No Weapon Formed (Boaz Brown) (11 page)

The next morning, I could
hardly wait to get into the prayer closet and be alone with God. I had located
my own Bible under the driver’s seat of my car, told God I was sorry for losing
track of it in the first place, and received His grace to pick up where we’d
left off.

Being reminded of His love,
His mercy, His teachings gave me a sharper spirit throughout the day. Aside
from an ear to hear, my heart yielded easier to His nudges.

 By Wednesday, I set the
alarm fifteen minutes earlier, and I even wound down in the prayer closet after
we got home from mid-week service. I’d listened to Pastor Toole’s sermon and
amen’d right along with the rest of the congregation, but I wanted to get back
home and discuss the meaning of absolute surrender with the Author of the
concept, personally. His text, 1 Kings 20, was Ahab’s declaration, “My lord, O
king, according to thy saying, I am thine and all that I have.”

Yes, I had quit my job. Yes,
I had (begrudgingly) been submissive to my husband and even my best friend’s
words confirmed what I had already been feeling. I had all the outward signs of
obedience to the Lord, but deep down inside, my heart still hadn’t come along
for the ride. And when I admitted that to myself, I heard Him whisper in me:
I
want all of you.

All of me? I thought I’d
already given Him all of me. I mean, I did believe on Christ as my Savior. I
did know Him and seek to walk in His ways. What else did He want from me?

All of you
repeated in my spirit.

I knew there was no sense in
arguing with God. Not likely He was going to change His mind. He wanted all of
me—even that little rebellious part that wanted its own way, couldn’t
stand to be taken advantage of, and always tried to make things easy for
myself.

But what was He going to do
with it? Kill it? What would I be without my defenses? I didn’t want to be one
of those weak people who let people run over her. Always praying, always
hoping. Helping everybody else and then one day I’d wake up and realize I’d
spent my whole life doing what other people wanted me to do.

I wanted to do me. LaShondra.

Not other people. Me.
rose inside my mind.

His thoughts baffled me. Sent
me back to the drawing board. “You, God?” I had to ask myself if it would be
any easier to follow God’s will than my husband’s. Really, would my feelings
change if I knew the plan was coming directly from God? Would that have made me
receive this change with joy?

Probably not.

With that revelation, my eyes
rendered tears of grief and repentance. “I’m sorry, Lord.”
Lord.
Why was
I calling Him that name if He really didn’t have that place in my life?

“Jesus, I crown You Lord.
Even if it means my worst fears come true,
be
the Lord of my life.”

My back bolted straight up.
Those sentences didn’t even sound right. What would make me think that
receiving Jesus as Savior
and
Lord would make my life worse off?

I flopped onto the bed and
grabbed my journal. I made a list of all the bad things that I thought could
happen to me if I actually surrendered all to Jesus, like Pastor Toole had
preached.

Surrender Cons

1.
    
I might have to go to some faraway place
to be a missionary.

2.
    
I would be poor and suffering.

3.
    
I would lose all common sense.

4.
    
I would be weak and whiney (God, you know
I can’t stand weak, whiney people).

5.
    
I would be all “holier-than-thou”, so
heavenly minded I was no earthly good. Can’t relate to real life.

6.
    
I wouldn’t get to have at least one
guilty pleasure in life.

7.
    
I wouldn’t get to do what I wanted to do
in my life.

As I glanced back over the
list of objections, my English degree kicked in. The subject of every sentence
was “I”. Everything was about me.

“But isn’t this my life,
Lo—” I couldn’t even finish His name before Paul’s words, something about
‘not I, but Christ’ slammed me with the truth. I flipped to Galatians because I
knew the book, just not the exact verse.

The search results landed me
at Galatians 2:20.
I am crucified with Christ:
nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I
now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and
gave himself for me.

The only question on the
table: Whose life was this, anyway? Was I dead to sin and alive in Christ or
not? Was I living for my glory or His?

Sure, I knew what the
“correct” answer was. I suppose if I’d been in Christian autopilot mode, I
would have gulped down this hard truth and promised God I would “do better”.

But I didn’t want to promise
God something I didn’t have a burning desire to do because that would only lead
to an empty vow. That would only get us right back to square one; me going
through the motions, just riding out this season until I got to a section of
life I really liked, which may or may not have anything to do with Christ.

