No Weapon Formed (Boaz Brown) by Michelle Stimpson

flowing out of her mouth and
onto her green cotton dress.
    “No, Zoe. Nooooo.” I
flubbered my lips in exasperation, which caused Zoe to smile. And, of course,
my baby’s smile was contagious.
    “Shondra. What’s taking so
long?” Stelson barged into the baby’s room. “What are you doing?”
    “I’m—”
    “Looks like you’re in here
making goo-goo eyes with Zoe.”
    “If you’d let me finish a
sentence, you’d know that she just spit up on her clothes. Now I have to change
her.”
    He threw a hand in the air.
“What happened to her bib?”
    “I hadn’t put it on her yet,”
I defended myself against what I perceived to be unspoken allegations of
inadequate motherhood. Look, man, I done already quit my job. What else do
you want from me?
    Stelson shook his head and
stormed out again.
    How we managed to get so off
track right before Sunday service always confused me. The corporate worship
experience was supposed to be the most sacred event of the week. The time when
I felt most holy, an opportunity to be inspired and refocus. And all I could
think about on the way to church was how I wished the Lord would slap my
husband upside the head.
    Seth sat in his seat staring
at us through the rear view and visor mirrors as I put the finishing touches on
my makeup. My son was probably wondering why Stelson and I weren’t talking. Zoe
must have felt the tension, too, because she got fussy on the way. Seth tried
to entertain her as much as possible, though his seatbelt wouldn’t allow much
more than holding her hand.
    Stelson dropped the kids and me
off at the side entrance, then drove off to find a parking spot. From the looks
of things, he’d have a long walk back to the sanctuary, which wouldn’t help his
attitude.
    Parents, mostly moms, stood
in the check-in line. If they were anything like me, they were counting down
the seconds until they could be child-free.
    Of course, the scripture
painted on the wall would have to convict me. “ Children are a heritage of
the Lord, offspring a reward from Him.” Psalm 127:3 NIV.How could I
have so quickly forgotten all the infertility hoops Stelson and I had jumped
through to have children? Forgive me, Lord.
    After waiting in a short
line, I checked both kids into children’s church at one of the kiosks, grabbed
their printed stickers, and pressed them onto each child’s back.
    “Hi, Sister Brown!” Ebby, one
of the faithful children’s church leaders, greeted me. “How are you?”
    Despite the anger simmering
in my heart at the moment, I replied with churchy flavor, “Good! How are you?”
    Ebby hugged me, which gave
Zoe ample opportunity to grab hold of a fistful of Ebby’s dreadlocks.
    “Zoe, no,” I said, prying her
fingers from Ebby’s hair.
    Ebby laughed heartily,
“Happens all the time. Kids are fascinated by my hair.”
    I had to admit that the
mysterious twists on her head were interesting to me, too. In fact, I’d taken
the liberty to register the texture with my finger as I loosened Zoe’s grasp.
The light brown locks were softer than I’d imagined.
    “This one certainly loves
your style,” I complimented Ebby.
    Her soft, shiny cheeks rose
to a full crest. “I’ll see you later.” She rushed off to wherever she’d been
headed before she took a moment to speak to me.
    Ebby’s patient, pleasant
demeanor with Seth as a baby set me at ease with leaving Zoe in the care of the
nursery volunteers at Living Word Church. And Seth was learning so much in his
Sunday school and children’s Bible study classes that I knew his teachers took
this special ministry seriously.
    During the hair-pulling
distraction, Seth had managed to crawl behind the kiosks and was, apparently,
busy trying to discover where the sticker paper came from.
    “Seth! Get out from around
there!”
    He obeyed quickly, with a
mischievous smile. I pinched his arm with enough force to let him know I meant
business without leaving a mark.
    I dropped the kids off in
their respective