XXX

“My goal was to make Amy one of the biggest porn stars in the country,” Lexi said as she glanced apologetically at her sister. Amy smiled forgivingly, but her face flushed. Whether due to anger or embarrassment, I couldn’t tell. I had just mentioned reading their story in the e-book ‘Knight Storm,’ by Johnathan Embers.

The two half siblings sat next to each other on a sofa in Lexi’s home. I sat across from them in an easy chair. Lexi was dressed in faded jeans and a red flannel shirt. Her long dark brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Amy, like me, wore a denim skirt and a sweater. We both wore converse sneakers. Hers were pink, while mine were blue. Amy’s long red-gold hair cascaded in silky waves over her shoulders. My short auburn hair was a nest of unruly tufts.

“I didn’t even know this until well after I escaped her influence in my life,” Amy added. “When I lived with her, she was putting major pressure on me to become a stripper like she was. It was a really strange time in my life. I didn’t know what else to do, but go along with her manipulations. Yet I held on to a belief that I was going to escape somehow.”

“And that’s when a pesky Bible thumping couple interfered,” Lexi said with a chuckle as she referred to Destiny and Brock. “I was so angry at the time. I never, ever would have thought I would become one of them.”

Amy took a hold of her sister’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. Lexi pulled it to her lips and gave it a soft kiss, her eyes welling with tears. “I’m so sorry, little sis.”

“I know,” Amy giggled, and then became earnest as she put her other hand on Lexi’s, sandwiching them between hers. “You’ve apologized more than enough times.”

It had only been a little more than a month since Lexi had been demon possessed. Although I had caught glimpses of her at church, this was the first time we had met and talked. Amy had shown me a picture of Lexi before her deliverance and conversion. She was wearing an extremely short leopard print mini skirt, a red spandex top that barely covered her breasts, four inch stiletto heels, thick makeup, and her big hair looked like it exploded from a dozen curling irons. Her dark eyes looked wild, but unless you knew her story, you wouldn’t necessarily think demonic.

That was sexy Lexi. Sitting across from me was a plain Jane. Yet I found the woman sitting across from me much more attractive than the woman that was a visual aphrodisiac to carnal desire. Unlike the feral woman in the photo, the new creature, the new Lexi, was now like the man that had been possessed by a legion of devils in (Mark 5: 15). She was clothed and sitting in her right mind.

I smiled as I watched the two sisters holding hands. Two women that had been at enmity with each other, now reunited with the love of Jesus binding them together. I had no idea then that the two sisters would become such close spiritual sisters to me as time kept slipping into the future. Yet even with Lexi’s conversion, the two women and our two separate friendships couldn’t have been more different.

Amy and I would develop a friendship on a level I had with dear Anna. But I would soon discover with Lexi that a deliverance from demon possession did not deliver from temptation, or eliminate a strong, even abrasive personality. She gave me quite an education on the ways of the world, and nobody shed more light on spiritual darkness for me like Miss Gomez. In turn, I became one of the key people she turned to, to talk and pray with in times of trial and temptation.

“Lexi,” I said speaking softly. “Would you mind telling me about your ordeal a month ago? You know, what led to your conversion. What led you to surrender to the group’s petitions that were praying for you when you seemed to be in such bondage.”

She turned an intense look toward me that caused me to stiffen. Her penetrating gaze was not wild, but so energized it startled me. Then she smiled pleasantly. “I’d be glad to.”

“Thank you.”

“There were a few things,” she began and then sighed. “There was the love I saw in Amy, especially after I had treated her so horribly in the past. And your dad being there was another. I don’t know whether you knew it or not, but I intended to kill your dad, Sevenia.”

I felt a chill race up my spine. “What!”

“So he didn’t tell you?” Lexi asked with a cautious frown.

“No, nobody did,” I replied as I glanced at Amy.

Her cute face scrunched into an ugly wince. “I assumed Seven told you all about it.”

I just shook my head and looked back to Lexi.

“Zella had found out my intentions and told him,” Lexi explained. “That’s why I’m so impressed that he was one of the people praying for me in that nightmare room. But at one point he did try to flee. He plowed right into the door, thinking he would burst through as if he was Scooby Doo and Shaggy.”

Amy giggled and I looked at her. Then her face became serious. “I don’t mean to laugh. But at one point Lexi, and or the demons, focused on him and he freaked. I would have, too.”

“But I choked you and you didn’t go anywhere,” Lexi said.

“I couldn’t go anywhere,” Amy replied. “Your hands were around my neck holding me in place, not to mention blocking off my air.”

We all laughed, even though at the time there was nothing funny about it.

“When I first heard about your ordeal,” I said. “I wished I could have witnessed it, and most importantly, taken part in the prayers. Now I’m not so sure.”

“To be clear about your dad,” Lexi said. “I have the utmost respect for him.”

“Me too,” Amy added.

