Every Good and Perfect Gift A Novel

Chapter 1 As I sat in Sunday school with my crinoline pricking my skin like a holly bush, God revealed Herself to me as a woman. I was ten. The combination of the hard wooden chair, the crinoline about to draw blood, and Mr. Paul Lovingood telling the story of Jonah and the whale for at least the fortieth time in my years of church attendance caused my eyes to stray from the picture placed before us: Jonah in the cavernous belly of a whale. I looked around the ring of Sunday-school faithful, wondering if Granny would allow me to sit with Annie Hudson during service later. Mr. Lovingood shook his head to emphasize a point of particular wickedness, and I thought how much the shape of his head reminded me of a cantaloupe. Off to the side, a circle of light drew my attention. Coming in through the window, the light looked like it was so thick you could touch it, sunbeams that had weight. Beyond the window lay fields of tobacco yellowing in the sun and the farmhouse, still and white, where my mama and my granny and I lived. In the light hovering by the window was a woman. She was dressed like Mary in the Christmas program, only the top piece of her outfit that covered her dark hair, the one that we made out of a linen dresser cloth for our Mary, that top piece shone with every color of the rainbow and yet it was white. I cannot say how I knew She was God. She spoke. "Feed my sheep." The light became brighter and brighter until I thought She would surely burn up in its intensity. Love poured up around me and in me like the milk going down my throat when it came warm from the cow. The light encircled me, thick and heavy as the pile of quilts I used for cover in the front bedroom. Under those quilts, I imagined myself back in my mama's womb. The sounds of the house were muffled in that hollow warm spot I carved out in the bed. That's how the light made me feel. I suppose I said, "Pardon?" then because all my classmates said Mr. Lovingood repeated something to me about the evils of Nineveh right before I slid away. Next I remember, Mr. Paul Lovingood was bent over me, wiping the sweat rolling under his chin with his handkerchief, his good Sunday one that had his initials on it, and yelling my name. "Maggie. Maggie. Can you hear me, Maggie?" Right over his shoulder I saw the faces of my fellow Sunday-school pilgrims wearing a mixture of concern for my limp body and relief at having been rescued from hearing about Jonah one more time. Will Atkinson predicted there would be a run on fainting now that it was known that a faint was capable of grinding the forward progress of a Sunday-school lesson to a halt. As sure as the cool concrete beneath my head, I knew the woman of the light was God. "Mr. Lovingood, I saw her. I saw God. He's a woman." Mr. Lovingood wiped a stray drop of sweat. "Will, run fetch Miss Naomi. Maggie's hit her head and got a concussion." The other faces behind his shoulder drew back. Afraid, I suppose, of catching it from me. Mr. Lovingood held up two fingers. "How many fingers am I holding up, Maggie?" "Two. She talked to me, you know, standing right off the left side of your head." A high-pitched giggle, the same kind Miss Sally Owens made every time an eligible bachelor was within three feet of her, came from behind Mr. Lovingood's shoulder. I was sure it had to be one of the Matthews twins; Granny called them a couple of Mexican jumping beans. Mr. Lovingood turned his head; the spot with no hair shined at me. The giggle stopped and feet shuffled. "Maggie needs air. You children, go to the sanctuary and sit quietly. I'll be there shortly." I pushed down the light blue skirt ofJernigan, Brenda is the author of 'Every Good and Perfect Gift A Novel', published 2001 under ISBN 9780609607909 and ISBN 0609607901.