Page 303 of Redeemed

The harsh reminder of the realities of living in this place hit me like a punch to the gut. I smile anyway—I have to.

“I’m so glad!” I exclaim as I take her hand to get a closer look at the ring. “When did this happen?”

“Two summers ago,” Naomi says. She’s beaming, and when she glances at Jeremiah and sees him grinning at her, she blushes.

“Congratulations,” I say softly. “I’m really happy for you both.”

Isaiah clears his throat behind me, and I don’t miss the way Jeremiah’s smile fades. Other than Mom, he was the only one who ever challenged our father’s decision to have me marry Isaiah.

“Sit,” Isaiah orders.

“We’ll catch you after the service,” Jeremiah says as he squeezes my shoulder. “Missed you.”

“Missed you, too,” I whisper.

A few more people stop by to say hello—Isaiah’s family, mostly. He fields all their questions while I sit there obediently. When the opening song starts, everyone scatters to find their seats, and Isaiah places a hand on my thigh.

It makes me want to claw at his skin until the church’s floor is stained with his blood.

The service starts, and I’m unsurprised that it’s exactly what I remember. We begin with a song, then a prayer, then a Bible reading, and then it all repeats two more times.

The hymns strike me as horribly off-base. We sing about a loving God, yet all I can think of is the God I was raised to believe in. The one who murdered children, who let his people stay enslaved for hundreds of years, who sees a lifetime of sin and decides it should be met with an eternity of punishment.

When we get to the point where Pastor Beckham is supposed to preach, he stops before getting onto the stage. Facing the congregation, he says, “Before we move on to my message, I have wonderful news. Thanks to her father, Hezekiah, and her husband, Isaiah, our prodigal daughter Heaven Titus has been brought home safely after almost four years.”

I go still, and it’s not until Isaiah is painfully gripping my wrist that I realize Beckham has called us to stand with him.

“Get up,” Isaiah hisses quietly.

It doesn’t feel like my legs will support my body as I slowly stand, but I don’t fall. Isaiah places a hand on my back and leads me so we’re in front of the stage. He stands on one side of Beckham, and I stand on the other, just like we were when we got married.

“Heaven has spent her time out in the world rebelling against God in a variety of ways: disobedience to our heavenly father, unfaithfulness to her husband, immodesty, prostitution—” Pastor Beckham pauses as the room fills with gasps. He clears his throat to quell the following murmurs. “Defiling her body with tattoos, rejecting our Lord Jesus Christ as her savior, and pursuing drunkenness.”

My lips part as I stare up at Isaiah in shock. He’s the one who told everything to Beckham. Who else could’ve? And he knew. IsaiahknewBeckham would state it all publicly. In front of my friends. In front of mysiblings.

“The scriptures are clear on what’s to be done with a woman who commits adultery,” Beckham continues. “But with Jesus’s sacrifice for us comes a new hope—one of forgiveness and eternal life, should her husband find her deserving of it. If he doesn’t, he reserves the right to enact God’s justice on her.”

God’s justice.

This is one of the mysteries that had me questioning Beckham as a teen. He’d preach about God’s love, about how even the worst sins were forgivable, as long as we repented. But then when it came to women who were out of line, the rules were flipped on their head.

All of a sudden, it was up to the men who had authority over her to decide if she was worthy of God’s forgiveness—of a second chance—or if she was a lost cause.

Back then, I fully believed in that twisted version of justice. I trusted my parents, trusted Beckham. But when I watched a woman get killed because she fell for a man who wasn’t her husband—herabusivehusband—I understood. Cornerstone’s rules aren’t biblical. They’re placed over women by the men who want to keep us compliant and controlled.

“Now, our dearest Heaven, do you repent?” Beckham asks me. He used to offer me a warm, charming smile whenever we crossed paths, but now his expression is grim, his lips pressed together in a thin line.

“I do.”

There’s no hesitation in my voice. There can’t be.

Beckham nods. “Isaiah, take her hands.”

He does.

“Do you forgive her?” Beckham asks, nodding to everyone in the pews. “Tell your family.”

“I, Isaiah Titus, choose to forgive my wife, Heaven Titus, for her unfaithfulness and rebellion against God,” Isaiah says, facing the congregation. “When I married her, I promised to love her the same way Christ loves the Church. I’ll continue to do so. I’ll lead her back to him so she can experience the fullness of his love yet again.”

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