the baby—everything changed—became a different man.”

“All right, Bethany, that's enough,” Mother Doreen said as she watched her sister begin to go into hysterics. She looked to Hudson and Sadie. “Children, go to your rooms for a minute.”

The children didn't put up an argument as they made haste to their rooms.

“Bethany, honey, just sit down,” Mother Doreen said as she led her sister back to her bed. “Now just calm down, and tell me what's really going on.”

After several sniffles and heaves, Bethany was finally able to calm herself down long enough to say, “You were right. Sadie was right. The baby wasn't Uriah's. It was Pastor—”

“I know, I know, sweetie. You don't have to say it,” Mother Doreen comforted her sister with a rocking hug.

But Bethany finished anyway. “Davidson's. The baby was Pastor Davidson's.”

 

 

As Mother Doreen drove to Living Word, she was having the hardest time obeying the speed limit. She'd called up Pastor Frey and asked him to meet her there ASAP. Even with a mixture of snow and rain forming a slushy sleet on the ground, she was still too anxious for her meeting with Pastor Frey to obey the traffic laws.

After listening to her sister for over an hour talk about the affair she'd been having with Pastor Davidson for the past two years, Mother Doreen was beside herself. How could she have gotten it wrong? She had been so sure that it was Pastor Frey that Bethany had been having the affair with that she didn't look past that. That's when it dawned on her.
Sh
e had been so sure. God hadn't told her a thing. Maybe He had, but her flesh had been so hell bent on keeping her eye on Pastor Frey and naming him as the accused, that she didn't even bother to hear from God any further on the matter. Now it seemed as though she owed Pastor Frey an apology, and that's just what she intended on doing, right before she got to the bottom of what was really going on. She had her suspicions, but as it was just proven so, her suspicions didn't mean a thing. Now she had to trust God to reveal the truth to her, the real truth. And some way, some how, Pastor Frey had something to do with it.

The more Bethany had talked, the more Mother Doreen was convinced that Pastor Davidson had been using his assistant pastor as nothing more than a decoy to cover his own tracks, a distraction. It had worked brilliantly up until now. What she thought was jealousy of Bethany not wanting Pastor Frey around Mother Doreen had really been fear. Bethany had been afraid that if the two got too close, Pastor Frey would tell her everything he knew about the affair.

“Davidson thought just the opposite,” Bethany had told Mother Doreen. “He figured it better to use Pastor Frey as a means to keep you out of the way. From the first time he met you he realized that you had the gift of discernment, that you hear very clearly from God. He figured that if he planted the seed in your mind that Pastor Frey wasn't the man he claimed to be, that your flesh would get to out running your spirit man.”

Mother Doreen could kick herself for falling for the trick of the enemy. She was now bound and determined to get back on track with God. This time she would cross her “T's” and dot her “I's.” After leaving her sister sound asleep to rest after an emotional confession, Mother Doreen got on the phone and called the company Uriah had gotten his trucking assignments from. She had access to all of this information from when she had helped Bethany go through all of Uriah's paperwork for insurance and funeral planning purposes.

She just wanted a little bit of information concerning his runs and what not. Knowing the information might be private and that the company might not release it to her, she said a prayer that God would touch the hearts of those she spoke with, giving them compassion to want to help her get to the bottom of things. And that's just what He did.

The receptionist who had answered the phone was very helpful to Mother Doreen. She let her know that on the evening before Uriah drove home for Hudson's birthday celebration, someone had called on Uriah's behalf, stating that he was ill and would need to cancel his runs for the next three days. The receptionist confirmed that it was a male.

“I think the gentleman said he was Uriah's brother,” the receptionist had told Mother Doreen. “Or perhaps he said, Brother Something—you know, how church people refer to themselves. We know Uriah was into church and all.”

“How did you know that?” Mother Doreen inquired.

“Because his pastor was always checking in on him. Making sure God was showing Uriah favor by getting him plenty of runs so that he could provide for his family. His pastor called checking in on him and his runs more than his own wife had.” The receptionist chuckled.

“You didn't find that strange?”

“Oh, no. I knew why that pastor was really calling, to make sure Uriah stayed on the road,” the receptionist said in a knowing tone.

“Really?” Mother Doreen asked. Now she was really beside herself. How could the trucking company's receptionist know something that Mother Doreen didn't even know, and with it going on right under her nose?

