The Makeover (43 page)

“How do you
know that? I haven’t—”

“Don’t bother,
Phoenix.  I know He’s calling you back to Himself.  I see it in your
eyes when we go to church. You know you want to go to the altar, but you stop
each time.  When I encourage you to return to him in our prayer time, you
hesitate.  Why?  How many chances do you think He’ll give you? 
Each time He calls and you don’t answer, you are giving the enemy a stronger
chance to pull you away for good.  God has gone all out, clearing out the
people you had no business being involved with.  He has answered your
prayers, if I do say so myself.  Why are you still pushing Him away?”

Phoenix was not
prepared for the turn in the conversation.  “Paulo, I don’t know.”

Paulo sucked
his teeth.  “Don’t give me that, Phoenix.  First you push Him away
when He shows you how much He loves you.  Then, you push me away when I
tell you I love you too.  Unless you don’t feel the same way, please tell
me what’s going on with you?”

Phoenix looked
down at her shoes.

“Look at me!”
Paulo roared with narrowed eyes. 

Her head
snapped up.

“I want you to
tell me what is going on.  What in the world is holding you back?”

Phoenix’s eyes
became frantic, shifting from right to left, as though a feasible answer was
hidden in the corners of her apartment. “What about that thing you said about
you waiting on me? After we walked home the first time I went to your Bible
study?  What about that?”

“What about
that, Phoenix?  That was, like, months ago.  If you were not ready, I
would not pressure you.  Heck, I’ve been praying for my own mother for
almost ten years.  You think I push her like this?  No!  I don’t
because she is not anywhere near ready.  I pray for her and place her in
God’s hands.  But you’re ready.  You’ve been ready, Phoenix. 
You hear the Lord knocking on your heart and you’re shutting Him out.  I
fall in love with you.  God sends me to you and you shut me out when I
open up to you.  What is going on?”

Phoenix wrung
her hands.  “My relationship with the Lord has nothing to do with my
relationship with you,” she said, stalling.

“You know
what?  You’re wrong.  Your relationship with God is separate and
comes first—and it must come first above all things.  However, my
relationship with you cannot go further if you do not allow yourself to have a
relationship with God through Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.  If
you don’t choose Him, then I can’t choose you.  But I will say this: 
if I had to give up a relationship with you, the woman I am in love with, in
order for you to have a relationship with the Lord, I would.”

“What do you
mean?” Phoenix gasped.

“I mean that I
am in love with you.  I mean that if God allows it, I could see myself
marrying you one day—if you would have me. I mean that I love you more and more
each day.  But having said that, if I had to lose you, never see you
again, in order for you to have a relationship with Christ, I would.  I
would give you up so you could have God.  I want you to be saved more than
I want you for myself.  I love you that much.  It’s not only because
I need to put Him first but also because
you
need to put Him
first.  That is why your relationship with the Lord is directly related to
your relationship to me.  He will not play second to anybody.  And,
frankly, I wouldn’t be able to marry a woman who does not love the Lord. 
You don’t have to be perfect, but you have to be His.  And I pray so much
that you will become His again that I would give up anything between us to see
that you were with Him again.”

“Are you for
real?” Phoenix began to pace.  “Why would you have to give me up in order
for me to have a relationship with God?”

Paulo
shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I thought maybe I was holding you
back.  Like, maybe you were doing this because of me and not because
you
want God for yourself.”

“Paulo, I mean,
I don’t even know what to say at this point.  I have never had this type
of conversation in my entire life.” 

“Maybe that’s
the problem.  When you give your life to Jesus, it means just that. 
He’s not some guy that did something over two thousand years ago and is
watching from his spot on the right hand side.  He is the Living God who
is alive, Phoenix.  And He takes control.  He becomes our
everything.  He involves Himself in everything—every decision,
conversation, relationship, issue, sickness, worry.  He becomes part of
our speech and He speaks to us too.  Maybe you haven’t figured that out
after this time together because of something I’ve done wrong.”

Phoenix shook
her head.  “Paulo, I respect you and appreciate how you’ve tried to help
me, but you don’t have that much influence over me.”

