Ok, I know all of you think I must have fallen off the face of the Earth, but I assure you - I'm still here! We've had a lot going on the past couple of weeks with ilnesses, trips out of town and me starting a part-time job (among other things), so writing has had to take a trip to the back burner for a minute.
I really wanted to sit down and write you a great post this morning, but I have to be honest about something: I'm in the mountains with my husband celebrating our ninth anniversary, and I'm a bit...well...distracted. I can't think of anything to write about but him, and yet I can't find a way to put it all into words without spending our entire weekend typing (it would take that long!).
So, I'm just popping in to say that I'm still alive and I haven't forgotten about blogging. But, if you don't mind, I think I'm going to go spend some more time with my husband. I will be back - but not until the second honeymoon is over... ;-)
See you then!
Friday, February 27, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
Little Man, Big Personality
I just wanted to post this morning to let you know how much (for the moment, anyway), I’m enjoying my three year old. I know he doesn’t get a lot of great press on here sometimes, but he really is a fun kid to be around! There is truly never a dull moment with him.
Just to give a few examples, yesterday at church he told all the teachers in his preschool class that I had a baby in my belly. It took me nearly all day to dispel that rumor. But I do have to give him credit – he knows what (he thinks) he wants, and he knows (how he thinks) to get it! I keep trying to tell him that he probably wouldn’t enjoy the baby so much when it came out of my belly, but he doesn’t get it yet. I also told him that if he really wants that to happen, he has to talk to Jesus and Daddy, and not necessarily in that order.
Then this morning I looked up to see him making a funny face and pushing his arms through the air in rhythm. When I asked him what he was doing he look at me like I was the obviously weird one, and said, “I’m swimming! And now I’m going to swim downstairs! Bye Mom!” Then he really did it – he “swam” all the way downstairs. And I have no doubt that he kept “swimming” long after I couldn’t see him!
Just a few minutes ago he was sitting next to me watching me type and had his hands between his knees. I guess he must have banged his knees together and hurt his finger a little, because he suddenly said, “Ow! Mom – my leg elbows just hurt my finger!” Leg elbows? Well, that’s classic Little Man for you!
Of course in the midst of all this fun there still is that other side of Little Man: washing his hands in the toilet this morning; sneaking an apple juice slush from Sonic into his bed last night so that he woke up in a dream-shattering icy pool somewhere around midnight; and most recently climbing on a bathroom stool on top of a chair in the kitchen to try and reach the candy stash. Oh yeah – trouble time.
So think of all the things you just read, and marinate in the fact that all of this happened within the last 24 hours, most of it in the last 4. Yeah, our days are colorful to say the least!
I’m thanking the Lord this morning for my very active, very not-boring three year old! He keeps me on my toes!
Just to give a few examples, yesterday at church he told all the teachers in his preschool class that I had a baby in my belly. It took me nearly all day to dispel that rumor. But I do have to give him credit – he knows what (he thinks) he wants, and he knows (how he thinks) to get it! I keep trying to tell him that he probably wouldn’t enjoy the baby so much when it came out of my belly, but he doesn’t get it yet. I also told him that if he really wants that to happen, he has to talk to Jesus and Daddy, and not necessarily in that order.
Then this morning I looked up to see him making a funny face and pushing his arms through the air in rhythm. When I asked him what he was doing he look at me like I was the obviously weird one, and said, “I’m swimming! And now I’m going to swim downstairs! Bye Mom!” Then he really did it – he “swam” all the way downstairs. And I have no doubt that he kept “swimming” long after I couldn’t see him!
Just a few minutes ago he was sitting next to me watching me type and had his hands between his knees. I guess he must have banged his knees together and hurt his finger a little, because he suddenly said, “Ow! Mom – my leg elbows just hurt my finger!” Leg elbows? Well, that’s classic Little Man for you!
