Kane walked into Raven’s office without knocking and shut the door behind him, fuming. “So when exactly were you going to tell me?”
Raven hurried out of her seat and then stepped around her desk, trying to embrace him. “Baby, I knew you were going to be upset, but please let me explain.”
Kane pushed her arms away from him. “Explain how? I mean, here we’ve been seeing each other for all this time and you never told me you were raped? Yet you told the entire world about it?”
“I didn’t mean for it to happen that way. Honestly, I didn’t.”
“I don’t believe you. It’s bad enough that you won’t marry me, but now you’re keeping secrets? The kind of secrets people in love don’t hide from each other?”
This was turning out worse than Raven had thought it would be, and since Bible study would be starting in thirty minutes, it was such bad timing. “I didn’t want to, but I was so ashamed. Sometimes just thinking about it is way too painful, and that’s why I never talk about it. I’ve never told anyone.”
“Until two days ago. On Monday you told everyone except me.”
“I know, baby, and I’m sorry. If I could do things over I would, but I can’t.”
“No, you’re right. What’s done is done, but at least now I know where we stand.”
Raven walked closer to him again.
“Don’t touch me,” he said. “That’s not going to work this time.”
“Please let me make this up to you. I have to get ready for Bible study, but I promise I’ll answer any questions you have right after. I’ll explain everything when you come to my house.”
“No, I think I’ll pass on both.”
“You’re not staying for Bible study?”
“No.”
“Baby, I get that you don’t understand any of this, but you also don’t know what it’s like to be a rape victim,” she said, searching for anything she could that might make him forgive her. “You don’t know what it’s like to be traumatized the way I was and then have to walk around all this time as though nothing happened. But for some reason when I got ready to do my broadcast on Monday, I felt led to tell the truth. I felt obligated to share my story so that I could help other women.”
Kane stared at her, and Raven had never seen him so furious. She’d never seen him so hurt.
“So who did this to you?” he asked matter-of-factly.
This was the one question that Raven had already thought up a lie for. “That’s not something I can tell even you. I know it might sound strange, but if I did, it would stir up too many awful memories. It’s just better to forget about it and move on.”
“You’re too much. You know that? And to think I thought you loved me.”
“I do love you. But I can’t allow my past to take over my life. I won’t do that.”
“So you’re going to let a rapist go free? Let him ruin some other woman’s life? And who’s to say he hasn’t raped lots of other women already?”
“I can’t worry about that. I have to worry about me.”
Kane shook his head. “Please tell me you’re not serious. You’re a pastor, trying to save souls, yet you can’t worry about other victims?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Well, then which is it, Raven? You just said that the reason you shared your story was to help other women, but now you’re saying you’re only worried about yourself?”
Kane was trying to use her words against her, the same as Porsha had done during yesterday’s meeting, but it wouldn’t change Raven’s mind about anything. How could it? Because it wasn’t as though she had a real name to give. It wasn’t like she’d been raped—at least not as an adult.
“Baby, please. I’m begging you to understand. I know it’s hard, but let’s just get through Bible study and then we’ll continue this later.”
“I already told you. I’m not staying for Bible study, and I’m not coming to your house.”
Raven wasn’t sure what else to say.
Kane shook his head again. “I’m out of here.”
Raven grabbed his arm, but he jerked it away from her and left her office. She would have to work hard to ease back into his good graces, but right now, she couldn’t worry about that. Instead, she skimmed through tonight’s lesson and the list of scriptures she would be teaching from. She closed her eyes, breathed in and out, and sat there in silence. In a matter of minutes, she felt a great sense of calm. It was as though Kane hadn’t burst into her office and confronted her about anything.
Raven greeted everyone and then closed her eyes. “Dear Heavenly Father, we come to You this evening just to say thank You. Thank You for watching over us, for protecting us, and for providing for us. Thank You for blessing our entire church family and for allowing us this great opportunity to study Your Word. We ask that You would open our minds and hearts in the best way possible, so that we can learn and receive the message You have for us. But most of all, Lord, we sincerely thank You for Your mercy, grace, and favor on each and every one of our lives. In Jesus’s name. Amen.”
“Amen,” the members said.
Raven moved her typed lesson to the side, picked up her Samsung tablet, and walked down from the pulpit. She locked eyes with Porsha but only for a second. Raven looked forward to the day when she wouldn’t have to see her. Not on Wednesday nights, Sunday mornings, or any other day—but those thoughts had to be saved for a different time.
