One of those places you think can save you if need be, from yourself.

—Grace

It’s more a drone than singing that fills the room when I walk in. It’s a warble and then not one. The deacon approaches the podium and I make my way past a white-gloved usher woman to a pew near the back. The deacon’s suit coat hangs knee-length. He reads announcements and when he’s done he calls up Pastor Hammond. The pastor, a freckle-faced man with black back-combed hair, rises from his seat and strolls up to the pulpit, where a massive Bible rest under a bent microphone. Amen, he says, offering a glimpse of a gold-capped front tooth. He nods at the choir and they stand and the choir director moves out in front with his hands at his sides and his head down. The director lifts his head and the choir hums the first notes of “Amazing Grace.”

Pastor Hammond—he was a guest speaker at my last church—asks the church to be seated. He clears his throat and sips from a goblet. Today, saints, he says, I want to speak to you about temptation. He unbuttons his jacket and grips the lectern and gazes out. The devil tempted Jesus to make stones into bread, he says. But Jesus refused. I said, the devil tempted Jesus to make stones into bread but Jesus refused. And when Jesus said no, the devil took him to the highest mountain and said he’d give him all the kingdoms and the glory if Jesus would get down on his knees. But Jesus, the pastor shouts, told that devil, I only worship one God. Jesus, amen, told that devil, I serve one God and one God only. And surely, the pastor says, and slaps the lectern, if Jesus could pass up all the world’s glory, then we can forsake the tiny temptations of our lives. He goes on and while he does the pews fill up and the members clap and here and there shout amen. The pastor stops and wipes sweat from his neck and face and waves his handkerchief and calls up his wife, the first lady. He fades to a seat pushed against the wall. The first lady takes the podium, looks out at the church, lays her Bible on the lectern. Today, saints, I’d like to speak to you about marriage, she says. The Bible tells us not to count another’s blessings. It warns us not to live beyond our means.

Not often, but sometimes talk of marriage makes me think of my ex, a man I met in NA—this should have been my first clue!—of the time I fell in starry-eyed love and married his nonworking self at the courthouse months later. His name was Larry and he smoked and drank. The day after we exchanged vows, Larry earned a key chain that might as well have been the master key for every liquor store in the land. He jumped right back on the bottle, and before long, before I’d relapsed myself, he fell right back into puffing too. The man was an expert if ever there was one. He left on a hunt for his potion one October night and we didn’t see him until after New Years, the cold day he strolled in whistling as if the world had wound to a halt while he was gone.

The first lady preaches and the pastor, legs and arms crossed, beams from his seat. She finishes and the church applauds, big booming claps. The choir stands and sings “Soon and Very Soon.” The members sway in their dark blue robes with yellow stoles, the faces of praise. The women wear dark coats of makeup, the men sport beards edged just so. The pastor strolls up after the song and he thanks the choir and his beautiful wife for her kind and wise words.

Now, saints, he says, and saunters to the edge of the pulpit. I’d like to hear of the Lord’s good work.

The first to testify is a couple—the wife wears a diamond spec for a ring, the husband a crushed tie—who sit in my row. The husband thanks God for clothes, for a roof, for a decent car to get back and forth. God is good, he says. Praise Him.

A woman testifies next, tells the church how after her husband left, she stayed home a month straight trying to starve herself blind, says she would’ve whittled to dust if the pastor hadn’t came by and prayed her back to faith.

The next to witness is a man at the front of the church. He says that the Lord brought his daughter back after she’d been gone so long it gave him a stroke. He tears up, and there’s a certain part, a better part of me, that sympathizes.

The first time I was grown and joined a new church was after what happened to my cousin. She was younger by not many years and more of a sister. I introduced her to one of Kenny’s brothers and they dated against our family’s wishes. She went missing months later, and we all assumed she’d ran off with him, that Kenny’s brother had convinced her to prostitute. We didn’t believe otherwise until we found out the brother had been in jail. My cousin was gone from summer through fall. Then one night the news ran the story of a woman found in Overlook Park. The anchor said the woman had been stabbed dozens of times and left for so long her body had begun to decompose. The next morning the boys and I drove to Mama Liza’s. We hadn’t been there long when the police knocked, asking questions and I could feel right off why they had come.

The next Sunday I joined First AME Zion and gave my life to Christ, for my cousin, my sister, for what I’d done to my family, for what I must’ve known I’d do all too soon to myself.

The choir sings “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” The pastor dabs his face once more and waits for calm and glides again to the edge of the pulpit. Is there anyone here who needs prayer, he says, who wants to give their life to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?

An elder woman in a gray wig, a boy in slacks that stop too high, a man in an oversize double-breasted suit, they amble to the front of the church and kneel before the pastor and the cross. Those who stayed back hum and sway. My neighbor nudges me and asks if I’d like to go and I shake my head. If I was a girl, Mama Liza would lead me to the front and stay by my side. But she’s gone. The organist fingers chords and it’s a language all its own. More of the brave drift down and submit.

John 3:16, For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever should believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life, the pastor says. Father, we ask that You come into our house today. We ask that whatever is troubling the hearts of these men, these women, these children, your creations, Father, we ask that You come into their lives and heal it. Let us put our faith in You, Lord. Everything works together for the good of them that love You. The pastor strides from one side of the stage to the other and stops under a giant painting of Jesus. He drifts down the steps and lays a hand on those that have come forward to be born. He looks up and roves his eyes around. Then with his face shining and shining he starts up an aisle. It’s my aisle.

God, some of us have been before You once, but it wasn’t our time, he says. God, some of us have been before You twice and it wasn’t our time, he says. But dear God, this is our time. The pastor stops next to my pew. The organist fingers chords and the drummer taps his cymbals. Satan, the pastor says. You are no match for my God. You are a coward. I said, Satan, you are no match for my God. You are a coward. We rebuke you in the name of the Lord. The pastor stomps and shakes his fist and snaps his head back. We rebuke you, Satan, in the name of the Lord.

The pastor gazes along my pew. He reaches out. Reaches out to whom?

This time I want to turn away. This time I can’t.

He wades into my row and they part. Come, come, my saint, he says.