Mama B: A Time to Forgive: Mama B

By Michelle Stimpson

To begin with, Mama B really had no business running around town in the middle of the virus shelter-in-place orders. She knew better. And she got more than what she bargained for when she ran into Pearl Whitlow, a former church musician who left Mt. Zion under bad, unresolved circumstances. Will Mama B make amends or is best for Pearl to keep her social distance and then some!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michelle Lenear-Stimpson
• Release date: Apr 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393960270

Michelle Stimpson

Michelle Stimpson is an educational consultant who lives outside Dallas with her husband and two children. She has also served as part of the writing and editing team of Heartbeat magazine, a publication of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship Church in Dallas.

Book preview

1

Now, I got to be honest with you, I still wasn’t exactly sure what was going on with the virus. I had watched some reports that made it sound like the sky had already fell to the ground. Then, other reports basically said if you just wash your hands, you’d be fine. But that didn’t make sense ’cause the people in China had on masks. The news started off saying it was worse in Italy because they had an elderly population. Then, a little while later, the United States had the most cases but not as many deaths, in proportion, I mean.

Still, I know it don’t mean nothin’ to say not that many people have died when one of the folk you love is in the not many number. Just one somebody you know gettin’ sick or dyin’ is too many.

My husband, Frank, being a doctor, took the perspective that it was better to be safe than sorry. B, you need to stay in the house from now on, he told me a few Fridays previous.

Well. Y’all know me. I listen to my husband and I got good enough sense to know I needed a heightened sense of hygiene and to stay away from the general public more than usual under the circumstances. And don’t even get me started with the people buying up all the toilet paper. Trust me, God ain’t ordained the hoarding toilet paper. I pray we all do better next time.

But anyway, when it’s all said and done, I believe the report of the Lord. I’ve been standing on Psalm 91 a very, very long time. I decree myself safe under His wings and it is so. I will die when the Lord gets good and ready to take me home, and not one second before or after.

This is my faith for myself. But everybody ain’t like me, so I went along with the mayor’s orders and my husband’s request, for the most part, with an occasional run to the store for things I needed to replenish. It’s all right to be saved, sanctified, sanitized, and secluded all at the same time.

I was watching the news maybe once or twice a day, but I wasn’t going to fill myself up with fear. I had my eldest boy, Son, to do the over-worrying, of course.

He’d been calling me almost every morning since the middle of March, asking, Momma, how are you feeling?

I’m fine. You?

I’m younger than you. I’m not high-risk, he said.

"You the one who done had a heart attack, not me," I reminded my eldest son.

I’m just saying. You really need to stay inside. A man at my job got it last week, and he’s in I-C-U. They don’t know if he’s going to pull through.

I unzipped my Bible bag. What’s his name?

Robert Ives.

I printed the name on my prayer list. I’ll keep him lifted.

Thank you. But I’m serious about you staying in, Son continued. "This virus is very contagious. It’s spreading through ventilation ducts, through masks, through cleaning sprays."

My hand stopped wiping the coffee table. Where you hear that at?

He stuttered before admitting, "I mean, it’s everywhere, Momma. Everywhere. It’s just a matter