For now, Raven acted as though Porsha were invisible. Then, she swiped through her Bible app until she found the line she wanted to begin with. “Tonight, I want to talk about David and Goliath, so if you would, please turn your Bibles to First Samuel, chapter seventeen, verses thirty-two through forty-nine.”
Raven glanced across the sanctuary, slowly walking back and forth, waiting for everyone to either turn to the correct page of their Bibles or pull the scripture up on their electronic devices.
Finally, she began reciting the first six verses. “And it reads as follows: ‘“Don’t worry about this Philistine,” David told Saul. “I’ll go fight him!” “Don’t be ridiculous!” Saul replied. “There’s no way you can fight this Philistine and possibly win! You’re only a boy, and he’s been a man of war since his youth.” But David persisted. “I have been taking care of my father’s sheep and goats,” he said. “When a lion or a bear comes to steal a lamb from the flock, I go after it with a club and rescue the lamb from its mouth. If the animal turns on me, I catch it by the jaw and club it to death. I have done this to both lions and bears, and I’ll do it to this pagan Philistine, too, for he has defied the armies of the living God! The Lord who rescued me from the claws of the lion and the bear will rescue me from this Philistine!” Saul finally consented. “All right, go ahead,” he said. “And may the Lord be with you!”’
“I don’t know about you, but I smile every time I read about David,” Raven said. “And I think it’s because even though David was only a small boy, he trusted and believed that God would see him through no matter what. Everyone, including King Saul, was afraid of Goliath, but not David. No, David had the kind of faith we all should have, the kind that never wavers.”
“Amen,” seemingly every member said. They loved this lesson already, and Raven was glad she’d one-upped Porsha again. Porsha had talked about faith while giving that petty message of hers on Sunday, but Raven was going to take the topic of faith to a whole other level this evening.
“And I have to tell you,” Raven continued, “as a female pastor I sometimes feel like David. But then there are times when my faith really does weaken. There are times when I meet various men of God at ministry conferences or even when I visit churches right here in town, and they don’t accept me. They look at me as though I don’t belong, and as if I don’t know my place.”
Many members shook their heads with sadness, and Raven wanted to high-five herself. Last night and again this morning, she’d tried to figure out a good way to draw in more sympathy. Telling everyone about her “rape” had certainly caused thousands of people to feel sorry for her, but here, locally, she wanted to add just a little something more to sweeten the pot. She wanted her local members to support her and defend her to anyone, and she knew teaching this sort of lesson would get their attention.
Raven held her tablet against her chest and broke into tears. “You all just don’t know what these last couple of years have been like for me. These last nine years. I won’t go into what I talked about during my Facebook broadcast on Monday, but for years, I have been fighting to have peace in my life. And I went from that tragedy to getting married and divorced and then to becoming a pastor—a pastor who isn’t accepted by everyone,” she said, sniffling, and one of the older ladies of the church got up and gave her a cotton handkerchief. Raven could tell just from wiping her cheeks that it wasn’t the same quality as her own, but she acted as though she couldn’t be more grateful to the woman.
“Thank you for being so kind. For being so thoughtful.”
When Raven finished drying her eyes, a fortysomething woman raised her hand.
“Yes,” Raven said, still sniffling.
“Thank you so much, Pastor Raven. For being such an awesome minister and for being so transparent about your life. As you mentioned, most of us watched your video, and I am so sorry about what happened to you. I replayed that part three different times, and I cried my eyes out.”
“Thank you, my sister. Thank you for caring about me in such a wonderful way.”
“Of course. Then, as far as tonight’s lesson, my question to you is, how do you stop your faith from wavering? What happens if you’re not as steadfast with your faith as David was, and how do you get back on track?”
“That’s a good question,” Raven said. “And my best answer is to never get off track. Wake up every single morning believing that God will do exceedingly, abundantly, above all that you could ever ask or think. Focus specifically on keeping your faith strong throughout your day and even when you pray before going to bed. The Bible says to pray without ceasing, and I believe we have to have faith without ceasing as well. Because if we become lax, we can begin to doubt God. We can start to feel as though nothing is going to work out right for us.”
The woman nodded and smiled. “Thank you, Pastor Raven.”
“Let’s continue reading chapters thirty-eight through forty. ‘Then Saul gave David his own armor—a bronze helmet and a coat of mail. David put it on, strapped the sword over it, and took a step or two to see what it was like, for he had never worn such things before.
