Revival Season - Monica West (10 ebook reader .TXT) 📗

as it entered. I had to do this. Papa was a consummate performer—he didn’t know anything at all. I dried my sweaty palms on my skirt and inhaled as he continued preaching.

“Another sign of the end of days is that false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Ladies and gentlemen, I am here to tell you not to accept the false prophecy of infidels who claim to have gifts of the Holy Spirit. Don’t believe them! They are not sent from God.” His eyes searched the congregation and zeroed in on me in the fourth row.

My cheeks bristled under his gaze as cheers and applause trickled through the tent. I pressed my hands on my legs to stop them from moving. Would the same cheers come for me when I healed Hannah before their eyes? I leaned into Hannah’s warmth as Papa walked from one side of the stage to the other, his voice rising and falling as he preached about staying firm in the word of the Lord during the end times. Hannah swung her legs in the chair like she was propelling herself in a swing, and my eyes traveled down to the braces that must have pinched her exposed skin. Ma looked over—Hannah’s moving chair had started to become a distraction. I placed my hand on Hannah’s kneecap; as she turned her face to me, her legs calmed.

Papa was on the ground among the audience—a sign that the sermon was winding down. My pulse quickened at the thought of what would happen in just a couple of moments. I leaned toward Hannah, and she inched closer to me.

“I’m going to heal you,” I whispered for the first time since the day months earlier in the tub. Back then, it had seemed like the time would never come, but as Papa brought his sermon to a close, we were minutes away.

“The end of days is coming, brothers and sisters. We are in the midst of wars and famines, of natural disasters and people turning their backs on the Lord in record numbers. Get right with the Lord. The first way to do that is to give your life to Him—a God whose back is never turned to us.”

Amen.

“A God who is with us during every trial. A God who is standing next to you when you bury a spouse or a child. A God who is with you during unemployment, during unimaginable heartbreak.”

Amen.

“He will never leave you or forsake you, even in the midst of your test. That God is faithful and just to cleanse you of sin and forgive you of all unrighteousness. Be strong in your faith, brothers and sisters.”

While the congregation whooped and stood, I closed my eyes and wrapped myself in the promise of those words. I had been taught to believe each verse in the Bible—Ma and Papa liked to joke that the first words out of my mouth had been Scripture. I remembered sitting at the kitchen table when I was eight, the typeface and glossy images of my children’s illustrated Bible swimming in my brain as I had tried to commit Joshua 1:5 to memory. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. As the last words had escaped my lips in the empty room, a prickly sensation shot down my spine. I turned around, prepared to yell at Caleb for trying to scare me, but no one was standing behind me. Looking to distract myself from the fear, I repeated the verse, and, as the words left my lips, my fear seemed to leave with them. God’s presence filled the space around me—it was the paradox of faith that Papa talked about—we go through this world alone, but God is always with us. Suddenly, I knew that the same God who had been with me when I was eight and every day afterward was looking down on me in the tent right now.

“Can everyone please rise? Christ is the door to eternal life, brothers and sisters. He is standing at the door to your heart, knocking. Let Him in and allow Him to change your life. The doors of the church are open.”

For several moments, no one moved. I wanted this section to speed up, for Papa to move on to the healing so that it could be my turn. Maybe no one was going to come forward today for deliverance, but that was unlikely. A moment later, one woman from the back of the church—her arms folded over large breasts—walked slowly to the front. Then more people stood up, and soon, around thirty people followed her up to the front of the tent to give their lives to God. After Papa welcomed them into the kingdom, it was time for healing.

“Brothers and sisters, are you ready to be healed?” Before he finished the sentence, lines of men and women gathered in the aisle. Papa moved through the line, his confidence building with each healing. I patted my pocket with the holy oil in it before closing my eyes and whispering a prayer. “Lord, let me be an instrument of Your will. Amen.”

Forty-five minutes after the healing part of service had started, the line had dwindled to two people—a man who towered over Papa, and a woman Ma’s age who cradled a wailing infant. After Papa’s healing words, the tall man sank to the ground like a felled tree in an exaggerated flourish. Papa got to the end of the line and traced a tiny cross on the baby’s forehead.

“People of God, all have been healed.” He walked back up the steps to the makeshift pulpit. The keyboardist started the closing anthem. The crowd stood and cheered for the people whose ailments, visible and invisible, they thought Papa had cured. I stood too, but not to cheer.

It was time.

Ma’s eyes were closed, her chin tilted toward the ceiling with Isaac asleep in her lap. I stepped into the