“I do too,” I said with both a scowl and a smile. “But he’s gonna have some explaining to do.”

“So, anyway,” Lexi continued. “It was actually choking Amy that broke the hold of the darkness controlling me. Even though there was this part of me that despised her, even hatred for her, there was also this side of me that loved her. I clung to that, and it threw me into a bizarre vision of a series of dreams I had that led me to go mad.

When I went to that wedding at Cotton Creek Cove, I saw this picture in the foyer. It was Jesus holding up a distraught man that held a hammer and spikes in his hands. The hammer and spikes symbolizing the nails that crucified Jesus for the man’s sins. Yet Jesus held him tightly and with overwhelming love.

The picture moved me immensely. Yet I began having a reoccurring dream that was sort of the opposite. I was defiantly going toward a cross on a hill, carrying a hammer and spikes. Christians were trying to preach at me and I was snarling, growling and waving the hammer at them. Then during the ordeal, the dream became more real.

I found myself in front of the cross yelling ‘crucify Him, crucify Him’ with the demonic frenzied mob. The crowd then began to egg me on, demanding I pound the spikes into Jesus. They insisted He was to blame for all the oppression, struggles and guilt I felt in my life. I found myself running angrily toward the cross. But it was like I wasn’t making progress. Then all of a sudden I was there.”

Lexi, who had been telling this story calmly and composed, suddenly broke down with heavy, anguished sobs.

“It’s okay, Lex,” Amy soothed. “We get the point.”

“No, you don’t!” Lexi barked as she shook her head violently. “I was at the cross. But it wasn’t like a crucifix or some painting where there is only a little trickle of blood coming out at the nail wounds. Jesus was all bloody, from head to toe. His flesh was ripped to shreds. His head hung all crimson, His hair matted. Then he looked at me with such love, compassion and forgiveness. While He suffered this!”

Lexi covered her face and began a second round of sobs. This time Amy just stared at her sister with her mouth hanging open. That’s when I realized my mouth was hanging open as well. Then I heard myself speaking. “His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form than the sons of men.” (Isaiah 52:14)

The two sisters slowly turned their gaze on me, wide eyed and then Amy spoke. “I gave my back to the smitters and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair.” (Isaiah 50:6)

“I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands,” I added. (Isaiah 49:16)

“What are you guys talking about?” Lexi asked, quietly, and reverently as she perceived we were talking about Jesus.

“They’re some Bible verses from the book of Isaiah that prophesied of Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross,” Amy said as she wiped tears off of her cheeks.

“I’m so new to all this,” Lexi said with a quiver in her voice. “This is amazing!”

“Lex, how come you haven’t told me about this dream or vision before?” Amy asked, mildly.

“I was ashamed at the depth of my wickedness,” Lexi said with a shrug. “But now that I’ve adjusted to my new outlook, or lifestyle, or whatever. It’s time I share my full experience to bring glory to God for what he’s done for me.”

“Has it been a hard adjustment, Lexi?” I asked.

“It’s been strange,” she replied. “But wonderfully strange. When my ordeal was over, I felt such an incredible burden lifted. I was afraid it wouldn’t last. I was concerned I was gonna wake up wicked and crazy again. But each day, I feel a little closer to Jesus. That’s why I’m now ready to share my full testimony. The only bad thing is the strain on my relationship with Devin. It looks like it’s over.”

“It is!” Amy said. “Lex, why haven’t you told me that either?”

“Well, you’re married to his brother. Didn’t he tell you?”

“He apparently didn’t tell Dirk,” Amy answered.

“How do you know?”

“He would have told me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, yeah,” Amy said with an uncertain frown. “Is it because of your new faith?”

“I would have to say yes. I told him we couldn’t sleep together anymore, and he pretty much hasn’t talked to me since.”

“Did he move out?”

“He moved out of our room, but downstairs. Keep it down cuz he’s probably listening to us.”

Amy got up and marched to the basement stairs.

“Amy, what are doing?” Lexi asked, yet she didn’t seem all that bothered.

“Devin,” Amy shouted.

“What?”

“It’s your sister in law.”

“I know, what do you want?” he shouted back, then I heard grumbling I couldn’t make out.

“Get up here,” she said with a frown as she sternly crossed her arms.  She began to vigorously tap her toe. I felt my own toes curl. Then I looked at Lexi, but she was smiling and shaking her head. My mouth dropped open when my eyes laid on Devin for the first time. Not because he was wearing a pair of gym shorts and nothing else, but because it was like looking at Amy’s wholesome Dirk, only with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other and his arms completely covered in ink. Amy began to lecture him complete with finger wagging in his face. She finished with something about marriage.

“As volatile as Lexi has been,” he laughed. “Give me one good reason why I should marry her?”

“I’m pregnant,” Lexi replied, causing us all to look at her with, once again, gaped mouths.