Confessions of a Submissive Wife

CHAPTER 28

Why Live a Lie

2017

"Sometimes, living a lie is much easier to you than living in truth. We all say we want to know the truth but how many can really handle it? The truth can cut you like a two edged sword. It can crush all your hopes and dreams, but according to this book right here, the truth will make you free from captivity. How many of yawl want to be made free?" The energetic preacher asked the room full of hopeful looking people, as he pointed to the bible.

Just about everyone raised their hand in the room, even me, in fear of being singled out. I looked around and watched the hopelessness of some and the blind faith of others. Just as I thought, the guy sitting three rows in front of me was the target of his manipulation.

"The truth is for you to decide if you want to deal with whatever the situation is or not. Whether you are ready to make the decision to continue to seek the truth or just settle for what appears to be facts. When you live a lie or you are forced to deal with deception, it takes away your free will that God give you," he said.

Listening to him go on and on about truth and being made free, I decided I too wanted that freedom. I wanted to know how to obtain that feeling of complete peace. I watched many people walk up to the front of the church for prayer, even I started to take that stroll down the aisle, until...

He laid his hand on their forehead and they would pass out one by one, gracefully falling to the floor, while one of the parishioners would place a covering over the legs of the women who wore skirts. A few of them lay on the floor still, while others began to jerk their bodies as if they were having a seizure. I was afraid; I knew I didn't want no parts of that. It did not feel good to me. I wanted the truth and everything about that felt like a lie, so I left -- I walked out of that church never to return.

Searching for answers, I decided to visit Pearl. She said God had changed her and I wanted to see just how much. I hadn't seen my mother in a couple of years now. She didn't know that David completely wiped me out and I wasn't going to let her know that, well at least not today.

The gravel filled narrow road made driving difficult so I drove slowly, trying to not blow out my tires. As many images of my grandpa filled my mind, I remembered his marked up bible. I need to find his bible study journals. I scurried down the storage shed that grandpa built and began to search through his belongings. I searched and I searched with no avail. I completely ransacked his shed, I thought as I looked around at all the damage I've done to the neatly stacked boxes.

Behind my head, I heard the sound of a shotgun cock.

"Don't you move or I will blow your head off," a sounded the baritone male's voice. "Put your hands up on your head and turn around slowly," the mysterious angry voice said.

In a distance, I heard Pearl's voice saying, "What is it, Greg?"

As I slowly turned to face him with my hands still above my head, a very tall, lumberjack looking man stood there pointing a rifle at my face.

"Who are you and what are you doing in my shed?" He asked while Pearl still yelled, in a distance. I calmly said to him, "I don't remember seeing the name Greg anywhere on the deed, so this actually is my shed," I said as I lowered my hands. He began to lower his gun as Pearl yelled and ran down the trail to the shed.

"Danny," she cried, with a huge smile on her face. I was a bit confused by her emotions because my mother had never been happy to see me unless I was giving her something. She rushed over and wrapped her arms around me and squeezed me so tight. Still very much confused and baffled by her reception of me, I hesitated to return the embrace, but she was not letting me go, so I gave in and hugged her back.

"What are you doing here? "I thought you were still in California. Is everything alright?" She asked.

I couldn't believe how beautiful she looked, she didn't look like the Pearl I left in rehab a few years back. I was completely speechless. We walked over to the main house and she put on a pot of tea. The house was completely clean -- again, another surprise. Lumberjack came into the kitchen as I sipped my hot tea and kissed her on her cheek.

"So..." I said.

"So, Greg this is Danielle, my youngest daughter." As I held my hand out to shake his, he pulled me in for a hug, nearly blocking my airway.

"I am so happy to finally meet you, I have heard so many wonderful things about you," he said. "You did?" I asked.

"Yes, your mother has been raving over you for years. This truly is a prayer answered," he said.

"I wish that I could reciprocate the same feeling, Mr. Greg; however, I know nothing about you," I said. "Well all that is about to change," he said as he hugged me again.

"I was getting to that," Pearl said. I could sense the joy that filled her as she said, "Danny, this is Greg Davis, my husband."

"Your husband, wow, "I said sipping my tea. Daniel and DJ came barreling down the stairs in their basketball clothes. "Look who's here," Pearl said. They both had changed so much over the past few years. "Boy, have you all grown," I said while we hugged. I felt bad leaving them with Pearl but she promised to take care of them, and from the looks of things, she followed though. I tried to get them to go with me to see their mother but they refused. Kenya was never truly a mom to them and they had not forgiven her for it.

Maybe Pearl really has changed, I thought, not like the other times when she lied about changing only to manipulate me into giving her money. She really looked and sounded so different. She handed me all of my grandpa's prayer journals. "I read them all," she said, "that man was a mighty man of God." I had never heard her speak of the Lord so much. We all sat in the living room laughing and joking. Pearl invited me to stay over and without hesitation, I said yes. For the first time in my life, I felt like she cared about me. I told her all about the horrific church service I attended early that day. I even told her about David stealing all of my money. Unbeknownst to me, she already knew the whole story, she was just waiting for me.

I told her my latest tragedy of how I believed God needed to humble me for a reason, a reason that had yet been made clear to me.

'I had nothing left, no fight, no strength, nearly hopeless and then he led me here back to you," I said. "I never forgave you."

"I know Danny, but I had to learn that forgiveness was just not for me, it's for you. You could never forgive me because I never asked to. I drowned my sorrows at the bottom of a liquor bottle. Partaking many demonic spirits. I had to repent for them all, I had to ask God for forgiveness and I also had to forgive myself. I was sick Danny, I really was," she said.

I sat there just listening, as tears rolling down her face as she poured her heart out to me. It was different...not like her drunken cry, but a cry of remorse.

"I always loved you, but I never showed you. I felt like Kenya needed me more, you had your dad and Kenya had no one. I did wrong by lying to your father and forcing him to marry me on false pretenses but he was the greatest man I knew. There will never be another one like him and you came from him. Just like him, you reminded me of my deception, the lie I was living, and I couldn't face that truth so I shut you out and hurt you so deeply," she said while tears of regret flowed down her face.

Seeing her heart, I could only respond with showing her mine. I retreated to that eight year old little girl that desperately needed her mama and now she finally got her.