Shiloh didn’t know what to say, so she simply responded with a hug. She held Leslie in her arms for a long time, and Leslie didn’t resist. At some point, she rested her head on Shiloh’s shoulder.
“I’m going back to the rehab center tomorrow,” Leslie said, her voice muffled by Shiloh’s thick sweater. “My counselor there is wonderful. She’ll be the first person, besides you, to learn the truth. We’ll see what happens from there.”
Two hours later, when Shiloh, her mother, and Lem were preparing to head back to Atchity, Leslie reached for her, to give her a hug.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen—if I’ll be able to be successful after rehab this time or not, but thank you for coming, and for helping me see some things today,” she said. “I forgive you, Shiloh. Now I have to figure out how to forgive myself, so I can ask my daughter, and my parents, to forgive me too.”
Shiloh pulled away and looked into her eyes.
“The biggest lesson I’ve learned over the past few months—including in the past few days, Leslie, is the power of standing in your truth. You have to do that for you, and to teach Lia how to do the same. That’s what will bring you back home—to your family and to yourself, whoever you want yourself to be in the here and now.”
Leslie nodded.
“Thanks for the challenge. I think I’m ready this time. I’m going to give it my all.”
On the ride home, Shiloh, Mama, and Lem immersed themselves in their thoughts. When they reached the Wilson home, Shiloh had to wake Lem and send him to the guest room he was sharing with his brothers.
Mama walked toward the house with Shiloh, but stopped her before she entered.
“Thank you for letting me come along, Shiloh, and for allowing me to share this journey to healing with you,” Mama said. “You are an amazing woman, and I’m honored to be your mother.”
Shiloh leaned down and clung to Mama.
“Don’t buy me anything for Christmas this year. You just gave me my gift.”
Now that Thanksgiving was behind them, the nation was barreling toward Christmas. Shiloh, Randy, and the boys saw signs of the commercial emphasis on the holiday throughout the route back to Milwaukee.
Even so, instead of using the drive time to plan for the holiday and the gifts she needed to buy, Shiloh spent it pondering how far she had come this year and how everything she’d experienced had been life-changing. And with Daddy’s request of Randy, she sensed more changes were on the way.
“What are you thinking about Daddy’s plea for you to come back to Atchity?”
Randy didn’t answer for so long, Shiloh thought he hadn’t heard her.
“I’m waiting to see what God says,” he finally responded, and glanced at her. “How do you feel about it?”
Shiloh shrugged. “It’s funny how I’m just getting settled in Milwaukee, making friends in and out of church, developing a bond with Jade, preparing to return to school and get my teaching license, and now this. Makes me wonder what God is doing. I feel like we have a solid ministry in Milwaukee. We’re helping people, the church is growing, I’m mentoring Monica … and yet, home is home. We’d be there to help Mama and Daddy as they get older, you know the congregation at Riverview Baptist and they love you, and as senior pastor, you could implement some of the things you’re already doing in Milwaukee. I agree that we need to pray about it; God may have to reveal the answer on this one.”
Randy nodded. “A year ago, I would have readily and immediately said yes to your dad; but we are in a position now to elevate St. Stephens Baptist to new heights. The members are engaged, and even Jade and Vic are on board, working alongside us rather than with a different agenda. God is up to something; I just don’t know what or where he really wants me—at least not yet. I’ve already asked, though, and I know the answer will come.”
Shiloh reached for his hand. “I’m with you, wherever he plants us.”
“Sounds good to me, babe. Team Griffin, at God’s beck and call.”
By the time they reached home, it was Saturday morning. They had arrived in time for Randy to prepare his Sunday sermon, but they were exhausted. After helping unload the car, the boys scattered in various directions—Lem went to his room to video chat with Lia; Omari and Raphael climbed into bed and went back to sleep; and David, happy to have the TV to himself, turned to one of the cartoon channels that showed all of his favorite action shows and relaxed on the sofa. Shiloh made sure he was comfortable before curling up in the chair across the room from him and dozing off; unpacking the suitcases and washing the dirty laundry could wait.
