Free The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Caught by Neta Jackson

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    The back screen door slammed. A moment later Amanda poked her head into the living room. “Hi,Mom.Hi,Ms. George.” Then she ducked back out again.
    â€œHey, babe! We’re home!” Denny’s voice from the kitchen. Waylaid by the refrigerator, no doubt.
    I smiled at Chanda. “Car’s back. I can take you home now.”
    â€œNo, wait.” She laid a hand on my arm. “What mi wanting to ask, Sista Jodee . . . dis reception be coming up dis week. Dat’s when mi get dem tickets to Hawaii.But . . .” She looked sheepish beneath her crown of stylish corkscrew curls. “Dey talk so fast, Jodee. Mi cannot understand all dey say. So mi asking, could you come with me? So mi don’t miss anyting.”

7

    I punched my pillow and flopped over.Too hot to sleep, even with the window fan on high. Were we the last people on the planet without air-conditioning? Had to be at least eighty-five degrees and 100 percent humidity—at midnight! I glanced resentfully at Denny, bare-chested, mouth open in sleep. Would it break the bank to get a small air conditioner for our bedroom window? Huh? What would it be—a hundred bucks?
    Fear licked at my sweat. Now wasn’t the time to buy an air conditioner. Not if I was about to lose my job. “Oh, God,” I moaned and flopped again.My oversize Bulls T-shirt, damp and wrinkled, wadded up around my middle.
    â€œ Uhhnnn, Jodi,” Denny mumbled beside me. “Quit rocking the boat.”
    That did it. I slid out of bed, padded into the living room, where the fan in the bay window was going full blast, and pulled the recliner around until it lined up with the mechanical breeze. Maybe I could fall asleep out here. As I sprawled in the recliner, Willie Wonka’s nails clicked on the wood floor; then his cold nose touched my hand.
    I scratched the top of the dog’s noggin. “Sorry I got you up, Wonka.” For some reason, the dog’s gentle affection made my eyes puddle. OK, God. I know it’s not just the heat. I’m scared. I don’t want to lose my job! I like teaching! Didn’t I? OK, so there were some months I threatened to quit every other day. No-show parents at parent-teacher conferences. Kids who spoke English as their second language and could barely read. A too-crowded classroom, where half the kids might qualify as ADHD. But overall, teaching at Bethune Elementary had been God’s gift to me.Nonreaders becoming readers, late bloomers blooming, aha moments of learning. A few special children, like Hakim Porter,who had worked his way into my heart, only to have to let him go. And Avis Johnson-Douglass, the best principal a teacher could ask for.Not only a great boss, not only the worship leader at my church, not only the person who’d invited me to that Chicago Women’s Conference a year ago where we met all the other Yada Yada sisters—but also one of my best friends.
    Or so I thought.
    â€œAvis!” Fear and frustration welled up in me, along with new tears. “You can’t do this to me!” I meant to be yelling in my head. Good grief. Did I yell out loud? I sat up, held my breath, and listened, but all was quiet at the back of the house. Relieved, I sank back into the recliner.
    Good grief is right, Jodi, said the Voice in my spirit. Are you back in prayer kindergarten? Whatever happened to ‘Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything—with thanksgiving!—present your requests to God. And the peace of God will guard your heart and your mind’? You don’t even know anything for sure, but you’re already hightailing down the road of anxiety.
    Using my rumpled T-shirt, I wiped the tears off my face. It was true. I was working myself into a state and I didn’t even have the facts. And—I swallowed—even if I did lose my job, had God brought me this far to leave me now? Somewhere in the back of my brain, I could hear the