Of course in the midst of all this fun there still is that other side of Little Man: washing his hands in the toilet this morning; sneaking an apple juice slush from Sonic into his bed last night so that he woke up in a dream-shattering icy pool somewhere around midnight; and most recently climbing on a bathroom stool on top of a chair in the kitchen to try and reach the candy stash. Oh yeah – trouble time.
So think of all the things you just read, and marinate in the fact that all of this happened within the last 24 hours, most of it in the last 4. Yeah, our days are colorful to say the least!
I’m thanking the Lord this morning for my very active, very not-boring three year old! He keeps me on my toes!
Monday, February 2, 2009
Forecast: More Rain? Not So Much...
Hello bloggy friends! It’s Monday evening, and I’m looking out my window at a blanket of very white, very fluffy “rain” that fell all afternoon. About an inch or so of it, in fact. It’s beautiful!
Several days ago the weather man warned us that there might be a “big snow” coming our way if two different fronts collided just right. I watched and waited with great anticipation, calculating how it would change my week to have a few snow days thrown in. Then, the closer it got to storm time, the more we heard about things moving off to the east and there not being much in it for us but a few rain showers and a possible flurry or two.
I watched the weather again this morning to hear that our forecast was merely wet and dreary for the next couple of days, and that sadly there wouldn’t be a winter wonderland in store for us at all. Mentally I reset my week back to “normal” mode and packed up Little Man for a trip to the chiropractor and a quick jaunt to the play place at the mall. What else are you going to do on a rainy day, right?
But less than an hour after hearing that disappointing prediction from not one, but two weather sources, the rain drops splattering against my windshield slowly began to turn white and stick in between swipes of the wiper blades. Within minutes flakes as big as grapes were slapping against our windows, and the entire countenance of the day began to change.
The weatherman may have been wrong today about the rain, but I’m glad. We’ve had our fair share of showers lately, and frankly I’m a little over it (I’d never make it in Oregon – sorry, Edward Cullen…). Snow I can handle. There is nothing quite as peaceful to me as a good snow. In fact, one of my favorite sounds in the world is the soft, clean sound of a snowfall (another is the sound of hundreds of people turning pages in their Bibles all at once – completely unrelated to what I’m talking about, but it truly delights my soul!). But rain? I have a hard time with rain. It’s hard for me to get up and get moving on rainy days. I get sad and tired, and I don’t feel like doing much of anything.
The past few weeks it seems like my mind has been stuck in a bit of a rainy day feeling even when the sun has dared to come out of hiding. So when I heard that prediction of even more rain, it kind of made me feel emotionally constrained to all these feelings I’ve been having lately. You know, like the rain might never end and I might never feel like getting up and doing anything. It just seemed like the emotional forecast was going to be just as set as the one for our weather – cold rain and lots of clouds.
But then it started snowing instead, and I learned that not even those who are trained to predict the future can truly ever know what God has in store for us. Sure, it may look by all accounts like it’s going to rain buckets without a flake or sunray in sight. It may even be a meteorological “certainty” according to all the technology and instruments we have in play. But God is God. And nothing is impossible for Him. Nothing! And – I dare say – no one is as delightfully unpredictable as He is!
So, as I’ve sat here writing this (and babbling on about nothing that even remotely makes sense, I’m sure), I’ve taken a pause or two to look out at the Lord’s quiet reminder to me that He alone is God. I’ve even caught the sun shining for a moment, believe it or not. And I’ve stored up in my heart the knowledge that none of us can predict what God has in store for us from one moment to the next. Sure, it may still feel like it’s raining in my heart, but it won’t be like that forever. At some point, when I least expect it, God will send change my way in the unstoppable form of a peaceful snow, or a sun-filled breeze, or even a tornado that brings me perspective. It won’t rain forever. And it certainly won’t rain just because I expect it to.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for being the intimate lover of my soul and the One True God.