Two hours later, she woke up refreshed, and headed up to her bedroom to start on the tasks she had deferred. Randy was stretched across the bed, snoring lightly. Shiloh giggled and checked the clock. She’d let him sleep two more hours if he needed, then she’d wake him to see if he wanted to get started on his sermon.
The doorbell rang as she was loading the whites in the washer, and it took her a few minutes to answer. Already breathless when she reached it and pulled it open, she was speechless when she saw the beautiful spray of flowers the deliveryman held.
“Shiloh Griffin?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“Special delivery for you, ma’am. Please sign here.”
Shiloh frowned, but complied. Who had taken the time to send her flowers? Randy usually did so once or twice a year, but it wasn’t her birthday or their anniversary today. After signing for flowers and wrapping her arms around the oversized bouquet, she kicked the door closed with her foot and headed to the kitchen. She set the glass vase on the table and reached for the card.
“Thank you. For everything. I’m on a journey, and my head is in the game. Will keep you posted. Leslie.”
Shiloh sat on the chair and sighed. As Daddy would say, God was still in the miracle-working business. She bowed her head and uttered a prayer for her college friend.
Help her father. Show her the way. Let her forgive, and shed her secrets. Let her live, really live, Lord, to your honor, and for the benefit of her entire family, especially her parents and her daughter. Amen.
Shiloh finished the laundry, started dinner, and was reading a magazine when Randy strolled into the family room and laid his head on her shoulder.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in your study, working on tomorrow’s sermon?” she asked.
He nodded. “Normally, yeah. But Vic and Jade are back in town. He sent me a text and asked if he could preach tomorrow—part two of a message he started a few Sundays ago when he preached. Says he thinks it’s fitting for the weekend after Thanksgiving. If he’s ready and willing with a word that can bless the members and visitors, so be it.”
Shiloh couldn’t believe her ears. This was a first. He considered it a tradition to preach holiday weekend sermons. She wondered if he had relented so easily because of travel fatigue.
“We’re still going to worship service, though, right?”
“Wouldn’t miss it. We’ll see what God says tomorrow. I’m going back to bed.”
“Tomorrow” came quickly for all of them.
Shiloh spent the morning nagging the boys to shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, and pile into the van so they could make it to Sunday school. Randy had already left to attend the eight a.m. service. They somehow made it on time for Sunday school at nine forty-five, and Shiloh was surprised to see Jade, Naima, and Nicholas there as well.
“Yes—there’s a first time for everything,” Jade said and laughed. “Nicholas is two and I’m finally getting into a routine on Sunday mornings that actually works for getting both kids ready and out of the door on time. So here we are.”
Shiloh chuckled. “I hope it didn’t require as much yelling, threatening, and cajoling as it did in my house this morning, with four boys well past their babyhood, and with my youngest easing out of elementary school. How was your Thanksgiving?”
Jade shared that the family’s brief visit to her mom and stepdad’s place in California had been wonderful. They returned late Friday, and on Saturday had enjoyed a second Thanksgiving feast with Vic’s family.
“Usually I’m the butt of all the cooking jokes since I show up with something very simple, like cookies or cupcakes,” Jade said. “But this year, the Mrs. Wisconsin pageant and all the notoriety surrounding my advocacy for hearing aids caused them to cut me some slack. Thank God for our nation’s obsession with celebrity!”
Shiloh swatted her arm. “Don’t start praying for foolish stuff, now. You’ve been doing well.”
Both women laughed and wound up in Randy’s study, where they played catch-up on the past week in each other’s lives. When Shiloh glanced at the clock and saw it was nearly eleven a.m., she stood and stretched.
“Service will start shortly,” she told Jade. “Do you need to get Naima?”
Jade shook her head. “She’s with her little friends. Their teacher will lead them to the sanctuary and probably sit near them to keep them quiet during service.”
“Charlene is really great with them, isn’t she?” Shiloh asked. She was a fairly new member, but she had jumped right in and started helping out however she could around the church.
