CXV

BE RENEWED IN THE SPIRIT OF YOUR MIND

EPHESIANS 4:23

MARCELLA KNIGHT-STORM

“She did what!” Destiny barked. “How dare she show you an adult video! What’s wrong with her? I trusted her!”

I had never seen Destiny, my adopted mom, actually get angry before. It unsettled me, yet strangely, it made me feel loved.

“Mom,” I pleaded. “I pushed her into it. I threatened to leave, maybe for good, if she didn’t let me see it.”

Right after I called her Mom, her countenance changed to something closer to her typically peaceable face. I had only recently begun referring to my adoptive parents, Destiny and Brock, as Mom and Dad. I couldn’t blame her for her outrage though. It was she who had talked me into seeing the psychologist, Jamie Northrup in the first place. And it was indeed pretty unconventional, yet I feel trustful, for my counselor to allow me to see her in a compromising video.

“Well, good for you,” my mom said calmly. Yet she folded her arms and gazed intensely into my eyes. I averted my gaze under the scrutiny of the stare. “And do you feel benefited now having looked at filth?”

“Actually I do,” I replied meekly.

She snorted. “Well, that sure is interesting therapy, watching porn.”

“That’s not what I watched.”

“Oh yeah? Well, what did you watch then?”

“A human tragedy,” I replied, unable to stop a tear from squirting out of my eye. Mom’s eyes widened, and her mouth opened and then closed. I continued. “Jamie let me witness the most shameful, humiliating experience of her life. Not only do I trust her completely now, I…I love her and feel a real kinship with her. The way she has overcome and become such a stellar human being inspires me, especially us being equals in being used and abused.”

“I see,” my mom said mildly. She then bit her lower lip and stepped toward me for a hug. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” I told her. Then as our bodies separated, I added, “I know your response was because you love me.”

“To the moon and back,” she smiled, her own eyes watery. She took hold of my hand and continued cautiously. “Sweetie, I’m glad she inspires you and all. But how do you see her as an equal in your experiences? I mean, yes, what that boy did to Jamie was awful. But it was one incident that she easily escaped compared to your own situation. You were a prisoner, a slave, for an extended period of time.”

“She didn’t easily escape her ordeal, Mom,” I replied. “It still haunts her to this day. And probably always will. Just like me. Plus, what happened to her ended up on the internet, viewed by thousands. For a long time she feared someone from her family or church would see it, or become aware of it.

“Another aspect was our family situations. Until you, Brock, and Oralee, I never knew what a loving family was like. Jamie grew up with loving parents, values, and goals. One of the values she had as a girl growing up was also a goal. For years she thought she would lose her virginity on her wedding night to a wonderful man as they started a family. Instead it was a deceptive, womanizing creep who not only stole it, but broadcast it, and gave her an STD in the process.”

“I didn’t know about her getting an STD,” my mom said with a concerned frown.

“It wasn’t something permanent,” I told her. “It was cured with a shot, but it still added insult to injury.”

“Or also injury to insult,” she added with a sad smile.

I responded with my own sad smile. “I knew the second she told me that only two people at Cotton Creek Cove knew about her incident, that you were one of them.”

My mom nodded. “Not long after I joined the church, she wanted to talk to me about my having done porn. She had been tormented about countless people seeing her not only naked, but… Well, you know.”

“Were you able to help her?”

Mom shrugged. “Yes and no. We became extra close friends because of me knowing her secret. But even though I had regret for my past, I had intentionally put myself in that position at the time. Even with my regrets, I can never fully understand how it must feel to be tricked, and taken advantage of like she had been. Then to have it go viral in the porn world on top of that.”

I nodded and looked at my shoes. Mom lifted my chin, and I saw her smiling warmly at me. She said, “Once again, Sweetie, I’m sorry. Given what I just told you, I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions about what Jamie did.”

“I understand, Mom,” I smiled back.

“You’re really something, you know that,” she said with a little laugh. “I figured that as your mother, I was your guide and teacher, and here you are giving me a life lesson.”

Mom and I were quiet for a moment as we gazed fondly at each other. Then the sweet, sing song voice of Oralee startled us both. It made us both jump because we were concerned with what she might have overheard after we discovered her sitting on the steps leading to our bedrooms.

“Is STD what Daddy puts in the car?” she asked innocently as she skipped over to us.

“No, Ora,” I couldn’t help saying without a little giggle. “It’s STP Daddy puts into the car.”

“Oh, what’s STD then?” she asked naively, a frown above her big dark brown eyes.

“Uh,” Mom stammered, her startled eyes searching mine, possibly for a way to explain without lying. “It’s…”

“M, will you come swing with me?” my little adoptive sister asked as she took my hand. The look of relief on our mother’s face was palpable.

“Sure thing, Sweetie,” I chuckled.

“Good, I want to tell you about a scary dream I had,” Oralee said as the nine year old tugged at my hand.

Mom’s look of relief vanished and was replaced with one of concern. I winked at her reassuringly. Thankfully, Oralee’s nightmares were typically along the lines of dreaming one of her favorite stuffed animals was missing.

I followed Oralee as she skipped to the swing set. It was a nice day for winter, but still chilly. I hoped she didn’t want to swing long. Yet it was good to be getting a good dose of fresh air when we normally could be cooped up in the house this time of year.

