Elizabeth's Prayer
- While Elisha speaks in tongues, Elizabeth, too, feels a message from God. She doesn't know what it is, though.
- Elisha stops and everybody sings "Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone?" It's a song that Elizabeth's aunt used to sing, which leads Elizabeth into flashback-land.
- She remembers how her mother, who never really loved her, had died when she was eight. Her father, on the other hand, treated her like a princess. He had never learned about John, because Elizabeth was ashamed at the time of being pregnant without being married.
- When Elizabeth's mom died, her aunt had shown up to take her away (turns out her dad ran a brothel).
- Her life in Maryland with her aunt was unhappy, and her father never came to save her.
- In Maryland, Elizabeth met Richard, an angry grocery-store clerk who took her to New York to start a new life.
- In Harlem, Elizabeth lived with her aunt's relative, Madame Williams, who held séances in her apartment every Saturday night.
- Elizabeth worked in the same hotel as Richard, and they spent their Saturday afternoons together going to museums, movies, and plays.
- One Saturday Richard dropped Elizabeth off at her house at 2am and headed to the subway to go home. He was supposed to come meet Madame Williams the next evening, but he never showed up. He missed work on Monday, too.
- Elizabeth went to Richard's place to look for him, and it turned out he had been arrested. Some police officers took her to the station, where they humiliated her and finally told her he was in a prison called the Tombs, but that she could visit him the next day.
- She brought Richard some cigarettes but forgot to give them to him. He told her that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. When he was in the subway (after dropping her off) some black boys came running onto the platform, followed by a white shopowner they had robbed and stabbed. He got swept up along with them, even though he had nothing to do with it.
- Elizabeth began to hate white people, and also realized that she was pregnant. She testified at Richard's trial. He was set free.
- That day, in his room, Richard wept for a long time. She decided not to tell him about her pregnancy. That night he slit his wrists and died.
- The church members go on to sing "Somebody Needs You, Lord".
- Elizabeth hears Gabriel's voice singing, and she worries about John.
- She thinks about how she met Gabriel, through Florence (he sure loves to marry his sister's friends). When John was a baby she took a job cleaning an office building on Wall Street. Florence worked there too.
- Florence invited Elizabeth for a cup of coffee one morning after work, and they became friends. One day Elizabeth brought Johnny to meet Florence at her house; Florence mentioned that her brother was moving to the city and Elizabeth told Florence the secret of Johnny's father.
- A few weeks later Elizabeth met Gabriel at Florence's house. She was surprised that he wasn't so bad-looking after all: she thought he was going to be fugly.
- On the way up the steps to Florence's, Elizabeth heard blues music and baby Johnny danced to it.
- Gabriel was sweet to Johnny, but his words tested Elizabeth, who was, after all, a single mother.
- Elizabeth imagined that everything was coming together, with Gabriel's loving gaze on her son.
- Back to the present (don't get whiplash). Elizabeth is aware of the voices and excitement around her, but she thinks back to the past, hoping God will speak to her.
- In the same church, many years ago, she had asked God for forgiveness for her sins. One night, Gabriel had asked her to pray for forgiveness, and she had done it.
- Before her salvation moment, Gabriel asked Elizabeth to pray about whether she would marry him. He believed the Lord had brought them together for a purpose: to fulfill the promise of his holy lineage and to save her from her fallen ways. He promised to love John like he was his own son.
- Elizabeth remembers the day John was born and hears him crying; now it's a man's cry, though, not a baby's. She realizes that John has been overcome by the power of the Lord.