They left Randy’s office and headed to the sanctuary. When they entered and were near the front of the church, Shiloh felt a tap on her left shoulder. She turned and was greeted with the look that had caught her eye on her first day of teaching: petite little Monica wearing a mile-high afro. Shiloh grinned and hugged the girl.
“It sooo good to see you, my friend. I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving.”
Before Monica could respond, there was a tap on Shiloh’s right shoulder.
“Don’t I get one, too?”
Shiloh turned toward Phaedra. “My other band student baby! Come here!”
She enveloped both of them in a hug, and asked them to sit with her and Jade during the service. Eleanor, Monica’s grandmother, was watching the lovefest from across the sanctuary, and she waved and blew Shiloh a kiss, which Shiloh reciprocated.
Jade and Shiloh sat shoulder to shoulder when service began, and Monica flanked her on the other side, with Phaedra next to her. The choir launched into a familiar gospel tune, and Shiloh’s head nearly did a 360-degree turn on her neck when Monica began belting out the words with fervor in a beautiful soprano.
Monica’s voice was so moving that her flute playing almost paled in comparison. Yet she wanted to go on and become a professional flutist. Shiloh was perplexed, and knew she’d have to get answers later.
When it was time for the sermon, Randy stood in the pulpit and explained that Reverend Vic would be preaching this morning instead of him.
“He’s got a word for us today,” Randy bellowed. “Prepare your hearts and minds to be fed!”
And fed they were, by Vic’s message of thanksgiving, redemption, and purpose in the midst of trials.
“If you want to have a story of victory, you have to go through the beginning, the middle, and the end,” Vic declared. “Stopping before you get started well gives you little to work with. Stopping in the middle, just after the crisis point, means you’re only halfway through. You have to resolve the conflicts and journey on to the end. But you can’t just go through, you have to come out on the other side, maybe bloodied, but not bowed. Maybe messy and less than perfect, but still standing, still fighting for the Lord, still ready to give him your heart and receive his grace!”
By the time he was done, twenty-four people had come forward to join St. Stephens Baptist or to rededicate their lives to Christ. When Monica stirred next to Shiloh and stood to make her way to the front, Shiloh was surprised. Monica patted her hand and smiled, but kept going. When she reached the front, Reverend Vic seemed puzzled
too, knowing that she and her family had joined the church just a few months earlier.
Sitting in her usual seat, on the second row of pews, kept Shiloh from seeing the congregation’s perspective on this outpouring of connection to God this morning, but she knew some of the ladies who had murmured about sweet Monica in the Wednesday Bible study in recent weeks were likely making comments now about her decision to rededicate her life to God, so soon after joining church in the first place. But instead of joining the group of men, women, and children who had come forward to join St. Stephens Baptist, or the group that was rededicating their lives, she whispered in Reverend Vic’s ear. He paused, as if contemplating how to respond, then nodded, giving his consent to whatever her request had been.
Monica stood just behind him, with the other worship attendees who had come forward, until the formal altar call had ended. Once the music wound down and Reverend Vic had shared the names of everyone who stood at the altar and had given them an opportunity to speak, he turned toward Monica and motioned for her to join him.
“Many of you in the women’s ministry know Eleanor, this young lady’s grandmother,” Vic said. “Sister Monica here is a high school sophomore who joined St. Stephens Baptist on the same day as Eleanor and her father, about a month ago. Wave your hand if you’re out there, Brother Claude.”
Monica’s dad stood and waved. Shiloh turned to see where he was seated, and recognized the surprise in his eyes over Monica’s going to the altar.
“Well, Monica is here,” Reverend Vic said, “because she wants to bless us with a song God has placed on her heart. I’ve heard many times from First Lady Griffin that this young lady is a gifted flutist—one
who is going places. But I didn’t know that she could also sing. She tells me this afternoon that she’s ready to use this other gift, too.”
Reverend Vic motioned for everyone else at the altar to take their seats and handed the microphone to Monica. He went over to the pianist and whispered something in his ear, and Shiloh guessed it was the name of the song that Monica planned to sing.