I pushed Oralee on the swing for a little while. She seemed to have forgotten about her dream, so I simply enjoyed the childish joy of my little sister. I pondered our life at the Knight-Storm residence over the las ten months. We had truly been blessed. Although, Oralee had settled in much quicker than me. However, she was younger and far more innocent. Thank the Lord for that!

Oralee began to swing on her own, vigorously pumping her little legs. She put so much effort into getting maximum height, her sneaker flew off. I retrieved it and crouched to put it back on her foot after she stopped. I smiled at the way she tended to mimic her hero, Sevenia, in the way she dressed. Denim skirts, converse sneakers, and sweatshirts that usually had a positive saying on them.

“Alright, do you want me to get you started again, or do you got it?” I asked.

“No, I want to tell you about my dream,” she said, then pointed at the swing next to hers. “Will you have a seat, Big Sis?”

“Why certainly, Little Sis.”

She ran a hand through her short black hair, and then looked at me with a frown. “Do dreams come true a lot?”

“Not usually, but sometimes,” I replied. “Like when Sevenia dreamt about us under the bridge. Then she and Mom and Dad came out and found us.”

“I see,” she frowned and then she watched her feet as she kicked them in a rotating manner. “I’m afraid my dream is gonna come true.”

“Was it a bad dream?” I asked, suddenly feeling anxious for some reason.

“It didn’t start out that way,” she said. “You know that car you and Daddy are fixing up?”

“Yeah,” I replied. She was referring to a 1963 Ford Ranchero our dad bought for him and me to restore together.

“You, Daddy, and me were riding in it,” she said, and then began to twist her fingers nervously. “It was really, really fun. We were going down a road and the trees made a tunnel. But then a woman dressed in all black stepped in front of us. Her eyes were glowing red, like a couple of Christmas tree bulbs. She held a big ax thingy that was as tall as she was. Then she ran into the trees and Daddy said he had to catch her. We ran, and ran, and ran. Then we came to a really wide, spooky tree. The lady in black’s ax was leaning against it and there was blood on it. Daddy said he needed to call the FIB lady.”

“You mean the FBI lady, Nora Medora.” I corrected, and then realized my leg was bobbing nervously.

“Yeah, her,” Oralee said with wide, serious eyes. “Cause Mr. Sallie’s friend Oscar was hurt.”

A chill ran up my spine, and I began to shiver.

“Then you pointed out to Daddy that something was carved on the strange tree, and he read it to us.”

Oralee looked at me wide eyed, and with concern as she licked her lips.

“What did it say?” I asked.

She swallowed and said, “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.”

(DESTINY’S BIBLE STUDY NOTES AND QUOTES)

(The LIFE and MINISTRY of JESUS Part VIII)

The voice in the wilderness.

It is through faith that spiritual life is begotten, and we are enabled to do the works of righteousness.

To the question of Zacharias, the angel said, “I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God, and am sent to speak unto you, and to show you these glad tidings.”

Five hundred plus years before, Gabriel had made known to Daniel the prophetic period which was to extend to the coming of Christ.

Before the birth of John the Baptist, the angel had said. “He shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost.” God had called the son of Zacharias to a great work!

Such a messenger must be holy. He must be a temple for the indwelling of the Spirit of God. In order to fulfill his mission, he must have a sound physical constitution, and mental and spiritual strength. Therefore it would be necessary for him to control the appetites and passions.

In the time of John the Baptist, greed for riches, and the love of luxury and display had become widespread. Sensuous pleasures, feasting and drinking were causing physical disease and degeneracy, benumbing the spiritual perceptions, and lessoning the sensibility to sin. John was to stand as a reformer.

In the natural order of things, the son of Zacharias would have been educated for the priesthood. But the training of the rabbinical schools would have unfitted him for his work. God did not send him to the teachers of theology to learn how to interpret the Scriptures. He called him to the desert, that he might learn of nature and nature’s God.

In solitude, by meditation and prayer, he sought to gird up his soul for the lifework before him.

He saw the people deceived, self-satisfied, and asleep in their sins. He longed to rouse them to a holier life. The message that God had given him to bear was designed to startle them from their lethargy, making them aware of their great wickedness.

Before the seed of the gospel could find lodgment, the soil of the heart must be broken up. Before they would seek healing from Jesus, they must be awakened to their danger from the wounds of sin.

John’s singular appearance carried the minds of his hearers back to the ancient seers. In his manner and dress he resembled the prophet Elijah.

Jesus and John the Baptist were cousins, and closely related by their circumstances of their births; yet they had no other direct acquaintance with each other. The life of Jesus had been spent at Nazareth in Galilee; that of John, in the wilderness of Judea. Amid widely different surroundings they had lived in relative seclusion, and had no communication with each other. Providence had ordered this. No occasion was to be given for the charge that they had conspired together to support each other’s claims.

When Jesus came to be baptized, John recognized in Him a purity of character that he had never before perceived in any man. Never had he come in contact with a human being from whom there breathed an influence so divine.

As Jesus asked for baptism, John drew back, exclaiming, “I have need to be of Thee, and comest Thou to me?”….. And straightway coming up out of the water, Jesus saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon Him.

The glory that rested upon Christ is a pledge of the love of God for us. It tells us of the power of prayer.

Our Redeemer has opened the way so that the most sinful, the most needy, the most oppressed and despised, may find access to the Father.