The war inside my body,
between the flesh and the Spirit, was almost tangible.
Why is what I want
and what God wants so different?
I was tired of doing the right thing but
resenting it the whole time. But I didn’t want to live my life without Jesus. I
mean, I wanted Him
in
my life; I just didn’t want Him to
be
my
life.

Even after all the years I’d
spent in church, all the time I’d spent getting to know Him. And despite the
fact that I truly loved Jesus and I knew He loved me, I wasn’t willing to die.
Not all the way, all the time.

And yet, this was His request.
This was why He had pulled me in so close to His very heartbeat. He wanted to
be my Lord. My King. To rule every aspect of
my
life.

 I had to shut my Bible
and my journal on that somber note. I closed my eyes and prayed again. “God,
you gotta change me ‘cause I can’t do it.”

I left our set-apart space
with more questions than I’d ever had about my walk with Him. Confusion wasn’t
quite the word for my state of mind; it was more an expectancy than anything.
What would my life look like after He changed it? Would I recognize myself?
Would I turn into one of those COGIC congregation mothers with the fierce
scowls who testified that I had been “saved all day, no evil have I done”?

Stelson was already asleep in
bed. The television was still blaring, which meant he must have been trying to
wait up for me because he wasn’t one to fall asleep with the tube going.

I, on the other hand, planned
to take full advantage of the fact that he was already in dreamland. I switched
the channel to TBN, hoping to find one of my favorite ministers preaching.

Instead, I got someone I’d
never heard of on the screen, but a quick check of the guide showed a familiar
Bible-teacher coming on in seven minutes, so I kept it there.

I must have underestimated
what the prayer closet had taken out of me because I didn’t make it past those
seven minutes before drifting off myself.

All I know is, sometime in
the middle of the night, my ears received supernatural hearing ability and I
heard a minister—to this day, I cannot tell you who it was—saying,
“If you’re afraid of giving your all to the Lord, You obviously don’t know Him.
Everything He does works out for good to those who love Him. Take your eyes off
of yourself. Reject the lies of the enemy. Behold the Lover of your soul, for
He
is
good and merciful and kind.”

Still halfway sleep, I could
taste the sweetness of those words in my inmost parts.
God is not a bully.
He’s not out to hurt me. His plan for me is good.

Somehow, in all my fears, I
had forgotten Who I was dealing with. Underestimated His good thoughts toward
me.

But not anymore.

“Thank you, Jesus.”

Stelson stirred. “Huh?”

“Go back to sleep, baby. I
love you.”

“Yeah. Love you, too.”

I still hadn’t learned to
beat the laundry game that week because I hadn’t taken Peaches’ advice about
getting a formal schedule together. But the schedule was the last thing on my
mind. My convictions weighed in every moment of the day, and the love of God so
completely enveloped me that I had no choice except to agree with Him. Christ
revealed Himself to me countless times throughout the day, sending me back to
the Word for confirmation of the nuggets dropped into my understanding.

Am I really dead in
Christ?
Colossians 3:3.

Is my new life gonna be
terrible?
John 10:10.

What if I want my old life
back?
Matthew 16:25.

With cheeks covered in tears,
I succumbed to a new, deeper understanding of the marvelous truth. I could no
longer fight for a dead woman.

Okay, God. I surrender
all. Take all of me.

Spending so many hours
dedicated to His presence, between feeding, changing, and taking care of Zoe,
put me in a bad position by the time Seth got home. I had to put him to work.

Little did I know, Seth was
the absolute best towel-folder in the universe. I mean, he lined up those
corners with a surgeon’s precision and straightened the linens flat! Obviously,
he’d inherited his father’s ability to pay attention to details. The best part
was that it took him forever to fold perfectly. I could get some serious work
done while the boy was folding, and he was gaining the opportunity to lengthen
his attention span.

He also came in handy for
bending down to hand me the clothes so I could load them in the washer.

He intently watched me
operate the shiny red machines. “Can I turn it on?”

“Maybe when you’re older.”

“But I’m in pre-k now.”

“Yes, but you have to be tall
enough, too. But don’t worry, I’ll make sure you start washing clothes the
moment your arms can reach these knobs.” I pointed at the silver disks,
promising my child something I knew he would later regret.

