Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood

Chapter 13

Walking through the doors of Grace and Mercy Fellowship that Sunday morning, I thought I had stepped into Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. Everyone behaved so squeaky clean that it bugged the heck out of me. How could a bunch of people with different color skin and from different social and economic backgrounds all get along? Only in a make-believe world could something like this occur. Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was an appropriate name for where I was, and I wasn’t going to change it. I walked in with a smirk on my face, ready for any challenge.

“John, I’ve got a surprise for you,” Rachael said. “Really? What is it?”

She dug into her handbag and pulled out a large black book.

I thought I was dreaming, but no, there it was in my hands: a black, leather-bound King James Version of the Holy Bible with gold-trimmed edges on every page. All sixty-six books. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I accepted it. I said to myself, She must be crazy thinking I’m going to keep this and read it. I haven’t seen a Bible in twenty-five years. This is for people who are weak to carry around.

As the weeks went by Rachael’s parents kept pressuring me with invitations to attend another church service with them. A miracle would have to happen for me to go with them again. But one Friday evening, it did.

Rachael and her parents begged me to go to another church service with them where people shared testimonies about how their lives were transformed. During that time, an usher came across the sanctuary toward me. He leaned over and asked, “Can I pray for you?”

Quick as lightning, a demon showed up to protect me. I looked at him and said, “Get out of my face with your prayer.”

Rachael was shocked, and we started to argue right there in church. “Why didn’t you let him pray for you?” she said.

“I didn’t feel like it. Let him go pray for someone else. I don’t need any prayer.”

She rolled her eyes at me, and for the rest of the evening we didn’t speak to each other.

But on Sunday morning, I got up early and prepared myself to attend church with Rachael and

Sarah.

After psyching myself to believe I was going to a party, I threw my Bible in a brown paper

bag so that people in the neighborhood wouldn’t see me carrying it. What would they say if they caught me with the thing? The whole community was aware of me being a devil worshipper. How foolish it would look for a true devil worshipper who had everyone in the neighborhood living in fear to carry a Bible? What a contradiction.

Services started at 10 a.m. I guided my car to the curb, extracted my Bible from the paper bag, and stepped into the church building.

First stop: Bible class. And the place was full. What had I gotten myself into?

After Bible class came the worship service. It was there I began feeling unusually sick. That’s when I realized my demon powers had kicked in, even with people all around singing praises to God. I knew the demons were trying to get my attention.

A person next to me turned to me and whispered, “Hey, are you okay? You don’t look well.

You look kind of pale.”

“No, I’m okay . . . I’m fine.”

I tried to shake the feeling off, turning my attention back to the preacher on the platform.

Some Sundays when services ran long, I didn’t understand what was going on or what was being said. There were some simple truths about Bible doctrine I couldn’t grasp. But for the most part, being in church felt therapeutic. I was experiencing something I had never found in espiritismo—a genuine love demonstrated to me from members of the congregation.

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 698