The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Real by Neta Jackson

their father threatened bodily harm if they hit the buttons—and Denny trotted off to get the car since Nony was practically barefoot in her thin sandals. But even the short dash to the car from the elevator foyer must have been a shock to the system by the time we slammed all the doors after cramming every-body plus luggage into the Caravan.
    I was glad Hoshi climbed into the third seat with the two boys so I could sit with Nony in the middle—Hoshi, after all, would get to visit with them once they got back to the house. I asked the top-of-the-head questions: Did you have a good flight? How is your mother doing? Are the boys glad to be home? “There’s not enough time!” I moaned. “We’ll have to invite you guys over for dinner so we can hear everything about your trip.”
    Nony nodded wearily. “Yes. Maybe later. I need some time to reflect, to ask God what it all means before we tell you about it.”
    â€œAnd develop our pictures,” Mark tossed from the front seat.
    The sky was spitting snow, and Denny had to turn on the windshield wipers. Lake effect? Or a big storm? I’d forgotten to check the weather.
    â€œJodi?” Nony’s low voice seemed meant for my ears only. I leaned closer. “How is Denny—after MaDear’s terrible accusation, I mean? While I was in South Africa, seeing the still-painful struggle my country is going through after the end of apartheid . . . I kept thinking about Denny and MaDear, aching for them both. And praying for them, praying for all my brothers and sisters, black and white, weeping for all the hurts still quivering in a million hearts as we take stumbling steps forward—praying that forgiveness and God’s love will one day prevail.”
    A lump gathered in my throat. Nony doesn’t know. She’d still been here when Denny had walked into Adele’s beauty shop to pick me up on our anniversary, provoking a tirade from Adele’s confused mother, who thought my husband was one of the men who’d lynched her brother when she was only a girl of ten. Denny had wanted to clear things up—he wasn’t even born then! He’d grown up in New York, for Pete’s sake! Yet the incident had thrown up a wall between Adele and us. Citing a lot of painful stuff her family had had to deal with over the years, Adele had dropped out of Yada Yada, leaving us feeling guilty and not knowing what to do.
    I took Nony’s hand in mine. “Thank you for the prayers,” I said. “God did something amazing around Christmas—but first we had to ask, ‘What did Jesus do?’ ” It sounded trite the moment I said it, like the WWJD catch phrase that ran rampant through Christian pop culture a few years back. I meant it, though. Not, “What would Jesus do?” but “What did Jesus do?”
    Nony’s eyes glistened. I think she knew.When I had a chance, I’d tell her about Denny’s decision to ask MaDear’s forgiveness—as though he really had committed that sin against her. “Because,” he had explained to me later, “she needed to hear someone say, ‘I’m sorry.’ And because I’m not guilt-free.”
    Nony looked away and I heard her murmur, “Yes, Lord! You said you came to heal the brokenhearted and proclaim liberty to the captives, to make the blind see and set at liberty all who are oppressed!”
    I grinned and squeezed her hand. Nony was definitely back.
    Forty minutes later we pulled into their driveway on Evanston’s north side. As the guys unloaded the lug-gage, Nony sat for a moment just looking at her house—a red-brick two-story, pretty even in the dead of winter, with bare ivy creeping up the brick and framing the windows and wheat-colored decorative grasses waving gently in the chilly breeze. She sighed. “It’s good to be home.” Then I realized how tired they all must be after their