When he asked, I explained
the functions of laundry cleaners, because I fully believed in training up
young men to do household chores. “Detergent is like soap. Bleach spray gets
the clothes nice and bright, and fabric softener makes them feel soft and smell
good.”

“Like perfume for girls?” He
recoiled.

“No, no. More like sunshine.
Fresh.”

“Okay.” He seemed pleased to
know I wasn’t trying to turn him into a girl.

It seemed as though my
afternoons were consumed by one question: What do we do
now
? I really
didn’t want to become the kind of parent who parked her kids in front of a
screen and gave them half a Benadryl to make them drowsy (this I learned from
watching way too much television myself).

Try as I might, the living
room still looked as messy as ever by the time Stelson arrived. “Hey, babe.”

“Hey.” He looked over me at
the kitchen table cluttered with paper and crayons. “Um…okay…I thought the
house would be…you know…better.”

Now that he’d mentioned it, I
also looked half-thrown-together in my yoga pants, oversized t-shirt and dry
ponytail. And yet, it wasn’t as though I’d been sitting on the couch eating ice
cream all day. “Busy day.”

His mouth remained open as he
nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

“What’s that supposed to
mean?”

“Nothing, Shondra. I’m sure
it is tough getting used to a new schedule. And I love you for making this
sacrifice for our family,” he backpedaled.

“Thank you. That’s more like
it.”

Instead of focusing on the
brainlessness of folding clothes, I sang songs of praise, knowing my children
and my husband were gifts from God. Aside from that, there were countless women
who would give up everything to be in a wonderful marriage with great kids.
Gratefulness became the order of the week as, moment after moment, the Holy Spirit
reminded me of who I was and Whose I was. I could have kicked myself for not
accepting the fullness of Christ sooner.

But God knows when we’re
ready.

Stelson and I stayed up late
one of those nights watching television. After putting the kids to bed, we
snuggled up on the couch and indulged in messy, completely un-nutritious
pour-over cheese popcorn.

“This stuff is so good,” he
smacked, wiping his fingers on his T-shirt.

“Ewww! Why are you doing
that?”

“Because I’ve had it on all
day and I’m gonna throw it in the hamper when I leave this couch.” He smiled
down at me.

Sometimes I thought Stelson
did things to flirt his way under my skin.
Men.
I rested my head on the
clean side of his shirt again. “Spray some spot-cleaner on it first, please.”

He kissed my forehead with
his greasy lips.

I slapped his chest. “Stop!
That’s gross!”

He laughed as I wiped the
combination of saliva and processed goo off my skin. I rubbed the residue into
his shirt.

“Ewww! Stop! You’re getting
my dirty clothes all dirty,” he mocked me.

Laughter snuck past my lips.
“You wrong for that, baby.”

Stelson chuckled, too. “I
know.” The rumble of his deep voice vibrated against my face.

God, I love this man.

The day of the picnic,
Stelson left before me so that he could help the brethren with preparations to
host the twenty-five or so families registered for the event.

Of course, I started my
morning with quiet time, conversing with my Father, thanking Him for new life
in Christ and for His love. Really, I wished I could have spent all day with
Him. Just go get a hotel room somewhere and have a spiritual honeymoon.

Zoe’s whimpers wouldn’t allow
it, however. With Stelson gone, I’d have to get the kids up and dressed by
myself. Thankfully, we had all gotten more than enough rest in anticipation of
a busy, active day. I put a full breakfast on Seth’s and Zoe’s stomachs and was
even able to throw in a power nap myself before we left at noon to join the
festivities.

It was Labor Day weekend, so
the park was packed. The line to turn in to the Marina stretched a quarter of a
mile long as families with boats and jet skis waited to enter the camp and lake
grounds. The temperature had reached 88 degrees and was expected to climb
another 5 degrees. In Texas, 93 degrees in September is actually a fortunate
break, but it still was enough to make a woman throw the hair back into a
ponytail, slap on a visor and sunscreen, and call the beauty regimen “done”.

Stelson had texted me pretty
good directions to help locate the Living Word pavilion. I spotted his truck
and found the next closest empty spot for my Honda.

