(MONDAY, JUNE 29, 2015)
RHYS
"Should I be offended by their relationship?" Rhys found that question playing itself repeatedly on a loop in his mind.
He wasn't sure about the new nurse and it had nothing to do with the fact that she was black. Honestly, a range of people from different nationalities had at one time or another assisted his wife since the horrible effects of her disease began to rapidly impair her ability to manage their whole foods distribution center.
Even the latest addition to the community center at the church was also delayed because she was found in the driveway passed out three weeks before he was forced to find an agency to meet her medical needs.
Minister Yates was at a loss.
The young nurse was extremely knowledgeable in her profession. Not to mention, she showed the greatest amount of respect to him and his wife at all times. Her candor while in their home was unmatched. Of all the nurses who had been sent by the service, Ruthanne seemed pleased as punch from the first time she'd met Kylin.
His discomfort with her presence left him at a loss. Kylin had done nothing that gave him a justifiable cause to be displeased with her work.
In a way, she was too PERFECT.
Because he dealt with the brokenness of mankind, he was the first to admit that the only perfect human was Jesus Christ and the only other perfect being would show himself the day Jesus Christ came back to gather his Father's children.
His knowledge of the Word made it hard for him to overlook what appeared to be a deception in the form of a woman who was too good to be true.
Like many people in his and his wife's positions, the Yates family held great reservations at the idea of allowing too many people to access their homes.
They were spiritual leaders.
As Christians, they were responsible for the spiritual guidance of many souls. It was with humility and respect that they served those who trusted them, so allowing a deceiver to come into their midst was never advisable.
Of course, even then they would try to share the love of God with anyone.
It was never any authentic Christian's goal to deny unbelievers access to the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. They were teachers after all, and their goal was to share the Word of God with the world. But... for the sake of those who trusted in their direction and guidance, Rhys and Ruthanne Yates shared the responsibility to, "Abstain from all appearance of evil."
The weight of the responsibility to rightly influence their followers or anyone seeking to follow Christ lay in the palms of their spiritual hands. No one had to emphasize how serious it would be to cause someone else to stumble because of their missteps.
When Minister Yates felt someone did not fit into his household, it had nothing to do with the person's skin color, race, or nationality. If anything, the biggest factor for him was the individual's spiritual maturity because he firmly believed people carried spirits around with them... be they good or bad.
Often when a person was depressed or fighting mental issues, his faith taught him that these were most likely spiritual attacks. Because he had no control over how others chose to live their lives, he had no control over the types of spirits with which a person came in contact. Therefore, he also wielded no control over the person's ability to rebuke evil and cleave to that which was good.
Minister Yates understood the devil could not use a person without their permission. Just as the evil one had to petition God to try Job, the same was true for each and every person the devil decided to attack. Only if a person gave into demonic forces could wicked spirits work havoc in their lives.
Through accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, fasting, prayer, and meditating on the Words of God, he believed all are given the weapons needed to defeat the attacks of the wicked one.
First and foremost, an essential place for a Christian to fortify was their castle. Because the home should be the place of peace, rest, rejuvenation, and a place of solace from all of the evil in the world, it was foundational teaching to guard the home and the family.
The saying that a man's home is his castle is true in every sense of the word. If a man or woman allowed his or her castle to be overrun by evil forces, that person often lived with the curses and weights placed on them because of the wicked one's attempt to make the person resent life and living.
Minister Yates was raised in the Word and the Word instructed the followers of Jesus Christ... "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."
It was his forefathers' study of the Word that was passed down from son to son. He much like his father and grandfather was expected to study the Holy Bible and apply its teachings to his life. As a minister and leader of his own congregation, he was also expected to learn the Word, meditate on the Word, and then show his followers the right way to apply those teachings as the concrete which solidified the very foundation of their daily lives.
Another guiding principle in his life came from the scripture... "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?"
Those words flowed through his veins. They were like milk and blood to him.
When he found himself doubting the nurse, these were only a few of the scriptures that surfaced in his thoughts.
In his mind, it spoke of a lack of discipline to not create a bit of professional distance between herself and her patient. Kylin allowed his wife to get away with too much. He was reminded of the previous nurse because she had more of a mother-hen personality.