“I didn’t say I
did.  But I could have some sort of
effect
on you.  Maybe
there is something about me that is preventing you from loving the Lord….” He
looked down as his words trailed away.  “Maybe it is the very thing that
prevents you from loving me back too,” he finished quietly.

Phoenix wished
she had not allowed this man, who loved her so much, to believe she did not
feel the same way.  She went to him and kissed his cheek.  “Paulo,
you have done more than anyone could have been expected to.  You have
helped me through a huge problem in my life and was so loving while doing
it.  I know you say often that God was using you, but I thank you for
obeying Him because you helped save my life.  Not only that, but you are
one of the best Christians I have ever met.  You live out your faith in a
way I have never seen up close.  You try your best and you give God and
others a hundred and ten percent.  You are not perfect, I know, but even
in the way you admit your flaws shows how genuine you are.  Believe me,
it’s not you.  It’s me.  I—”
I love you so much,
she finished
silently, still unable to admit the truth.

“Oh,
please.  That sounds just wonderful, but I don’t even want to hear that
right now.  Just go ahead and do what you’ve been doing.  Keep
putting your mind on your past with Cedric instead of what you have in front of
you.  .Keep following your own plan.  Whatever.”  Paulo sulked.

Phoenix
regarded Paulo whose face had fallen into a long, drawn mask.  She kissed
him again.  “Now I know what you meant earlier about weak women following
their own plan.  I am sorry about that, but my question is, how did you
find out about it?  Did Cara tell you about my plan behind my back?”

Paulo’s
wrinkled forehead answered her question.  “What are you talking
about?  When I said that, I meant how women I’ve loved—you and my wife
before you—were weak in your issues, and instead of trusting God to resolve
them, you tried to follow your own plans and made everything worse.  I
should be saying that to myself too, I know, but that was what I meant. 
What plan are you talking about?”

 Phoenix
felt trapped.  She’d opened up that can and the worms were slithering
out.  “Uh, well, now I know what you meant so—”

Paulo’s lips
pressed into a thin line.  In a slow, measured set of words, he whispered,
“What. Plan. Are. You. Talking. About?”

“My plan for
Cedric,” she answered quietly, grabbing his hand for strength.  “When you
said that stuff earlier about my mind being on Cedric, I thought it was because
you knew.  I was annoyed because I only told Cara.  I didn’t want to
think she would run back and tell you about it.  I know she’s your friend,
but she’s mine too so—”

Paulo pulled
away.  “
What
plan for Cedric?”

“My plan to get
back at him.”

Be
respectful.  You are a man of God.  Jesus help me. 
“You
have a plan to get back at Cedric?” Paulo asked, in a strangled voice. 
His heart was thundering away as his stomach began to pulse.  “How do you
plan to get back at him?” he asked in as calm a voice as he could muster.

“Listen, I
don’t want to hurt you—”

“You’ve opened
the door, Phoenix.  Please go on and walk through it.  How do you
plan to get back at him?” He said as his accent thickened in his words. 
His golden eyes were a matte gray as they searched her own.

“First let me
say I don’t want him back,” Phoenix declared emphatically.  “I
don’t.  I just feel like I can’t let him get away with what he’s done and
how he’s treated me.”

“Again, how do
you plan on doing that, Phoenix?”

“I don’t want
to be with him.  I just wanted him to want
me
back.  I wanted
to lose all of this weight and make him want me.  I wanted him to ask me
out again so I can reject him like he did me.  I wanted to crush him like
he did me.  Then I will be over my issues with Cedric.”

Paulo was
already shaking his head with his eyes closed.  “Phoenix, hold on. 
Are you for real?  Are you telling me that you are planning an act of
revenge against this guy when I am right here, in front of you, and waiting for
the time we can take this relationship further?”

“I didn’t think
you were –” Phoenix tried once more to hold his hand.

But Paulo
snatched away again.  “Don’t you
dare
even
consider
touching
me right now!” he growled.

Phoenix inhaled
and swallowed, watching Paulo’s flat gray eyes nearly turn black, as his face
became stained a bright crimson.  She had never seen,
never
seen,
his ever-changing hazel eyes turn that dark.  Ever.

