When All Is Said and
Prayed by E N Joy
Book One of the Forever Diva Series
Book One of the Forever Diva Series
It ain’t easy being saved, sanctified, and single. Try being a once divorced, now widowed single mother of two on top of that. Thank God the Lord built Paige Vanderdale to be able to bear all of those titles without becoming weary to the point of giving up. From the outside looking in, that life looks good on her. On the inside, though, Paige is coveting what so many others around her seem to have, which is true love.
In the past, everything that she thought was love was either something far from it, or was taken away from her. Now Paige is afraid to let her hair down and open herself up to love again.
Paige struggles with the decision to reach out to an old flame to rekindle their spark. When the blaze gets too high, will Paige do what she always does, which is grab the nearest fire extinguisher and try to put it out? Or will she utilize her backup plan and run? The decision is abruptly removed from Paige’s hands when something else begins to pull her away—something that just might be the thing that finally breaks her.
Excerpt from When All Is Said and Prayed by E.N. Joy
Chapter 26
When Paige looked out the peephole and saw who it was, her heart rate sped up. She no longer saw the woman standing on her porch as a friend and confidant. Had she known the true identity of this woman, she wasn’t sure she would have ever befriended her in the first place. Paige now knew her as the mother of her psycho ex-husband. She looked out the peephole again. Paige loved this woman. Loved her to life and death. Paige was confused right now, but what she did know was that she could not—she would not— make this woman pay the price for her son’s sins. After all, even if she was the mother of her abusive ex-husband, that meant that she was also her oldest daughter’s grandmother.
Paige unlocked the front door and opened it. She pushed the screen open enough for her uninvited and unexpected guest to enter her home.
The woman looked up at Paige with what looked like regret in her eyes. She then entered.
Paige closed and locked up the door behind them. When Paige turned around, Blake’s mother was just standing there looking at her. Both women seemed to fill up with emotions. Before either one knew it, they had charged toward one another to embrace in a deep, heartfelt hug. Tears were unstoppable as each woman cried.
“I’m so sorry.” Blake’s mother spoke first.
“You don’t have to apologize,” Paige said.
“I do. I owe you several apologies.”
The women hugged for a few more seconds until they finally separated. Paige went and got them both some tissue to wipe their faces.
“Thank you,” Blake’s mother said, taking the tissue from Paige and then blowing her nose with it.
“You’re welcome.” Paige wiped her tears away. She then looked to the woman. “You said you owed me several apologies. I don’t understand.”
Blake’s mother took a deep breath and then gave off one of those “Here it goes” looks. “First off, let me just say that I honestly had no idea who my boy was. Initially, I didn’t even know if my child was a boy or a girl. I would have never asked you to help me search for him had I known.”
“I know that,” Paige said sincerely. She never thought the god-fearing woman standing before her would have knowingly solicited her assistance in the search for her long lost child.
“Wait. Please let me finish.” Blake’s mother found the courage to continue speaking. “I did know who he was, though, by the time I brought him to meet everyone.”
Paige shook her head with such disappointment.
“I didn’t do it that way to hurt anyone. I just felt it was better that way. I knew if I had told you all in advance, he would have never been allowed to step foot in the house. No one would have ever given him a chance.” She put her head down. “Not that anyone gave him a chance this way either.”
Paige just stood there. She really had no idea what to say about the confession.
“I wasn’t betraying you or trying to trick you,” Blake’s mother offered. “I love you like a daughter. Like you were my own child.” Her eyes spilled with tears. “You truly are the daughter I never had. And to think that once upon a time you really were my daughter, my daughter-in-law…But because of me, my son treated you like a dog on the street.” She keeled over in tears.
“I won’t let you blame yourself for what your son did to me,” Paige said, walking over and putting her hand on the heartbroken woman’s back. “You weren’t the one who raised him to treat women like that.”
The woman gained her composure and stood erect. “Exactly. I wasn’t there for him in the beginning…From the start of his precious life. That’s when I really needed to be there, and I wasn’t. I might not have been the one who raised him to treat women like that, but I wasn’t there to raise him on how, in fact, he is supposed to treat women. When a mother fails her son, she fails all the other women in his life too. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Paige. Will you forgive me?” She was crying out hard. “I was such a broken woman when I gave birth to Blake. His father was another woman’s husband at the time. He was born into a broken situation. He was raised broken by a woman who I’m sure was broken as a result of the role I played in tainting her marriage. My boy was then abandoned by yet another woman that at the time he thought was his birth mother. Even though he was a man when he married you, that broken boy was still inside of him. Still controlling his life. He was angry inside. He might have been good at hiding it, but only for so long.”
Paige could almost feel the pain herself that Blake’s mother was in as she cried out apologizing. Tears fell from Paige’s eyes just watching the woman. Paige still didn’t feel as though his mother owed her an apology for what Blake had done to her.
“I’ve apologized to Blake. He’s forgiven me. Now I have to apologize to you,” Blake’s mother said. She took Paige’s face into her hands. “Baby, I’m sorry for what my son did to you. I’m sorry I was the first female in his life to show him that he couldn’t trust women. I left him in the hands of another woman who ended up leaving him too. And I can only imagine what he felt like finding out that the two mothers he had, both abandoned him. We taught him that a woman would hurt him, leave him. I’m sorry that I didn’t nurture him with the love a mother ought to nurture her child with. I’m sorry I didn’t teach him how to love a woman, how a woman loves and how to receive that love. I’m sorry for my role in breaking him. I’m sorry that he broke you. Dear Jesus, I’m sorry,” she cried out.
Paige threw her arms around Blake’s mother. “I forgive you. I forgive you.” Following the obedience of the Holy Spirit, Paige forgave the woman even though at first she didn’t feel as though an apology was owed to her. But hearing Blake’s mother speak and hearing the proverbial chains break and fall with her every word, Paige knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the apology wasn’t for anyone but the woman herself. It was for her own deliverance. Her own freedom. And if Paige could help set that woman free by simply accepting her apology, so be it.
( Continued... )
© 2015 All rights reserved. Book excerpt reprinted by permission of the author, E.N. Joy. Do not reproduce, copy or use without the author's written permission. This excerpt is used for promotional purposes only.
Purchase When All Is Said and Prayed by E N Joy
Link: http://amzn.to/1NBEDy3 (Kindle)