Several days ago the weather man warned us that there might be a “big snow” coming our way if two different fronts collided just right. I watched and waited with great anticipation, calculating how it would change my week to have a few snow days thrown in. Then, the closer it got to storm time, the more we heard about things moving off to the east and there not being much in it for us but a few rain showers and a possible flurry or two.
I watched the weather again this morning to hear that our forecast was merely wet and dreary for the next couple of days, and that sadly there wouldn’t be a winter wonderland in store for us at all. Mentally I reset my week back to “normal” mode and packed up Little Man for a trip to the chiropractor and a quick jaunt to the play place at the mall. What else are you going to do on a rainy day, right?
But less than an hour after hearing that disappointing prediction from not one, but two weather sources, the rain drops splattering against my windshield slowly began to turn white and stick in between swipes of the wiper blades. Within minutes flakes as big as grapes were slapping against our windows, and the entire countenance of the day began to change.
The weatherman may have been wrong today about the rain, but I’m glad. We’ve had our fair share of showers lately, and frankly I’m a little over it (I’d never make it in Oregon – sorry, Edward Cullen…). Snow I can handle. There is nothing quite as peaceful to me as a good snow. In fact, one of my favorite sounds in the world is the soft, clean sound of a snowfall (another is the sound of hundreds of people turning pages in their Bibles all at once – completely unrelated to what I’m talking about, but it truly delights my soul!). But rain? I have a hard time with rain. It’s hard for me to get up and get moving on rainy days. I get sad and tired, and I don’t feel like doing much of anything.
The past few weeks it seems like my mind has been stuck in a bit of a rainy day feeling even when the sun has dared to come out of hiding. So when I heard that prediction of even more rain, it kind of made me feel emotionally constrained to all these feelings I’ve been having lately. You know, like the rain might never end and I might never feel like getting up and doing anything. It just seemed like the emotional forecast was going to be just as set as the one for our weather – cold rain and lots of clouds.
But then it started snowing instead, and I learned that not even those who are trained to predict the future can truly ever know what God has in store for us. Sure, it may look by all accounts like it’s going to rain buckets without a flake or sunray in sight. It may even be a meteorological “certainty” according to all the technology and instruments we have in play. But God is God. And nothing is impossible for Him. Nothing! And – I dare say – no one is as delightfully unpredictable as He is!
So, as I’ve sat here writing this (and babbling on about nothing that even remotely makes sense, I’m sure), I’ve taken a pause or two to look out at the Lord’s quiet reminder to me that He alone is God. I’ve even caught the sun shining for a moment, believe it or not. And I’ve stored up in my heart the knowledge that none of us can predict what God has in store for us from one moment to the next. Sure, it may still feel like it’s raining in my heart, but it won’t be like that forever. At some point, when I least expect it, God will send change my way in the unstoppable form of a peaceful snow, or a sun-filled breeze, or even a tornado that brings me perspective. It won’t rain forever. And it certainly won’t rain just because I expect it to.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for being the intimate lover of my soul and the One True God.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Jesus Doesn't Have A Long Distance Carrier
Sometimes when I go to the preschool to pick up Little Man, I’ll find that his teacher has posted a little note about something cute that happened or was said in the classroom that day or the day before. I love reading about the funny things three year olds come up with – they can be hilarious little people!
When I dropped Little Man off this morning, the note posted on the wall involved Little Man himself, as well as another boy I’ll call Buddy. It apparently happened during play time, and it went something like this:
Little Man (handing a pretend phone to his teacher, Ms. A): “Here Ms. A, it’s your mom.”
Ms. A (who has a great sense of humor): “Well, it must be long distance, because she’s in Heaven!”
Buddy: “Well, that’s not too long for Jesus!”
Amen, little buddy, amen.
I just wanted to share that little story with you today, and use it as a little reminder that nothing – nothing – “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation” could ever, ever separate us from the love of Jesus (Romans 8:38-39).
May the words said during the play of a couple of funny three year olds remind you of the words of our Father and encourage your heart today. Nothing’s too long for Jesus! Wherever you are, whatever your circumstances today, He’s right there with you, and he’s not going anywhere – you can count on that.