“Yeah. He wanted to make sure Uriah was able to pay him back that thirty grand he loaned him to get in the trucking business in the first place.”

“How do you know that?”

“Oh, Uriah mentioned it one time himself. He was frustrated when the price of diesel fuel started going up. Out of frustration, Uriah himself mentioned how between taking care of his family, and paying the pastor back who'd loaned him thirty grand toward his rig, would leave him with nothing to live off of while on the road.”

Mother Doreen thought of how he must have struggled just to feed himself while traveling for days.

“But he never had a struggle out there on them roads,” the receptionist said as if she had heard Mother Doreen's thoughts through the telephone. “That pastor of his always ended his calls by telling me that he'd keep praying for Uriah. And he must have been too, because everywhere Uriah went he had a story about how God had looked out for him. He'd deliver a load to Family Dollar store or something, and there would be a surplus of toiletries that the store manager would let him have. He'd show up at diners right before closing, and the waitress would give him, for free, the surplus food they'd prepared and would have to throw in the trash anyway. It was crazy.” The receptionist paused for a minute. “I wonder where that pastor of his and his prayers were the evening Uriah's brakes went out and he got into that horrible, horrible accident.”

“Yeah, I wonder too,” Mother Doreen said suspiciously.

“Anyway, that's my other line. Can you hold?”

“Oh that's okay. You've told me everything I need to know and then some. You've been very, very helpful.”

“Glad I could be of help. Uriah was a good, honest man. Tell the Mrs. how sorry we are, will you?”

“Certainly,” Mother Doreen had said before ending the call, and in turn, making one to Pastor Frey, asking him to meet her at the church.

Mother Doreen had definitely gotten an earful. That sneaky rascal of a pastor had literally paid to have an affair with his church brother's wife. He knew keeping Uriah on the road would mean more time he could spend with Bethany. And he had probably used church funds to do it.

A red flag immediately flew up in Mother Doreen's head as she thought about what the receptionist had said about the phone call she'd received about canceling Uriah's runs. Uriah didn't have a brother, and the receptionist had talked to Pastor Davidson before. So if it had been him calling, he would have identified himself as such. And even so, she would have recognized his voice. It must have been a church brother, and she could put her finger on just which brother it might have been. That was why she was so anxious to speak with Pastor Frey.

After hanging up with Pastor Frey, it was put in Mother Doreen's spirit to call one more place. That was the salvage garage where Uriah's truck had been taken after the accident. Some young country bumpkin sounding fella answered the phone confirming to Mother Doreen what the police had shared with them. Brake failure had been the reason for Uriah's accident.

“It's possible the line just snapped, but according to the paperwork we found in his glove box, he'd just recently had break work done on his vehicle,”

“Is it possible that his brakes could have been tampered with?” Mother Doreen asked, and with good reason. Uriah always kept his truck parked in the lot not far from the house. Everybody knew that. Mother Doreen knew that only one somebody had motive to tamper with Uriah's breaks.

“Well, I guess anything's possible,” the man said, and then Mother Doreen heard a buzzer sound in the background. “If you don't mind, ma'am, I have to tend to a customer.”

“Thank you. You've been very helpful.”

After Mother Doreen hung up the phone, she thought for a minute. The gentleman was right, anything was possible. That meant there was a slight possibility that Uriah's accident was actually no accident at all. “But when could he have—” Mother Doreen's words trailed off when she remembered Uriah telling them how Pastor Davidson had initially accepted his invitation for dinner, but then suddenly couldn't make it. Mother Doreen could picture him now cutting the brake line while he knew they were all at the house having dinner. “Son of a gun,” Mother Doreen said with a snap of her finger.

The police had already closed the case, ruling it an accident, but Mother Doreen hoped that by presenting them with her new findings, they might re-open the investigation. Mother Doreen prayed for something even better, a confession. If she could get her most likely suspect to confess his faults, then an investigation wouldn't be necessary. The same way Pastor Davidson had needed Pastor Frey to help him with the entire scheme, she now needed him too. Would she be able to get him to switch playing sides?

“Mother Doreen, I got here as soon as I could.”

Mother Doreen looked up to see Pastor Frey entering the church sanctuary. She was about to find out the answer to her question.