Free Reverend Feelgood by Lutishia Lovely

failed her yet.
    While the baby news had stunned Katherine and Simone, Nettie was not at all surprised. She’d known about the baby at least a week before Nate decided to share the news, news that confirmed what she’d seen in a dream. It was the second time she’d dreamt about Nate’s child.
    Nettie stood and began pacing the room, intoning the Spirit with the holy language. And then she heard it: a clear directive. God was speaking and she dared not move, lest she miss a word or even a syllable.
    “What, Lord?” Nettie asked out loud, frowning at the thoughts coming into her mind. “This can’t be God,” she said to the four walls, even though Nettie knew God’s voice better than she knew her own. She’d known His voice since she was five years old, and had heard “someone” tell her to get out of the yard and run on to the porch of their Texas farm. Seconds later, a rattlesnake had appeared out of the knee-high grass at the yard’s perimeter and, bypassing a petrified Nettie, slithered down the dusty road. When Nettie relayed the story to her mother, she kept peeling potatoes while responding calmly and simply. “That was God talkin’, chile. Be sure and keep listening, you hear?”
    That incident had happened almost a half century ago. God was indeed still talking, and Nettie was still listening, as her mother had asked. But God was talking crazy, and while it wasn’t the first time and probably wouldn’t be the last, Nettie could barely wrap her mind around the solution that had popped into her head.
    “Well, I know one somebody who will know whether this is God or those jalapeños I put in my beans last night,” Nettie said to herself as she walked to the phone. She quickly dialed the number and took a long swig of cola as she waited for an answer.
    “Mama Max? It’s Nettie. I hope you’ve got a minute, because I need your opinion.”
    “Well, chile, you know I got plenty of those,” Mama Max promptly responded. “Go right ahead, baby. My time is yours.”
    “It’s about Nathaniel. Remember a while back when you said he might need more than mercy?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Well, that time has come.”
    Mama Max jumped to her feet. “Have mercy, Jesus. You’re a strong deliverer, Father!” She didn’t need to know the problem to join her prayers and faith with Nettie’s.
    “I’ve asked God about it, but what I’m hearing just don’t make sense!”
    Mama Max sat back down. “You say it don’t make sense?”
    “No, ma’am, not at all.”
    “Well, Nettie, when it don’t make sense is usually when I know it’s God!”

11
Handle Your Business
    The four gentlemen dining at The Palm restaurant in Dallas—fancier than any restaurant in Palestine, though two hours away—had caused a stir from the moment they’d entered. Not that they noticed; they were too busy enjoying each other’s company. But the eyes of every female had followed their entrance, and even those with a ring on her third finger, left hand seemed to find her eyes drifting now and again to the table of magnificent manliness at the back of the room. Any of these men alone could heat up a space, but seeing Derrick Montgomery, King Brook, Stanley Lee, and Nate Thicke together was confirmation that God meant his words when after creating man he said, “It is good.”
    Nate listened intently as Derrick reiterated the rules of membership to the Total Truth Association and the organization’s primary purpose: to educate, inspire, and support its members and to ensure that the divine interpretation of God’s Word and tenets be practiced within their congregations.
    “As I’ve told you before, Nate,” Derrick concluded, “you are an intelligent man and a talented preacher. I think you’re going to go far in advancing God’s kingdom.”
    “I second that,” King said. “He can’t help but be good though. Just look at his lineage. You remember when Reverend Thomas Thicke used to preach those midnight revivals? That man