I was trying to keep an eye
on Seth while I held Zoe on one hip and retrieved our chairs from the trunk.
Pastor Toole’s twin pre-teen daughters, who were also getting out of their
parents’ car, rushed to me. “Hi, Sister Brown.”

Their names were Brittney and
Ashley, but I couldn’t tell them apart. “Hi, girls!”

“Can we help with Zoe and
Seth?” one of them asked.

“Sure.”

My baby was already reaching
out for the closest twin and Seth, who never met a stranger, eagerly took the
other one’s hand. With both limbs free now, I maneuvered the chairs and Zoe’s
bag from the trunk.

The five of us walked toward
reserved grounds. My motherly instinct measured and determined we weren’t too
close to the water’s edge.

Our church’s pavilion covered
ten long, rectangular tables with attached benches. Already, seven tables were
taken with many of the church’s lively, rambunctious families. As usual, most of
the older crowd—with grown children—and the younger, single sector
of the congregation had opted to leave all this outdoor fun to those of us with
kiddos. I couldn’t blame either group for bowing out because this was
definitely not my cup of tea.

Alas, I was determined to
make the best of it, as were my fellow moms and dads. The smell of barbecue,
the joyous sounds of laughter, the beautiful view of the surrounding trees and
the soft murmur of the lake was something I had missed when I was growing up. Exposing
Seth and Zoe to God’s creation would, hopefully, make them well-rounded people.

At least that’s what I told
myself when a mosquito bite brought me back to reality.
This early in the
day?
I quickly set our belongings at an empty space and retrieved the bug
spray from our tiger-striped bag. I sprayed my arms and legs between “Hellos”
and hugs, trying not to appear paranoid.

Brittney and Ashley had taken
my kids to the table with the rest of the pre-teens, where they were all
ooohing and aaaahing over Zoe’s tight, round cheeks.

I made a mental note to find
some baby-friendly bug lotion in the future, but in the meanwhile, I sprayed
some on my hand, then rubbed it on my baby.

Seth acted as though I was
stabbing him, hollering loudly when the cold spray hit his arms. “That’s cold!”

His antics sent the older
kids into hysterics, which was exactly what he’d wanted.

Stelson tilted his chin up,
acknowledging me from the grill. I winked, knowing this might be all I got from
him until after all the food was finished.

Some of the other moms and I
kept a watchful eye on our kids as we conversed about a variety of topics: good
books, the new Aldi store, and the chicken pox vaccine, which I had recently
learned was a requirement of the state. Back in my day, chicken pox was a rite
of passage. You were “one of us” once you’d endured a week of those terribly
itchy bumps and a little fever.

Somehow, the conversation
drifted to losing weight, which made for a fifteen-minute-long lament. From my
perspective, no one in our circle was really overweight, even for Texas. Shoot,
some of them needed to
gain
a few pounds, if you’d asked me.

In times like those, I had to
make a conscious effort not to go into a “they’re not black” moment. Our
circumstantial clique, formed because we all needed to make sure our kids and
their on-the-spot babysitters didn’t venture too close to the lake, consisted
of four white women, one Hispanic, and two black, including myself. If I wasn’t
careful, I could almost draw a line between them and me (the other black woman
on my side, of course) and start to interpret the conversation through a
lifetime of Daddy’s bitter commentary.

Why are white women so
whiney? If an alleged extra fifteen pounds is your biggest problem, you need to
go sit down somewhere.

Even after knowing Stelson
for ten years, serving alongside diverse groups of people in the church—well,
at least I did before I had Seth—and coming to the understanding that the
first man in my life had been dead wrong for teaching me that all white people
were undercover racists, still…the memories lingered. They had to be consciously
challenged.

Don’t go there, LaShondra.
Stay who you are now.

I wondered if people who had
experienced neglect at an early age had to remind themselves that not everyone
would leave them. And did people who grew up without knowing when they’d get
their next meal always feel the need to pack every leftover scrap of food into
a doggie bag? Furthermore, were the white women at the table fighting to
overcome their own prejudices as I sat in the circle?
Are we all fighting
secret battles?

Once I reeled myself back
from black-isolation-island, I was more than ready to join the congregation in
blessing the food. Pastor Toole and his wife stood at the head table, where
aluminum pans overflowing with meat, potato salad, beans, and pre-sliced pound
cake were already teasing my stomach.

 “Let us pray.”

