I FIRST VISITED New Born Church of God and True Holiness with Penny, on May 6, 1979, the first Sunday after her mother’s homegoing. Ms. June passed away in April 1979. When she began attending this church in early spring, Penny had told me she thought I would really enjoy this loving congregation. That day, I came to support my grieving friend.

Truthfully, I had been looking for a church to attend on Sundays. The Catholic Church in Middletown was similar to the church of my early years—one step beyond the Latin mass. It was too dead for me. Though St. Ambrose celebrated a more traditional mass each week, I opted for the gospel mass at which I often sang on either the youth or adult choirs.

After being seated in the congregation of fifty or fewer saints, as the congregants called one another, I noticed a large sign on the rear wall of the pulpit at the front of the church. It read, simply, “God is Love.” After the morning announcements, the pastor asked all visitors to stand, to be recognized by the congregation. I stood, along with four other people. When he asked if any visitor had anything to say, I responded, “I am delighted to be here. It seems like something exciting is going to happen here today.” That was the improvisational theater performer in me speaking.

The preacher rendered a sermon entitled “A Common Temptation” about God’s ability to help us overcome any obstacle. Like depression, I thought. His words reflected my concept of God: a loving father who provides a victorious life. After the sermon ended, as the choir sang something like, “Come unto Jesus, while you have time,” the preacher invited people to come up to the altar for prayer. I lined up behind five or more people, sure that the preacher’s prayer would be beneficial in some way.

While conferring with the minister, I decided to be baptized in Jesus’ name. During the sermon, I learned purgatory wasn’t biblical. The way I lived my life, replete with angry outbursts, which occasionally turned physical, I always figured I would need someone to pray me out of purgatory eventually. I didn’t think I would commit any mortal sins for which the penalty would be hell. The Roman Catholic nuns from my elementary school made sure I absorbed the lessons regarding eternal life.

With purgatory off the table, I decided to take action. Knowing I had been merely sprinkled with water as a baby, I chose this baptism by complete immersion in water. When my friend Veda, who had met Mama, asked, “What are you going to tell your Catholic mother about being baptized?” I shrugged, then replied, “I’m not going to tell her.”

That week, the Wesleyan spring semester ended. Although I had remained in Connecticut for the summer, my busy schedule only allowed me to attend two services at New Born: a Bible study in June and a Sunday morning worship service in July. When the pastor himself drove the half hour each way to make sure Penny and I could attend the service, I was impressed by his humility. This sacrificial attitude was what I had grown accustomed to in interactions with the clergy at St. Ambrose.

Wanting to know God more perfectly, I decided I really should attend church every week, as my mother had required of any child of hers who lived at her home in Baltimore. In September, I chose to settle in at this church along with my best friend, Penny. I could feel the genuine love the congregants shared with each other, and with me.

New Born Church of God exposed me to a new way of doing church. The church was patterned according to the Apostle’s doctrine that included repentance, baptism, and receiving the Spirit of God as evidenced by speaking with supernatural tongues. The church embraced the basic tenets of early Pentecostalism in the United States. In an effort to present ourselves in contrast to the world at large, we embraced standards of modesty with parameters that individual pastors determined.

In an effort to serve God perfectly, I followed instructions, initially those that pertained to how I dressed. As a college student, I wore sweatpants most days. After my baptism, I removed them and wore the same three skirts for a semester to conform to the requirement that sisters wear skirts and dresses. My lip gloss, eyeliner, and mascara became a thing of the past. When one of the mothers told me wearing nail polish was a sign of pride, I removed it, determined to line my life up with what I was told God required. Over the summer, I had decided I needed to add biblical salvation to my peaceful, happy life, making things better for me. If these new rules would help me become a more loving person, I would submit to them.

I decided my life shouldn’t be about externals; I would concentrate on being a better person internally. If the Spirit of God would change me for the better, I needed to receive it. When I did, I was immediately faced with an important choice. I was accepted for the Wesleyan program in Paris for the spring semester. I had participated in the Wesleyan Intensive Language Program during the summer to prepare myself. Now I had to decide whether or not I possessed the spiritual strength necessary to make the trip while retaining my newfound fervor. When I talked to Penny about it, she suggested I ask God for a specific sign to signal his will, as Gideon had done when he was unsure about God’s direction for his life. I didn’t place a piece of sheepskin outdoors asking God to alternate wetting it one night and keeping it dry the other.

Knowing that money always fell in place for my scholastic endeavors, I decided I would leave the country if the finances for my trip were in place. I could not find funding to study in Paris. After I decided to forego a major goal from my to-do and remain on campus, Penny shared, “Pastor Geddis told me not to tell you what to do about Paris. He said it needed to be your decision.”

During winter break, I went to New Born Church of God in D.C. and stayed with Dee Dee, a sister from the church who was in her late twenties. She patiently shared her knowledge of God with me and radiated kindness. She invited me to ride to Tennessee for the revival her pastor Bishop Wilson was conducting. She served as his driver for that trip. As we rode through the West Virginia hills he pointed out the majesty of God. He also instructed me to memorize Galatians 2:20, which reads, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

At home, my siblings commented on how plain looking I had become. I think this must have been a personal choice because one of the twenty-something sisters often reminded the sisterhood, “Holiness is not a synonym for homeliness.” In my quest to be sober, I had lost effervescence as well as fashion sense without noticing.