When I dropped Little Man off this morning, the note posted on the wall involved Little Man himself, as well as another boy I’ll call Buddy. It apparently happened during play time, and it went something like this:
Little Man (handing a pretend phone to his teacher, Ms. A): “Here Ms. A, it’s your mom.”
Ms. A (who has a great sense of humor): “Well, it must be long distance, because she’s in Heaven!”
Buddy: “Well, that’s not too long for Jesus!”
Amen, little buddy, amen.
I just wanted to share that little story with you today, and use it as a little reminder that nothing – nothing – “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation” could ever, ever separate us from the love of Jesus (Romans 8:38-39).
May the words said during the play of a couple of funny three year olds remind you of the words of our Father and encourage your heart today. Nothing’s too long for Jesus! Wherever you are, whatever your circumstances today, He’s right there with you, and he’s not going anywhere – you can count on that.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Well, That's A New One...
I wanted to have a great well thought-out post for you today, but my usual writing time was replaced by some fun, unexpected frolicking in the snow with my little men! Hopefully I'll get a chance soon to post some pictures of our winter wonderland fun, but until then, I didn't want to leave you hanging with nothing to read (as if reading my blog actually completes something in your life), so I wanted to throw out this thought for you:
I was out microwave looking the other day. We need a new one, but we can't really afford one right now. Can't hurt to look though, right? Well, I had no idea that people's microwaving needs had changed so much lately, but did you know that you can actually purchase a microwave with a one-touch preset button for ice cream?
Yes, I said ice cream. It also has buttons for fresh vegetables, pop corn and beverages, just in case you're one of those boring normal people who uses their microwave for mundane heating tasks.
Hmmm... what's the culinary world coming to? I mean, ice cream?
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Changing My Mind Through Tess
Tess has got to be one of the most amazing women I have ever met, and I’d like to think that my life is different because our paths crossed. Here is a little bit of her story. [***note: her name has been changed for the sake of this post]
I believe Tess moved to Atlanta because her mother was ill. After her mother died, her life kind of fell apart. She admits that she made a series of bad decisions that have resulted in a fair share of bad consequences, all of which led her to where she is now.
Her medical records are a mess. She has hepatitis C, congestive heart failure, and peripheral neuropathy (a very painful condition resulting from nerve damage). She has had at least one heart attack and one stroke, is missing a few fingers (perhaps from frostbite?), has only one visible tooth, and has been told at least three times that she wouldn’t make it out of the hospital alive. And yet, she lives.
Each night she uses her broken body to climb up a palette, through a hole, down a ladder and over a fence to sleep here, a place she calls an “abandonminium”:
She shares her place with about 100 other people, and a few hundred more rats. The people, she says, use the bathroom on the floor, and refuse to help one another. The rats, she says, are as big as German Shepherds (we laughed, but she said she wasn’t joking), and will steal food right out of your hands while you’re eating. The people left her for dead twice, and she’s deathly afraid of the rats. And yet, she presses on.
Her prescriptions alone cost over $300 a month, so any money she possibly makes has to go towards meeting that need. Her family is gone, and the world treats her as dispensable. She will spend her day today finding food and what money she can, and tonight she will fight off the cold and the rats to sleep in utter filth.
And yet, she praises God.
The day we met Tess was the day that most of us truly went to church for the first time. Man, can that woman preach! She spoke truth to us about her life and about the Lord like I’ve never heard truth spoken before. Nothing was off limits. All that the Lord had given her to say, she said right then and there.
Choices. Life is all about choices, she told us. Choices, and giving praise to God. She is so thankful for God’s blessings in her life, and freely says that she doesn’t have any business asking Him why things are the way they are for her. With all she goes through every day, she never complains. She never sees God as anything other than the loving, constant companion He is. I think I can say that I’ve never met anyone who seems closer to God than Tess. She is the embodiment of that strength Paul was talking about in Philippians 4:13.
