Chicken Soup for the African American Woman's Soul (22 page)

When I lived in New York City I used to live down the street from a store that sold candles, towels, bedding, accessories and the like. One day I saw that the store was going out of business so I went inside to shop for bargains. I noticed a sign: “More Downstairs—Furniture 50-60 Percent Off!” I never knew this place had a downstairs or that it had furniture so I went to check it out. There wasn't much left. The walls had been stripped of all decoration and the room looked like a plain old basement under the blue fluorescent light. I wanted to leave, but one piece caught my eye: a chaise lounge. It was big (wide enough for two) and overstuffed, with fat arms all covered in a brown tweed upholstery. Now I had known of chaises as beach chairs and lawn furniture. I'd never seen one as indoor furniture.

Well, I plopped down into that chaise and fell in love. I thought,
This is the most amazing piece of furniture ever!
It was functional, but entirely frivolous. I loved that there was absolutely no reason to have such a thing in a home other than for pure luxury. I started seeing myself sitting in the chaise in a home office and reading and editing pages with my feet up and a cup of tea by my side. The chaise felt great—my whole vision felt great—and I knew I wanted it.

Unfortunately I found the price, about $1500, (and that was with the going-out-of-business discount) too steep.

Also, while our apartment was larger than the average Manhattan apartment, I knew there was no space for it. It was silly for me to want such a thing and I reluctantly told myself as much and left the store.

A few weeks later my husband and I were in the neighborhood thrift store shopping for shirts. While he trolled the racks, I looked for a place to sit down. There, near the front of the store with other secondhand furniture for sale was a chaise. It was narrower than the one I had seen at the other store. The white twill cover was dingy and the cushions thin. I sat down and ran my hand over its raised piping and checked out the price tag: $225. I could afford that! I started to think about where I could put it, but in my head I wasn't seeing my apartment. I kept thinking about my vision and the only thing that made sense to me was that one day I would have a house with my own office and enough room for such a piece of furniture.

Maybe I should just keep working toward that. Then another thought came to me, clear and undeniable:
This is
not my chaise.

I held the thought in my mind and told no one about it.

Not my husband, not my friends. It all seemed so silly. I had work that I loved, a wonderful husband and a great place to live. It made no sense to ask for more, especially something I didn't need. I put the chaise down as something I'd buy for myself one day when I hit it big.

Not long after this I got a phone call from my beloved friend Jenny. We used to do yoga together twice a week at her place, but I hadn't seen her in awhile. There was a lot of work going on in her apartment because her great room was being redone by
O at Home,
Oprah Winfrey's decorating magazine. That day on the phone she said, “Come over, I have something for you.”

“Okay,” I said, thinking that she had found a gorgeous designer bag or a beautiful new dress for me. We shop together often so she knows my taste for the colorful and the sequined. She will pick up pieces she knows I will love so I was eager to see what her latest adventure had uncovered. When she opened the door I could tell she was excited, too.

“Look, you don't have to take it if you don't want it,” she said quickly. “But this just has Fronie written all over it and I think you're supposed to have it.” She took me into the room she used as an office, but we almost couldn't get in. It was full of boxes and pieces of furniture. The blinds were down so Jenny had to turn on a light. She said, “This is for you.”

There, practically glowing in the center of the room, was a chaise: yellow, slim, with a curved back, tufted fabric and mahogany legs. It was sleek, smart and fabulous. I was stunned.

The designer had brought it in for her living room, but Jenny felt the chaise wouldn't survive being subjected daily to her two dogs and eight-year-old son. She told me she had been at a loss what to do with it so she sat down with her housekeeper to do some brainstorming over the situation. Together they looked at the chaise for a long time. “Then,” Jenny said, “we both looked at each other and said, at the same time, ‘This is Sophfronia's chaise.'”

I stood there and fought back tears because I just couldn't explain to Jenny how humbled and loved I felt in that moment. I felt as though God were saying to me, “Anything you want, little girl.
Anything
.” And price was definitely no object. That first chaise I had seen cost $1,500.

The second, $225. This one, which so perfectly suited me and my home in terms of size, color and style, carried a retail price of over $8,000. I got it for free. From then on I knew it was okay to share all of my dreams with God, and that it was all right—in fact, his wish for me to want big and dream big. I would never hold back again.

Today I do live in a beautiful 3,000 square-foot house where I have my own office and library with inspiring views of Connecticut's woodlands. And my chaise? It's in my bedroom where it sits with a tall Arts and Crafts style reading lamp and stacks of books on the floor. I love watching my toddler son climb onto the chaise and that is where we read together. Is this what I asked for? Well, no, not quite. This is even better.

Sophfronia Scott

The Bus Vouchers

N
o matter what accomplishments you make,
somebody helps you.

Wilma Rudolph

Leaving home for work late one day near the end of December, I missed my normal bus and had to catch the later one. I checked my watch and knew I could still make it on time, but I was cutting it close—a stressful start to the morning.

As I sat waiting for the bus, I realized that the end of the month meant the beginning of a new one, which meant it was time to buy my bus pass for January, a cost of $100. Mind you, that was $100 that I didn't have. The holidays had just passed, my husband was unemployed at the time and things were very tight for our family. I sighed audibly. If I couldn't get to work, things would only get worse.

Seeing no other viable options, I began to pray and ask God to help me solve this problem, to send me the money tomeet this need, as I had done in the past for other things. I offered my problem to God, which if nothing else, made me feel better and more prepared to face my day.