Because I wanted to be a more loving person, I needed to work on my speech. Not how to speak, but rather what to say. I had always believed if I spoke the truth, people should accept whatever I said. I learned that wasn’t so and that the childhood adage sticks and stones may break my bone, but words can never hurt me was untrue. I wanted to stop using hurtful speech. I decided if I was going to be a Christian ambassador, I needed to be genuine. I read books about getting better control of my tongue. To this day, I am really hurt when I unintentionally offend someone with words.

In February, our Church embarked on a month of Consecration, twenty-eight days to dedicate ourselves to God. I ate one meal a day as prescribed. Toward the middle of the month, one of the brothers invited Penny and me to his apartment for a home-cooked meal, which was delicious. A week later, out of nowhere, I called Dee Dee to let her know I would soon be engaged to that brother. She didn’t challenge my assertion. However, she recognized a difference in my vocal tone that I didn’t hear. She didn’t believe what I was saying was true, nor did she think I was lying. She alerted my pastor.

Meanwhile, my thoughts began to race, and my speech and behavior began to speed up. My friend and fellow congregant, Bill, a doctoral candidate at Wesleyan, shared file cards with me on which he had written scriptures concerning Christian speech and behavior for me to meditate on. The uptick in my mood resulted in a loss of insight those cards could not restore.

That semester, I withdrew from three of my six classes. In my Psychology of Learning course, I gave a ten-minute extemporaneous discourse that no one understood, but the instructor allowed me to continue my nonsensical rant. Penny, a psychology major, found out about the strange discourse from another psychology major who had heard it. When she asked me about it, I had no explanation. What I said had made sense to me while I was speaking. Humiliated, I dropped the course.

I spent as much time as I could in my room reading my Bible and praying to try to slow down my racing thoughts.

I attended the church’s all-night prayer service conducted from Friday night to Saturday morning in mid-February, thereby adding sleep deprivation to eating one meal a day and further interrupting the chemical functioning of my brain. On Saturday, I decided it was time to attend an on-campus party. I was extraordinarily cheerful, dancing to a few records before returning to my apartment.

Of course, being at a party was outside the parameters of my religious tenets. My pastor chided me for attending the party and for putting an earring in the piercing of my right ear. In response, I gathered all my jewelry, including an heirloom bracelet, and threw it into a garbage chute in my apartment building. It never occurred to me to hold onto it without wearing it until I could give it away. In my mood state, I thought throwing the jewelry away was my best shot at resisting the temptation to wear it.

In mid-March I plunged into a more ominous version of the depression of 1977. Throughout April, I was weepy and sad. I kept praying. Penny said, “It’s a good thing you weren’t at home with your family. They wouldn’t have understood.” How could they have understood something I didn’t understand? At the time, I had no explanation for what was happening to me.

That semester, I designed two independent study courses at the Long Lane School, the juvenile detention facility for the state of Connecticut. I was teaching English and Creative Theater Techniques curriculums I designed to young men on the maximum-security unit. When hypomania kicked in, I manifested a new seductiveness that became counterproductive. One of the counselors warned me that my behavior was too provocative for this population. I mustered enough clarity to know I needed to leave that ward.

With heightened persuasive abilities, I was able to rescue my project by appealing to the head of the girls’ division who allowed me to switch my attention to a group of girls in the minimum-detention section of the facility. I tutored English and taught them how to turn their dreams into stories they acted out. I recorded my experiences in one journal for the English professor who was overseeing my work and another journal for the theater professor who monitored the theater component.

Penny and Bill graduated from Wesleyan in May. To celebrate her accomplishment, Penny and I decided to travel from New York to California where we would stay with one of her friends. We traveled to parts of the country I had never visited, passing through Arizona’s fresh air, seeing the Saint Louis arch at dusk—every new state provided its own beauty. But after two days, it seemed the bus trip would never end and our feet were swollen. After arriving in California, we decided to fly back home. Penny had enough money to buy a ticket, but my refunded bus ticket money was not enough for a plane ticket. I borrowed the remainder of the money I needed from Karen, promising to pay it back later that summer.

When we returned to Connecticut, Penny suffered whiplash in a van accident and wasn’t able to work. Covering the rent, I couldn’t afford to pay Karen back in the timeframe we had established. It took much longer to pay her back than I expected. She promised she would never loan me money again.

In July, I went home to have my bridesmaid gown fitted for Valerie’s upcoming wedding and bridal shower. I returned in August for the wedding. Penny and one of the other sisters from church attended the wedding with me. My pastor suggested I skip my sister’s wedding reception to attend a church service my congregation attended in D.C. that day. I let him know I planned to celebrate with my sister and our family on her special day. Though, I wanted to create a new life for myself in the Pentecostal faith, I would always participate in major family events. There was no way I would be off somewhere at a church service when my sister was beginning a new chapter in her life.