Paulo’s sneer
strained against the hard plains of his pulsing jaw.  “Are you
serious?  After I sat in your apartment and helped him pack up his
stuff?  After I paid for a cab for him to lug his old stuff to wherever he
was going to get him out of your life for good?  After I spent two hours
going through your apartment, rearranging things and getting rid of everything
that he chose to leave behind, like old mail and clothes he didn’t want, so you
would be comfortable?  After I did this so the relationship could finally
be over, and you could finally move forward, preferably with me? After I’ve struggled
so hard with my own fears to let you into my heart and give you mine, all of
mine, in return?  After I’ve fallen in love with you, and have shown you,
even before I said the words to you? You’re actually saying that you want to
make him want you so you can reject him?” Paulo’s eyes filled with tears of
rage as he clenched his jaw and his fists.  “After all of this time
praying for you, you want to hurt him more than you want to love me?”

Phoenix lost
her courage.  The black fire in his eyes, and the thickening of the accent
in his voice, warned her instincts that she was about to cross a line she may
not return from with Paulo. 

“Please don’t
tell me that
this
is the way you want to make use of God’s
blessings.  You want to use my help, and Cara’s, so you can win back your
ex just to hurt him?” Paulo barked.  Paulo’s flushed skin tone was
shifting from red to pink to pale with each word.  “You withheld your
feelings for me because of
that
?”

“You don’t
understand what he put me through,” Phoenix said, quietly.  “I
need
to
make him pay.”

Phoenix watched
as Paulo catapulted to his feet like a feral jungle cat and began to pace the
length of her living room several times, muttering in Portuguese.  When he
was done, she heard him whisper, “Forgive me, Lord.”

“Okay,
Phoenix,” Paulo continued, keeping a tight rein on his voice, “Baby, I know he
broke you, but you’re being mended.  You have to pray for him and forgive
him—”

“Forgive him?”
Phoenix shrieked, indignant.  “Are you kidding?  How could I forgive
him for using me and then putting me down?  Look at what he did, what he
said, even that day he showed up here.”

“And I took
care of him.” 
Please, God, make her see.

“Yeah, but now
I
need to take care of him.  It will make me feel better.”

“This is what
has been holding you back from coming to the Lord after He’s been calling you?”
Paulo seethed.

Phoenix chewed
her lip for a moment.  “I didn’t want to go to Him with this on my
heart.  I figured I should get it out of my system and then I would be
ready to love Him…and love you too.  Until then…” she sighed.  “I
don’t know.”

“But your plan
for revenge won’t erase the past, Baby.”  Paulo finally went over to her
and grabbed her hands, trying to squeeze common sense into her through
them.  “You have to try to let this go.  Forgive him and let go of
your past.  Focus on what God wants to do in your life now.  Focus on
God’s love through Jesus.  Focus on your own growth.  Focus on us.”

Phoenix pulled
her hands away, even though it nearly destroyed her to do so.  “What us,
Paulo?  I enjoy our dates and how you’ve treated me.  I love how you
kiss me and compliment me.  You have been so generous and kind and
romantic.  I have never been treated so beautifully in my entire
life.  But still, I have to ask, what us?  You haven’t asked me to be
more than friends—”

“Ask you? 
Friends?” Paulo sputtered.  “What are you talking about, Phoenix?  I
am trying to get there with you now!  Why do you think I have been asking
you out on dates and spend so much time with you? Why do you think I kiss
you?  Because you threw on a new outfit?  Because I’m bored? 
It’s because I feel strongly about you.  I just told you I am in love with
you.  I was just waiting for the proper time—”

“For
what?  For me to go to church and for God to deem me saved enough for you
to make an official commitment to me?  Like I said, there is no
us…yet.  This is something I have to do for me.  It’s my way of
empowering myself and—”

Paulo threw
back his head and roared a phony laugh.  “Is this the empowerment they
teach you about in school?  Please!  The only thing you’re doing is
empowering the devil’s hold on your life,” Paulo snapped.  “The thing is,
for months you have been talking about how this man hurt you, how he
deliberately planned to get with you under false pretenses so he could use you,
right?”