“‘“I can’t go in these,” he protested to Saul. “I’m not used to them.” So David took them off again. He picked up five smooth stones from a stream and put them into his shepherd’s bag. Then, armed only with his shepherd’s staff and sling, he started across the valley to fight the Philistine.’
“So as you can see, David’s faith was solid. Concrete. Unshaken. And what that also teaches us is that even if we have no one to help us through our trials and tribulations; even if our own family members and friends forsake us; even if we feel totally and completely alone in this world, we can still fight for ourselves. We can still win any battle, no matter how massive it is, but the only way we can accomplish this is through God. As long as we keep God first in our lives, obey His Commandments, and believe, believe, believe in Him with our entire beings, we will never be defeated. In other words, if we have God, we have everything.”
Raven read the next few chapters and answered questions from a young man and also from his mother. Then she ended with the last two verses. “And finally, ‘As Goliath moved closer to attack, David quickly ran out to meet him. Reaching into his shepherd’s bag and taking out a stone, he hurled it with his sling and hit the Philistine in the forehead. The stone sank in, and Goliath stumbled and fell face down on the ground.’
“It was as simple as that,” Raven said, smiling. “David slew Goliath, the giant, the pagan Philistine who everyone in the land was afraid of. He did it by way of faith and through his belief that God was with him.”
“Knocked him clean out,” Brother Pascal, an eightysomething gentleman, said.
Everyone laughed out loud, and so did Raven.
“You are so right, Brother Pascal,” she said. “He knocked him out big time.”
When everyone settled down, Raven looked across the sanctuary, checking to see if there were more questions. But when she spied the man standing with his arms folded, her heart sank. He stood there, bold and intimidating, dressed in a black shirt and black jeans. It was D. C. Robinson, the loan shark she’d stolen money from years ago.
He never even gave her a chance to ignore him. “Good evening, Pastor Raven.”
Her nerves twirled in an uproar. “Good evening.”
“I know your lesson tonight is about David and Goliath, but since I’m strugglin’ with somethin’ a little different, I wondered if I could ask you about it.”
“Yes, go ahead.”
“Well, in my line of work, I deal with a lot of people who don’t keep their word. They don’t do what they promise, and then I end up takin’ a major loss. So I just want to know how I should handle somethin’ like that. Especially someone like me who hasn’t been the best Christian in the world. But I do know one scripture in Matthew that talks about a person usin’ a sword, and how he will die by the sword.”
Raven wondered how D.C. equated that scripture to someone owing him money and not paying it back, because she knew unpaid debts were what he was actually talking about.
“Well, I don’t think that’s necessarily the right scripture to meditate on. Not in this case, anyway. I would suggest that you focus more on the many scriptures that speak about forgiveness. I would also suggest that you maybe not do business with certain people anymore. That might be your best solution.”
“Then I guess my real struggle is more with me wantin’ to get revenge on people who have lied to me. Folks who have deceived me. I’ve even had some so-called Christians betray me, and that’s when I think about this other scripture I used to hear my grandfather quote. It had something to do with wolves in sheep’s clothing. So my other question is, how does revenge work for these kind of people? Do they end up reapin’ what they sow just like nonbelievers?”
Raven hurried to answer him as best she could, and thankfully, D.C. finally took his seat. Why on earth was this man attending her Bible study lesson? She knew she’d never paid him back the money she’d stolen from him, but he’d also never bothered her about it. She hadn’t heard from him while she was in prison, while she was married to Dillon, or even since her divorce. So she’d just assumed that D.C. had moved on and forgotten about her—or that maybe once she’d been released from prison and had become Pastor Black’s daughter-in-law, he’d decided to cancel her debt. Because in the past, D. C. Robinson had never waited as much as nine days beyond a due date, let alone nine years.
But then it dawned on her. What if Dillon or Pastor Black had sent him because of her rape accusation? Especially since Pastor Black had known D.C. for years and considered him a friend, even. But would Pastor Black and Dillon actually go this far? Using a criminal to try to scare her? Raven wasn’t sure one way or the other, but what she did know was that she didn’t need this kind of drama. What she wanted was for D.C. to leave and never come back there.
Yet he still sat staring at her—like he hated her. He never took his eyes off her, and she knew he wanted his money back. All thirty thousand dollars of it. This, of course, wouldn’t have been so bad, except if she knew D.C. the way she thought she did, he would also want interest. But to get rid of him, it would be well worth paying him and moving on. It was best to take care of this and be done with it.