2-in-1 Yada Yada by Neta Jackson Read Free Book Online

seven repeats of the same song—verses, chorus, and vamp (“Blessed! Blessed! Blessed! Blessed!”)—the ballroom was filled with shouts of “Hallelujah!” and “Praise the Lord!” as the worship band quickly slid into another song. The ballroom doors stood open, and I saw some of the hotel staff peek in from time to time to see what all the ruckus was about. Even a housemaid or two. Later when I looked again, the doors were closed. Guess they didn’t want us disturbing the other guests.
    Avis was totally focused on worshiping. I tried. I really did. But my mind kept wandering, kept looking over the crowd to see if I recognized any of the other women in Group Twenty-Six. But we were pretty close to the front, so I couldn’t really turn around and stare. I tried to clap and step to the music, but it was like patting my head and rubbing my stomach at the same time—I couldn’t get coordinated. So I just sang along to the unfamiliar songs as best I could.
    But after about an hour of chandelier-shaking music, I needed a break. I caught Avis’s eye and mouthed that I was going to the bathroom. At least everyone was standing and moving and shouting, so it was pretty easy to slip out of the crowd unnoticed.
    In the ladies restroom, I headed for the third stall. Funny. I always picked a stall in a public restroom and kept using that same one (unless it was already in use). Did other people do that? Or was I hopelessly in a rut even about bathroom stalls?
    The noisy worship from the ballroom still throbbed in the background, but the peaceful ladies’ room was like sitting by Walden Pond with a superhighway somewhere beyond the trees. However, my little oasis of quiet was broken by someone else coming in to use the facilities. While that woman was washing her hands—I heard water running—another person came in.
    â€œSister Monica!” gushed the newcomer. “I didn’t know you were at the conference! How ya doin’, girl?”
    â€œAll right. All right. I’m blessed. Highly favored by the Lord and coming into my prosperity. You?”
    â€œSaved, sanctified, and satisfied. Can’t complain.”
    The two women burbled on, but I closed my eyes and leaned against the industrial-size toilet paper dispenser. What was I doing here? These women talked a whole new language! I’d been a baptized Christian for thirty-plus years—forty-two, if I included my childhood years when “Jesus Loves Me” was my favorite goodnight song—but when someone asked how I was doing, I usually said, “Great,” or “Fair” or “Not so good,” depending on how I felt at the moment.
    Either these women had cliché buttons that played on automatic, or they had an inside track on God’s blessings.
    I stayed in my stall until the other women left, then washed my hands with the perfumed hotel soap and hit the button on the hot-air dryer. So, what is it, God? Am I blessed? Is that the same as being thankful for my blessings?
    I GOT BACK TO THE BALLROOM in time to hear another dynamo speaker who barely needed a microphone, then we were instructed to return to our prayer groups and pray for each other, that God would reveal the obstacles keeping us from living out our destiny.
    Here we go again, I thought as the flood of estrogen energy flowed through the doors and into our respective meeting rooms. My “destiny”? I didn’t have a clue. And I wasn’t sure I felt that comfortable with the jargon. I mean, we’re supposed to do God’s will as revealed in the Bible—obeying the commandments and stuff like that. And “bloom where we’re planted,” to borrow a worn-out cliché. As in, be faithful where God puts you. But living into our destiny? What did that mean?
    Florida plopped down in a chair beside me in Group Twenty-Six. “Where were you?” I asked. “I saved you a