Weekend Freewrite -12/21/2019 - Single Prompt Option: Run for your life!

Meanwhile, Mrs. Thornton's stovetop evangelism (see the Sunday "Stovetop" freewrite) was working on some new women … .

“Mmmmm... do you smell that, Selene?” said Mrs. Mildred York to her best friend Mrs. Selene Slocum-Lofton. “We should stay through the midday service, and then get some of that!”

“Mildred,” Mrs. Slocum-Lofton said, “I just told you these people will have us trading the Jesus we know who demands so little of us for the REAL One Who will demand EVERYTHING, and you want to stay because it smells good?”

“But it does smell good, and we should stay!” Mrs. York cried, and, in one of her rarer moments of taking charge, took her taller friend's arm and dragged her into the gathering area. Mrs. Slocum-Lofton, usually completely dominant, was so shocked she was carried right along!

Mrs. York was soon sorry she did that.

“Oh, my word – it's a Black preacher! Well, I never – !”

“I tried to tell you, but you thought it smelled so good you wanted to stay,” Mrs. Slocum-Lofton said. “Don't make a scene, Mildred – sit down! We can't play those tricks here!”

And Mrs. Slocum-Lofton reasserted herself and yanked Mrs. York right down into the seat again.

“Ow,” Mrs. York said.

“Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for coming to our midday service!” said Rev. Baxter. “I'm going to be brief and as gentle as I can, but the Spirit says for me to go this way: how many survivors of the Ridgeline Fire are here today?”

There were a bunch of folks.

“Me!” Mrs. York said and stuck up her hand as Mrs. Selene Slocum-Lofton put her head in her hands – “He WOULD be talking to us today!”

“Okay,” Rev. Baxter said. “Every service the church has is available to you, and I know many of you know that. I also know that you know what it is to have to run for your life, a fire nipping at your heels – I understand that one of your own neighbors organized the evacuation.”

Mrs. York grinned and would have pointed out her friend, but Mrs. Slocum-Loftton glared at her and gritted, “You do it and I'll kill you right here.” Mrs. York knew her friend, and settled right down again.

“Today, I'm that neighbor to you, telling you that the fires of Death and Hell are nipping at many of your heels. We've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Our money will not save us. Our color will not save us. Our class will not save us. Run for your life! Run for your life, to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, of what He did to save you from your sins on the cross! Run for your eternal life, to Him!”

After the entire sermon, 82-year-old Mildred York, who was born in the days in which a Black man in Virginia dared not speak with authority to a woman like her, stepped out into the lobby infuriated.

“How dare that n****r call us sinners – how dare he?” she said. “Who do these people think they are now!””

83-year-old Selene Slocum-Lofton shook her head, and sighed.

“It doesn't matter what color he is. It doesn't matter what color we are. All that matters is if he was telling the truth – and Mildred, we remember in Sunday School that God used donkeys to preach to prophets! God can use colored folks too if He can use donkeys. All we have to do now is decide if what he said was true. I tried to avoid this, but you got us into this over some lunch – what use is being rich if you can't avoid whole spiritual crises just because you want some free lunch?”

Mrs. York's nose was twitching again.

“Oh, right … lunch … can we still go get some? That smells so good... .”