All of a sudden, Monica looked nervous. Her eyes flitted from Shiloh to Phaedra to her grandmother, since her father was sitting too far back in the congregation to find. Suddenly, though, a smile brightened her lovely face, and Shiloh turned to see that Claude had stood up, in a sea of sitting parishioners, to lend his daughter his support. He nodded at her, and she brought the microphone to her lips.
“Good morning, church,” she said tentatively. After their swift reply, she continued. “I … my mother used to always tell me that my voice was so sweet it made her cry. And after she passed away, almost three years ago now, I kind of stopped singing, because it reminded me of her too much. I threw myself into my first love, playing the flute, and I just didn’t sing much at all, until I joined the youth choir. Lately I’ve been going through some things. Some tough things. And I’m finding that what is seeing me through are my family, Reverend Griffin and First Lady Griffin, my closest friend, Phaedra, and most of all, God. I’m realizing more and more that Philippians 4:13 is right: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, even when I feel like I’ve failed God or I’m at my weakest. He still forgives me and loves me, and I’m grateful.
“So, my grandmother had her CeCe Winans CD on the other day, while we were cleaning the house, and you know, it’s a CD I’ve heard her play a million times. But last week when one particular song came on, it just stopped me in my tracks. I realized that it is my story. And because CeCe Winans is singing about it, it must be the story of other people, too. So on this Sunday after Thanksgiving, I want
to give thanks to God by honoring him and you, and everyone who needs to hear this, with ‘Alabaster Box.’”
The full band of musicians began to play, under the direction of the pianist, and as the music swelled, Monica closed her eyes, put the microphone to her lips, and seemed to be transported to another place, as she sang the lyrics from her heart.
Shiloh let the tears fall, unchecked and unabated. She raised her hands in praise. Today, she didn’t care who saw her. Monica’s voice was so lovely it touched the soul. But the song itself wasn’t just Monica’s anthem in this trying season; it was her own. She realized, yet again, that God’s love was more than enough to cover her sins, and she was truly thankful.
“You did not feel what I felt when he wrapped his loving arms around me. And you don’t know the cost of the oil in my alabaster box.
”
When Shiloh, still weeping, opened her eyes, she was stunned to see that Monica wasn’t standing by herself anymore. Jade had joined her, and so had her grandmother Eleanor, and Sister Adelaide from Bible study class. Shiloh left her seat just as the song wound to a close, and opened her arms to envelop the girl in a hug.
The church erupted in praise. Randy had been standing in front of the pulpit, watching Monica sing, clearly awestruck. When he saw the reaction of the congregation, he took his seat and let the church have its way. Shiloh motioned for Phaedra to join her at the altar, with Monica, who was still in her arms. She asked the girls if they had been obedient to the message she’d given all of her students throughout her substitute teaching stint—to carry their instruments wherever they went, because an opportunity to perform could arise at any time, in any place.
“Yes, we brought them,” Phaedra said. “Want me to go to the car and get them?”
“Yes—please,” Shiloh said, and Phaedra trotted down the aisle to Monica’s dad to ask him for the key to the car.
“Mind if I borrow your flute?” Shiloh asked Monica. Monica, who seemed dazed by the reaction her singing had rendered, nodded. “I have one of my own, in Pastor Randy’s office, but it’s easier to just use yours, if you’re okay with that. I’d like to have you sing that beautiful song again, sweetheart, and Phaedra and I will accompany you on the instruments. I can’t speak for Phaedra, but you’ve validated my alabaster box, too, this morning.”
Monica smiled and Shiloh kissed her cheek. When Phaedra returned with the instruments, the two of them quickly set up and tuned them, and Shiloh motioned for the musicians to launch into “Alabaster Box” again. This time, the flute and sax combined to play the opening melodies, and Monica, waiting for the perfect timing to chime in, did so at the chorus, reminding everyone present not to count the cost of someone else’s gift to God, or the cost of their journey to faith. Only God knew, just as only God had the power to heal, restore, and bless.