Living Faith Alliance Church

God Loves Joan

Today I had a life-changing experience. I was sitting in the waiting room, waiting for my 9:15am pain management doctor appointment. Sitting all around me were people that have developed painful disorders such as myself. Others have experienced traumatic accidents that have changed their lives, possibly forever. And others unfortunately are not there for health reasons but to get their next drug fix. That is the reality of Pain Management offices.

As I sat there waiting, a woman came in. She was very disfigured, hunched over at about 4 1/2 feet tall, with eyes pointing outward and not straight as to see well. Her hands were very gnarled. Her frame was emaciated, with legs the size of my arms. Her nails were longer and filled with dirt underneath. She was dressed in a nice pink and gray hoodie with a matching pink hair tie. She writhed in pain as she sat down across from me about 10 feet away. You could see the shame she carried with her. People were staring. You could almost here them thinking, “Who is that?” or even, “What is that?”

Watching her from across the room, I began to pray for her. She was carrying a heavy load, several bags and her purse. It was obvious the weight of the bags were increasing her pain levels, but I did not feel led by the Holy Spirit to move toward her. I thought I needed to instruct her about the bags she was carrying in order to decrease her pain. But what gave me the right to invade her world and immediately think I have to teach her something because I know and she doesn’t? Who am I to jump to that conclusion? As I prayed from a distance, God began to let me know ‘who I was called to be’ in this unique situation. The words from the Bible kept going through my mind ‘the least of these,’ ‘the least of these.’ 

Yesterday, Pastor Erik Howard preached a message at Christ Community Church about God’s command for all Christians, those who have placed faith in Jesus, to Go. His points were:

1. Lost people matter to God.

2. We are called to go.

3. We experience Beauty disguised as brokenness, as we go, through demonstration and proclamation.

It’s not just a command for those who are in Christian leadership roles, pastors, teachers, etc. It’s for everyone who follows Jesus. The message resounded in my ears as I sat there: Go, Go, Go to the least of these.

Matthew 25:40 (ESV)

And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

I asked God, “Am I to approach her? Be Jesus to her, in the best way I know how?” The answer came after praying silently for about 10 minutes. Right here in front of everyone? The Holy Spirit said a resounding YES. GO TO HER. And I went. I sat down and touched her. I then introduced myself as Lois and asked what her name was. She attempted to look over with a painful glance as her neck was in a rigid horizontal position from her body. She smiled and was able to get the word “Joan” out of her mouth. She proceeded to writhe in pain as her neck would arch backward and her back would throw the rest of her body forward. She would slump way down in her chair to get it under control when the spasms would stop.

It was painful for me to watch. I couldn’t help her with that area, but I followed the Holy Spirit’s lead on how He had called me to help her, Joan. She had a name. She was created by God and has a purpose, even in her pain and disfigurement. As I sat there, she then said, “People won’t talk to me. People don’t like me because of what I look like.” Everything came to a halt inside of me. She shared a part of her everyday life experience and what she deals with. What a place of such hurt and rejection. That hit me deeply when she said that. She continued to try and get words out. She was desperate for someone, SOMEONE TO SEE HER, SOMEONE TO SHOW HER LOVE, even if it was only going to be for a matter of minutes on November 28, 2016.

I began to talk with her and ask her about herself. She then asked me, in her broken speech pattern, if I was ready for Christmas. I said I am always ready because it is all about Jesus, and I love celebrating Him. She agreed. She shared with me the diseases she has. She asked what I had, so I shared it with her. As she talked, I was hoping to learn about her situation to see if there was any way our church body, Living Faith Alliance, could support her. I was also hoping her talking with me would be a respite from her pain, even for only a few minutes.

I commented on her nice sweatshirt and matching hair tie. She got a huge smile on her face. She then said her grandmother was a designer and her mother owned a dress shop. I also learned of her own daughter’s drinking problems and that she is now in a halfway house. She has six grandchildren, four boys and two girls, ages 4-13. At that moment, it was like a blanket of shame came over her. She said, “You’re so nice. I’m sorry to dump all this on you.” I was taken back. I assured her that she was actually a blessing to Me, that I really wanted to hear her story and appreciated her telling me. She then continued the difficult action of talking.

She told me she is an agoraphobic, which is: an anxiety disorder characterized by symptoms of anxiety in situations where the person perceives the environment to be unsafe with no easy way to get away. These situations can include open spaces, public transit, shopping malls, or simply being outside the home.

