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double chocolate fudge, but that wasn’t enough to make me forget the commitment I’d made to Joshua and to myself.
    It was that same commitment I was praying about when guess who walked through the church doors on Sunday morning? Sister “too much to take” Yvonne twisted her way up to me, with her naturally red ringlets bouncing against her shoulders.
    â€œGood morning, Sister Alex.” Yvonne had her lips pinched so tightly together that her fakeness exuded from her pores.
    â€œGood morning, Sister Yvonne.” I gave her a fake smile in return. Lord, forgive me.
    She gave me a pitiful version of the church hug, picked a piece of lint off the shoulder of my linen suit, and then sauntered up the aisle with her too tight skirt about to split, like she didn’t know better.
    It was hard on me, smiling at this sister, knowing that just a few months ago she had tried to seduce Joshua. She had come boldly into the church, pretended to be helpful, volunteered to help Josh, who was then my fiancé, with the homeless project, and then, bam .
    When she had finally earned Joshua’s trust and happily watched ours dwindle, she went for the kill. Thank God a brother came to his senses just in time. ’Cause I knew she was wicked from the very beginning, and she had evil plans for my man. A good man like Joshua, heck, I couldn’t blame a sister. Guys like him were scarce.
    She had disappeared from the church for a while, ever since Joshua and I got married, in fact. The word on the street was that she was modeling uptown. Now I wasn’t believing that at all. Dancing around on a pole, maybe. But legitimate fashion modeling, never. There she sat on the front pew next to her troublemaking aunt, Sister Winifred, with her legs crossed and half of her thigh exposed. I wondered why she came back to Missionary. Lord,aren’t I going through enough? Something inside told me she wasn’t back to save her soul.

Chapter Five
    Joshua
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    It was the day of my commencement ceremony at Brooklyn Missionary Bible Institute. It was two weeks before Christmas, and it was colder than usual. The crowd rustled around in thick leather coats and fur-lined boots. The wind whistled in the background as the familiar school noises took center stage. First, there was the familiar beat of pomp and circumstance as all one hundred of us marched down the center aisle in our caps and gowns. It was also an ordination ceremony for twenty-five of us, and I hadn’t felt this proud of myself in a long time.
    I remembered when God first called me to preach. I had been hurting pitifully after my first wife, Delilah’s, death. I was not only devastated that my wife and unborn child were gone, but I was also devastated because my wife died trying to get rid of my unborn child, the one I never knew I had. Yet, I was left with a baby girl and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know where to go. No one even knew what to say to me except that they were sorry. The few spiritual ones, like my father, told me to give it time, that God would use my pain for His glory, but I didn’t want to hear that. I didn’t see it either. In fact, I thought my father had lost his mind. Didn’t he know how this thing was tearing me apart, that I’d probably want nothing more to do with God? Didn’t he understand that God had betrayed me by allowing the woman I loved to become a Jezebel, to love her career more than she loved me or our children?
    â€œIt will all be revealed in the fullness of time,” he said.
    And every day I went to work to keep busy, to stay alive and to stay sane until my parents begged me to move away from Rochester. I decided to move for two reasons: to get away from the memories of Delilah around me, and to be closer to my parents so I’d have some help with raising Lilah. I didn’t expect to marry again any time soon, so I knew I needed help.
    Mother was ecstatic because she