A Kept Woman

By Pat G'Orge-Walker © 2000
(used by permission)

    One exhausting evening, I hurried my eleven-year-old grandson off to bed and eagerly headed into the living room. The living room was my sanctuary for my "me" time. After leaning back in my recliner, putting my feet up and closing my eyes in relief the words, "a Kept Woman," flashed through my mind. Of course, I sat straight up and thought, "who me?" I thought I had lived pretty much a somewhat chaste life. I never had much of a choice. I was a PK. A preacher's kid. Both parents were pastors and preachers. My grandmother, according to her, was very intimate with God.

    Immediately, I wanted to run and write it down. As an author I was constantly bombarded with attention grabbing titles that I assumed would titillate my readers. That time the title, "A Kept Woman," was specifically for me.

    I sat down, again, in the recliner and thought, "Am I a kept woman? Kept by whom or by what? I never had a rich boyfriend. A Kept Woman. What does it mean?" After letting my mind go back, as far as even my childhood, I was reminded that I most certainly had been, "A Kept Woman."

    At the age of three I was trapped in a fire that raged beyond control. I remembered the scene that day as clearly as if it had just happened. The smoke, the fire, and especially the brave fireman that risked his life coming through the flames to rescue me were still vivid. At the moment the fireman picked me up and held me tightly beneath his coat, God had set in motion my safety net. He had kept me alive.

    At the age of fifteen I was assaulted and left for dead in the woods. I somehow managed to drag my bloodied body out to safety. I was not alone. God provided me with a Guardian Angel. Again, He kept me.

    Some years later, I was in my car and a huge Mack truck recklessly slammed into the drivers side. The car was totaled and I was seriously injured. I was mangled and had slivers of glass embedded in my skin. According to those in authority, I should not have survived. I did. God kept me and healed me.

    When I contacted a viral infection in the base of my brain and almost completely went blind, God kept me and He healed me.

    There have been so many instances that God has stepped in and kept me. He has kept me from hurt and dangers. Some seen and not seen. God has kept me from making many mistakes, but most of all, He has kept me to do His will.

    When I think back over the past, the present and the future I realize that I am, indeed, A Kept Woman.

    I praise and thank God for keeping me. As He has kept me, He can keep you too. We are all here, not by happenstance, but by the will of God. I have a verse that has become my mantra,…"I am a living testimony. I should have been dead and gone, but the Lord let me live on. I am a living testimony. And, I'm glad, glad, glad.

    Jude 24: Now unto Him that is able to you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy…..