So, the drive from Rio Grande is “murder for her” she said. But she is challenging herself to go to the doctor and Walmart. She also sees a counselor in Rio Grande but lives with an abusive ex-husband and is convinced they need each other. She assured me he doesn’t lay hands on her, but she has lived in the homeless shelter and they are there for her whenever she wants to leave the abuse that occurs where she lives.

I spoke into her life that God loves her and has purposes for her as well. I then asked her if I could pray for her. She held my hand tightly. I held hers tightly as well. I prayed and then she was able to get her eyes to come my way and said, “I want to pray for you.” As she tried to start, she couldn’t get the words out, so we met eyes and said Amen. A minute later, the doctor called her name. It was a powerful experience. I can honestly say that all I was dealing with physically became second. I wanted to make sure Joan got the help she needed. Praise God for her.

Joan may not know it, but God did something in me because of her.

It is vital to learn to hear the Holy Spirit’s prompting. If I moved on my own whim or desire to “help” out somebody with an obvious need, that could have been a traumatic experience for her. As she said, she’s an agoraphobic, terrified to leave her home, which is a result of trauma. So to have a person she doesn’t know come and sit by her and start talking could have driven her back to her trauma. The Spirit prompted and I went. Walk according to the Spirit. The result was beautiful. As Pastor Erik said, “We experience Beauty disguised as brokenness, as we GO.” 

Blessings, Friends!


What's Next?

Not to be maudlin, but at the edge of eighty-five it seems that I find myself considering the aspect of death more often than I did at, say, forty. There are jokes: “I want to die in my sleep like my father, not yelling and screaming like the other people in the car!” There is a country song with lyrics which state that “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to go now!”  And that one is me, I guess.

It’s not that I’m afraid of dying; what is there to fear, with all the fantastic promises that our Jesus gives us! It’s just that I love, love, love my family and my friends, and, difficult as life can sometimes be, I’m used to it! I like being alive!

A few weeks ago I spent a week in the hospital. I wasn’t really sick sick; I had a touch of pneumonia, but the real thing was that somewhere in my lungs something started to bleed just a tiny bit, and they deemed it advisable to find out where and why. Consensus was that somewhere down there tissue that I had damaged by smoking for 20 years 40 years ago had sprung a leak.

Even with all the tests they never did find out exactly where this was happening,  not that it matters very much. But you can see that this episode might have prompted me to wonder just how I might die, when I do. Maybe sort of like drowning? Peaceful.

But if I could choose, I’d pick my Mom. I remembered my mother, the night she died. She was 102, in her own home, lying on her own bed, and as her breaths came more and more slowly she had this sweet smile on her face, and she was saying, “Oh my! ….. Oh my! …… Oh my! …”  How I would love to know what glorious things she was seeing in those her last moments of life on this earth.

I know that I will be ushered into the presence of the Jesus I love, that He has a home for me there, and that I will be with Him forever! I will have the mind of Christ! What does that mean?! I will again see my Nana and everyone who went ahead of me, even the Old Testament prophets and everyone I’ve read about in the Word! And there will be no evil, not anywhere! I can’t even imagine it, not with this mind! And Time; how will it be different? God created time for us here on earth! And our new bodies! No canes, no oxygen tanks to lug around! And how about His thousand year reign on earth? And the Rapture! So many questions, finally answered! I can’t wait!

Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute! Yes I can wait! I can wait in peace, because I trust so absolutely in the truth that GOD IS IN CHARGE!! Yes, He is! And we are so very, very blessed to have this God who sent His only Son to die to save us!

PRAISE GOD!

Underrated and Underestimated: Ezra

For the past several months, I decided to study the character and history of Nehemiah.  It was here that I encountered the scribe-priest Ezra.  Of Ezra, we read:

 He had prepared his heart to seek the law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach in Israel  statutes and judgments (Ezra 7:10).

Ezra was considered very mighty in the Scriptures.  His own heart had been gripped by the truth of God's Word.  Writes HA Ironside in his commentary on Ezra:

 The Lord not only prepared Ezra's head, but his heart. His inmost being was brought  under the sway of the truth of God.  His affections were controlled by Scripture (p.44)

The bent of Ezra's life was Scripture.  It permeated his soul.  His heart was preoccupied with the Lord and with what the Lord had to say.  Ezra did not treat truth casually.  His mind and heart took seriously what he was entrusted with.  He made it his responsibility to:

  •  Put the Word to heart (SOUL PERMEATED)
  •  DO it in the life he lived (LIVED OUT ACTIVELY)
  •  Teach and instruct others (EXPLAINED TO MAKE SENSE
  •  Entrust #3 to others who are defined by #1 and #2 (REPRODUCE/REPEAT)

Ezra refused to treat the truth casually.  He walked the people through confession and a marked moment of repentance through the profound yet simple reading of the Scriptures.  He read the Word ALOUD to the people (I love this!).  There is a reference in the book of Nehemiah that he read from dawn till noon.  Imagine that?!  I think we fear in our time-driven culture that people would never show up if we read the Word for an hour, let alone 5-6.  But the people's hearts were gripped, and they wept over the Word.  Ezra spoke, repeated, and explained it.  He appointed others to do the same.  It transformed the people and affected the culture.