Continuing to pray, I rode past one bus stop. At the second stop, a lady got on the bus whom I had met several weeks prior. She and I often took the same evening bus home and had shared scriptures together and conversations about ways to share God with co-workers. Happy to see her, I smiled.

As she reached my seat, she said, “Good morning, I have something for you.” I thought perhaps she had a passage she wanted to read to me or a book she wanted to share.

She sat down and,whispering across the person between us, asked if the company I worked for paid for my transportation. An odd question, I thought, especially in light of my recent concerns, but I let her know that they did not.

She had the person sitting between us pass me an envelope. I opened the envelope and therewere bus vouchers for the months of January, February and part of March—worth $226! I can only imagine how surprised I must have looked.

God had certainly answeredmy prayers before, and I trusted that he would again, but I didn't expect it to happen so quickly and efficiently, immediately after uttering the prayer!

I looked up at her speechless and she explained, “I accepted a position in Texas andwill bemoving therewithin a few days. I prepurchased these bus vouchers and they are nonrefundable. I didn't want them to go to waste, so when I prayed over what the best thing to do with them was, spirit told me to give the bus vouchers to you. I took an earlier bus than I normally do, hoping to see you thismorning.”

Obviously, God had been working on the solution even before I recognized the problem. We cried together, all the way to work, when we recognized how clearly we were both a part of God's plan.

This turned out to be the perfect way for me to share God with my co-workers as, needless to say, I shared the testimony with whomever I could find that would listen.

Ruthell Cook Price

You'll Do It for Me

F
aith is the first factor in a life devoted to service.
Without it, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is
impossible.

Mary McLeod Bethune

I couldn't believe I was in a place like this. As I walked down the hall, I found myself silently pleading with God for an answer to the question,
Why is this happening to me?

Safely in the cell, a hollow sigh escaped my lips as I checked out my new surroundings. The furnishings were simple . . . an iron bed frame with nomattress and a toilet— on top of which sat a carton of ice tea.

There were two other girls in my new temporary home, and we spent the next few minutes getting acquainted. One had shoplifted a pair of socks from the dollar store; the other was too incoherent to share what she had done; I had spanked my son.

The series of events that led me to this moment constitutes another entire story, but let it suffice to say that I was not the kind of girl who generally ended up in a place like this, nor the kind of mother who would be accused of abuse. As the mother of six, one only a few weeks old, it was not only remarkable but unfathomable to my family and to me that I was in jail, with Christmas only a few days away.

Before long an officer fetched me from the cell and escorted me to have my fingerprints taken. The process lasted about five minutes, and when I returned, my roommates were gone and so was the tea.

Within seconds, a woman who put fear in my heart was being led to the cell, and she was not happy. Neither was I. We stood face to face . . . okay, head to chest . . . okay, how about toe to toe. She towered over me. Her eyes darted toward the toilet and then rested firmly on mine. It felt like staring into two torches. Her chest heaved, and from her mouth the words spewed like lava from an erupting volcano. “Who took my tea?”

I returned the stare while craning my neck and attempted to respond with an equal amount of bass in my voice, “Not me.” I seized the opportunity to walk away triumphantly and plopped myself onto the bed. I had forgotten there was no mattress. Ouch. I sat on the cold iron contemplating the possibility of being killed for something I didn't even do.

She stood momentarily looking at me and then proceeded to climb atop the toilet. It turns out her boyfriend was in the cell adjacent to ours. They had both been arrested and conveniently, there was a little cut-out window above the toilet through which they could communicate.

As I watched her, contemplating my impending doom, an inner voice whispered gently,
Ask her if she is okay
. I almost choked. I thought to myself,
You have got to be crazy.

I'm not talking to her.
But the voice was insistent. Despite my inner grumbling, I had to obey.

She climbed down from the toilet and took a seat next to me, obviously annoyed. I swallowed hard, looked her in the eyes and asked quietly and respectfully, “Are you okay?”

Immediately, her countenance was transformed. Her face became soft. I could see that she was vulnerable, confused and afraid just like me.

She began to tell me about how her boyfriend had violated a restraining order, and when the cops came to arrest him, he squealed on her for having numerous outstanding warrants. Now, they were both in jail.

She explained how the officers refused to take her to her house to get her heart medicine. Her anger was fueled by their refusal to fulfill a basic need.

“Baby, you gotta keep your faith,” I said in an attempt to encourage her. I was probably speaking as much to myself as to her, but I felt her frustration.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Jesus gonna work it out,” she responded sarcastically. “I tried that stuff, and look what it has gotten me. I was trying to live right, and now I'm gonna be sent back to prison.”

“Listen, your faith is all you have,” I told her while trying to convince myself. “I don't understand why God is allowing me to go through what I'm going through, either, but I have to hold on to my faith. Faith is all we have. We have to hold on.”

In between toilet-top dialogues with her boyfriend, we spent the next hour sharing as only sisters can. We talked about faith.We talked about our kids.We talked about forgiving and being forgiven. She told me what her future held, being sent back to prison for the next three years. She shared what it was like to be an inmate there, and it brought tears to my eyes.

Toward the end of our time together, she climbed atop the toilet one last time and made a bold declaration to her boyfriend. “Baby, I've decided what I'm going to do when I get back to prison. I'm going to stay to myself, and I am staying with the Lord.” I was engulfed by joy and a sense of purpose as an inner voice answered my earlier question,
This is the reason why you had to pass through here.