Read Online One Prayer Away by Kendra Norman-Bellamy - Free Book Online Page A

about the failure of it was still painfully difficult. Mitchell joined the fight to escape the parking lot and headed toward home. During the drive, he saw Christmas lights that were left on to twinkle even during the daytime hours. The city of Dallas had sprung into the holiday season as soon as Thanksgiving had passed, but there was no festive lighting beckoning for Mitchell as he turned into his driveway. The December holiday was no longer a favorite of his.
    As soon as he changed into more comfortable clothes, he fired up his computer and then went into the kitchen to start dinner. He preheated the oven while he took the fish from the refrigerator where it had been marinating in the spicy mixture for the past fourteen hours. Laying four fillets in the foil-lined pan, he placed them in the oven and set the timer for half an hour. That would give him enough time to make headway on the project ahead of him.
    Saying a quick prayer before typing the name “Virtue Lynne Andrews” in the search criteria of his laptop, Mitchell watched while the hour-glass-shaped icon made its calculations. Regardless of what Lisa said, he thought Virtue’s name was both beautiful and appropriate.

Seven
    W hen she’d graduated from Hope College, Virtue had had big dreams of performing before thousands of people who would admire and adore her as she entertained them with the grace and beauty of creative dance. In a sense, she was living her dream, but not in the manner that her limited foresight had planned. Instead of swaying on a stage somewhere in Harlem or on Broadway, Virtue found herself doing so to the sounds of worship music at Temple of Jerusalem Church. God had taken a talent that some dubbed secular and made it useful for His glory.
    It had taken some time, but Virtue had finally come to the understanding that God knew all along what she needed most, and it didn’t involve bright lights and curtain calls. Leading the praise team at her church was a result of her salvation from an existence that had begun to feel hollow and meaningless. Escaping from her abusive marriage may have been the right thing to do, but it was in no way the easy way out. Leaving Mitchell was most likely the hardest thing Virtue had ever done in her life, and it had had along-lasting effect on her. Hardly a day had passed in the seven years since she had walked away that she didn’t think of him in some way. Virtue always found herself wondering where Mitchell was, what he was doing,
how
he was doing. Some time ago, she’d even resigned herself to the fact that he’d most likely drunk himself to death or perhaps been killed as he drove his car in an impaired state of mind. The fact that she even cared one way or the other would often make her angry with herself.
    Sunday mornings had at one time been like another phase of therapy that helped to get her beyond the worries of everyday life. Being in church, hearing the Word of God, and dancing had all been much-needed aspects of her graduation from what Beverly often called “a broken yesterday to a bright tomorrow.” It had taken time, and not a single step of her deliverance was easy, but Virtue had passed all of her tests with flying colors. Now, as the music blared through the speaker system and the harmonic sounds of the Voices of Jerusalem began to sing along, giving her and the dance troupe their cue, Virtue felt as though she needed this breakthrough as much as she needed the one she’d gotten the very first time she’d taken the floor.
    Holding a long colorful strand of cloth in her hand, she led the line of a half-dozen chosen ones who burst through the back doors of the church and worshiped God using the powerful dramatization of dance. As the leader of the dance ministry, Virtue rarely was among the ones who performed. Instead she worked behind the scenes, teaching the steps to the teenagers and younger adults who put them into action on Sunday mornings. So