If curiosity has grabbed your heart and you want to know more, pick up your Bible and read Ezra and Nehemiah.  I think you will be drawn in by the courage of these men and how their hearts resonated with the truth for God's Great Plan for His Chosen People, Israel.  Let your own soul be gripped by these underrated and very underestimated men of God.

More Important Than the Task

We've spent a lot of time hanging out with my siblings and their kids this summer. What that means for my two children is that we've given them a lot of space to run around the house with the 'cousin pack.' They spend less time directly interacting with my husband and me, more time without direct adult leadership. It's definitely affected my youngest daughter, Bethany. I've noticed that she's started to enjoy her new-found independence a little too much.

For example, one delightful little mannerism that she's started implementing recently is a somewhat sneaky defiance. It's very quiet and subtle. I'll say something like, "Bethany, come here. We're going to change you out of your PJ's into your day clothes." Her reply is the quietest, mumble-y-iest, little "No" that I've ever heard. 

And I'll be honest, my gut reaction is just to ignore the quiet "No," and fly right over the defiance because it's so quiet. I'd tend to not even address it and just start stripping off her PJ's and shoving her day clothes onto her. 

And in some respects, that response is somewhat good. Because it's not like I said, "Oh, OK, I get it, Bethany. You don't want to get dressed. OK, you can just go to church in your PJ's." It's great that I don't let her 'rule' in that way. And it's also great that I don't reason with her: "Oh, Bethany, let me tell you all the reasons that you can't wear your PJ's to church. This reason, and this reason, and that reason....now do you understand?? Can you please agree with what Mommy is thinking and come get your day clothes on? Please?" That would be letting her take the role of a parent, and I've come so far in my parenting that that is my not my first response.

But. I'd propose that even though it's great that ultimately she's still doing what I want her to do when I just sweep her along in the wave of what I want by shoving her clothes onto her, I'm still missing so much. 

Because in that moment, the training that her little heart so desperately needs is SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT than the task of getting her dressed and out the door.

I so often miss, or even ignore, opportunities to train my children to choose the life-giving, safe path of willful obedience because I'm so focused on the task that needs to get done. In this situation of Bethie saying her quiet "No," it's a GREAT opportunity for me to stop what I'm doing, get down at her level, and give her a quick and appropriate consequence for choosing to defy in the smallest of ways. Because even if the defiance is small and quiet, it's still defiance. And when I call the quiet "No" defiance, I don't mean that I should bend her over my knee and give her a spanking or send her to time-out for the rest of the day. No! I'm saying that this moment offers a beautiful opportunity to RESCUE her from the dangers of disobedience and quiet defiance. 

So here's how I can rescue her. I can stop what I'm doing, crouch down to her eye level, and say calmly and gently, and yet firmly, "Bethany, you may not say "No" to Mommy. Please go put your nose up against the wall." She will probably be sad. She will probably not like it. But in that moment, I am rescuing her from the dangers of defiance by 'speaking' in a way that she, as a three-year-old, can understand. It's physical, it's right away, and it's appropriate. I wouldn't necessarily choose that consequence if I was in a room full of people, but if we're at home alone, it's a great way to let her know that her reply was unacceptable. And after she stands at the wall for about 15 seconds, I would call her to come back to me, and I'd say, looking right into her eyes, "Bethie, you cannot say "No" to Mommy when I tell you it's time to take your PJ's off. You must say, "OK, Mommy." Let's practice that now. I'll tell you it's time to take your PJ's off, and you say, "OK, Mommy." Here we go." And then I'd practice it with her. 

It doesn't take long. But it does require me to intentionally stop the flow of what I'm doing and value the training of my daughter more than the task of what I'm doing. 

The little moments of the day are so important. It's the compilation of all the little moments that add up to the big moments and the broad sweeping strokes of what our children learn from us. As a mom, I can so often forget that the little moments are important because I just want to get the tasks done, to make it through the day with as little interruption and bother as possible. But I need to remember that the most important task of all is training my children. And doing that will often involve letting go of the less important tasks, and crouching down in the middle of what I'm doing and teaching my child how to obey.

 

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