Whenever Ruthanne deviated from a Christian leader's expectations, Mrs. Vonnie would quickly point it out. The woman was fond of asking his wife, "What would Jesus do?"
Even though he knew his wife better than anyone, and he had to admit her heart had so much love and respect for God, something was different about her as of late. The day he returned home to find her sitting outside with the new nurse and all she had on was a bikini top and short shorts shocked him more than he cared to admit.
Ruthanne had never done anything like that before and it worried him. He feared her disease was affecting the conservative nature of his wife. That one occasion never left his mind as the list of behavioral changes grew with each day.
Minister Yates was convinced his wife needed a mature serious professional to help her get through the changes her disease forced into her life. With so much riding on them as Christian leaders, Rhys was forced to utilize every skill he had previously employed on his numerous followers to deal with the current turn of events.
But his greatest problem with the way the two ladies got along was that Ruthanne was laughing.
She was always smiling.
Far too many days began with tears in her eyes as she woke up to excruciating pain from being torn to shreds from the inside out. Long ago, she would pray to God and call out to him and him alone when it was too bad.
Ruthanne once begged him to end her suffering leaving him deflated to have nothing in his arsenal to help his wife. He was bound by a moral code to pray and ask God for help and never take matters into his own hands.
Rhys knew it was illegal to do anything that would aid her to ease into the final sleep with the help of anything but the Lord Himself.
As soon as Kylin experienced one of Ruthanne's bad days, she talked to the doctor and insisted that Mrs. Yates's medication had lost its efficacy when she was dealing with bouts of aggressive pain.
Kylin followed the doctor's orders to the letter. She documented in detail her activity, diet, inputs, and outputs, medication regimen along with anything that made an impact on the effect her medication had on her pain.
Once the doctor ran a battery of tests, he determined the cancer was spreading. With brutally detailed chart notes, the doctor made the decision to introduce a stronger drug to encourage a better outcome in Ruthanne's palliative care.
Rhys recalled the day his wife was placed on morphine to better manage her pain.
Witnessing the ease his wife was afforded, he felt indebted to the new nurse. She wasn't just present to monitor and assist his wife. She cared about her patient in a very real and visible way.
Every day that Kylin was by his wife's side, he began to realize that the nurse was injecting life into a woman who was potentially in a losing battle.
The two ladies shared one another's lives.
They shared one another's stories.
They shared each other's pain and suffering.
They shared one another's insecurities.
He witnessed as they exposed the failures in their lives to one another. They reveled in their accomplishments and eventually, rivers of tears flowed between the two of them as they shared the heartbreak of losing those people they loved the most.
Rhys began to hear his own spirit condemning him for even thinking to deny his wife this opportunity to live vicariously through someone else. His precious angel was able to bear her weakness to someone who didn't expect perfection from her. She was able to be a tiny person in the big mean world because Kylin allowed her the space to be human just like everyone else.
There were times he would catch them laughing like little schoolgirls. He craved the opportunity to bring that kind of joy to his fading flower. The joy of his life was drifting away from him and in her last days, she preferred the company of her nurse over everyone else.
Initially, he made himself scarce. Rhys had no desire to be a part of what the ladies discussed. Soon, he found that he was indeed jealous of the lack of attention. More and more, he found himself sitting at the desk in his room pretending to work and draw up sermons while he was actually eavesdropping on their conversations.
"Kylin, you never told me what happened to Olivier. You always give me just enough to wet my whistle about the man who captured your heart, but you never finish the story. Sweetheart, that is not fair at all. You can't start a story and leave me hanging. For goodness sake... I very well might not be here tomorrow." The straightforwardness of a dying woman could oftentimes be far too much to handle.
Rhys waited on bated breath even though every fiber of his being cried for him to say something about the leverage his wife used to pry information out of her nurse. He noticed lately, Ruthanne had become somewhat selfish and insensitive in her requests.
At first, he convinced himself to intervene, but he too wanted to know more about the woman who gained so much of his wife's trust.
Just as he convinced himself it was appropriate if not necessary to say something, Rhys turned to rebuke Ruthanne's behavior only to be met with a long hard sigh as the young woman allowed the Yates family to see a side of her she hid from everyone.
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