After the ‘amen’ members from
the hospitality team manned the serving line. In no time, we were all enjoying
good food and time with family. Stelson had retrieved the kids and brought them
to our table so we could make sure they ate.

After half an hour or so, Jim
Moore, one of the men who worked alongside Stelson in the finance ministry,
announced that it was time for the trail walk. “In light of the temperature,
we’re doing the shortest trail. Half a mile. You need good shoes and a water
bottle. And you’ll definitely want your cameras. It’s a beautiful route.”

Stelson raised his eyebrows.
“You wanna go?”

Me? In a forest?
I squinted. “What you talkin’ ‘bout,
Willis?”

“Oh, come on, Arnold,” he
said. “Live a little.”

“My foot’s still not one
hundred percent,” I tried.

“It’s only half a mile,” my
husband convinced me. “I’ll carry you if I have to.”

“Yeah, right.” We both
laughed.

Stelson went back to my car
and got the baby harness from the back seat. I strapped Zoe to my chest because
I wanted to be on the lookout for bugs trying to get past my bug spray. Seth
nearly hopped out of his skin at the prospect of a jungle adventure. Stelson
had a way of making our son think everything was a major excursion.

We started out at the foot of
a massive thicket of trees. Once we got ten feet into the walk, the canopy of
trees shaded us perfectly and a coolness I hadn’t expected made it bearable to
link pinkies with Stelson while he held Seth’s hand.

My husband took a deep
breath. “Reminds me of old times. Divine.”

I couldn’t quite wrap my mind
around the smell—wild grass mixed with tree bark and a hint of flowers?
Whatever the combination, the scent was not something I’d want in my clothes or
my hair. Though the foot trail was fairly defined, the further along we went,
the more pathways veered to the left and the right. One wrong move and a person
like me with no sense of direction could be walking in circles for hours.

Overgrown brush poked into
our walkway. Birds with unfamiliar calls screeched as we invaded their
territory.

This whole setup was too
naturely for me.

Seth tucked his water bottle
in his waist. “Dad, did you used to come here when you were little?”

“Not this park, but we did
camp.”

“Ooh! Look!” Seth shouted,
pointing into a thicket. “A bunny for Easter!” A white rabbit stood watching us
watch him. The animal had unusually long ears. Reminded me of Bugs, actually,
but he didn’t seem like one of those friendly, carrot-eatin’ rabbits.

The group slowed as Jim
explained that as nice and cuddly as rabbit and deer were depicted in Disney
movies, wildlife lives up to its name—
wild
. We shouldn’t try to
touch any animals we might find along the trail. “And watch out for snakes.”

He shouldn’t have told me
that. “Snakes?” I whispered to Stelson.

“We’ll be fine.”

Selfishly, I tore away from
my husband and eased toward the center of our pack. If a snake was gonna
attack, it would have to get through five other people before it got to Zoe and
me.

We did stop again as Jim told
us about the various species of birds in the area. Eagles could be seen and
heard if we came later in the day.

Our group couldn’t have gone
more than fifty feet before I looked back to double-check for Stelson’s head.
Not hard to spot, since my poor husband didn’t have any hair.

We had made it to a point
where we could see the next hundred yards or so pretty clearly. There would be
no snakes nipping at our feet without warning, so I slowed down to join the
other half of my family.

But when Stelson’s full
figure came into view, he wasn’t attached our son.

“Where’s Seth?”

“I thought he was with you.”

Simultaneously, we turned
toward the empty path we’d just traipsed. “Seth!” I yelled.

No answer.

“Seth!” Stelson’s voice, much
louder, called.

Still no answer.

“Jim, hold up a minute. Is
Seth in the bunch?”

Everyone stopped. Their heads
made three hundred and sixty degree circles, then shook ominously.

My stomach hardened.

“Seth! Seth!” my fellow
church members began calling his name. Stelson took off down the original path.
Jim followed him. I was about to be the third person in line when Nora, one of
the ladies I’d been talking to earlier, put a hand on my arm and said, “No,
LaShondra, stay with us. You’ve got the baby.”

The baby. Yes, Zoe.
Thank God she was strapped to me. I
wrapped my fingers around her toes and squeezed gently as we waited. One
minute. Two. I don’t know—seemed like an eternity.