When she finished speaking, every kid in our group lined up to hug her and thank her (that's her with the backpack in the picture). She accepted them with warm arms and a personal word for each and every one. I’ve never seen ministry like that in all the years I’ve worked with youth. It truly was a moment from God.
Tess thanks God that she wakes up every day to live out her task on this Earth teaching the Word of God and preaching His goodness. There is no doubt in her mind that right in that abandonminium is where God wants her to live and minister.
Last Sunday our congregation sang “I’ll Fly Away”, and I thought of Tess. Though she is content to stay here as long as the Lord would ask her to stay, I will rejoice when she finally gets to go home and see Him face to face. No more sickness, no more holes and ladders and fences, no more rats. Just Jesus and an eternal home of her very own. Praise God for what He has in store for all of us!
I returned home to my three bedroom, two bath house with the sights and sounds of Atlanta still bouncing around in my head (and the smells still engrained in my clothes!). All of the stories touched me. All of the people were fascinating, but none compared to Tess. God was amazingly present in her testimony, and to be with her was to be in His presence.
Before Atlanta, I was quick to complain about the squeaky floorboards in my hall or the issues we’re having in our front bathroom. It was nothing for me to carry on about the back deck that needs to be repaired or my fears about the roof that seems to be warping. I whined about eating leftovers and about not having the “right” pair of shoes for that new outfit.
But I came home changed – with a new eye and a new appreciation for how I’ve been blessed. Maybe I don’t have my dream house, and maybe we won’t ever drive the best cars in the parking lot at church. But we are blessed far beyond our needs, and if it was all gone tomorrow Christ would give us the strength to praise Him all the more.
Just like Tess.
See you with something new in a couple of days.
I believe Tess moved to Atlanta because her mother was ill. After her mother died, her life kind of fell apart. She admits that she made a series of bad decisions that have resulted in a fair share of bad consequences, all of which led her to where she is now.
Her medical records are a mess. She has hepatitis C, congestive heart failure, and peripheral neuropathy (a very painful condition resulting from nerve damage). She has had at least one heart attack and one stroke, is missing a few fingers (perhaps from frostbite?), has only one visible tooth, and has been told at least three times that she wouldn’t make it out of the hospital alive. And yet, she lives.
Each night she uses her broken body to climb up a palette, through a hole, down a ladder and over a fence to sleep here, a place she calls an “abandonminium”:
She shares her place with about 100 other people, and a few hundred more rats. The people, she says, use the bathroom on the floor, and refuse to help one another. The rats, she says, are as big as German Shepherds (we laughed, but she said she wasn’t joking), and will steal food right out of your hands while you’re eating. The people left her for dead twice, and she’s deathly afraid of the rats. And yet, she presses on.
Her prescriptions alone cost over $300 a month, so any money she possibly makes has to go towards meeting that need. Her family is gone, and the world treats her as dispensable. She will spend her day today finding food and what money she can, and tonight she will fight off the cold and the rats to sleep in utter filth.
And yet, she praises God.
The day we met Tess was the day that most of us truly went to church for the first time. Man, can that woman preach! She spoke truth to us about her life and about the Lord like I’ve never heard truth spoken before. Nothing was off limits. All that the Lord had given her to say, she said right then and there.
Choices. Life is all about choices, she told us. Choices, and giving praise to God. She is so thankful for God’s blessings in her life, and freely says that she doesn’t have any business asking Him why things are the way they are for her. With all she goes through every day, she never complains. She never sees God as anything other than the loving, constant companion He is. I think I can say that I’ve never met anyone who seems closer to God than Tess. She is the embodiment of that strength Paul was talking about in Philippians 4:13.
When she finished speaking, every kid in our group lined up to hug her and thank her (that's her with the backpack in the picture). She accepted them with warm arms and a personal word for each and every one. I’ve never seen ministry like that in all the years I’ve worked with youth. It truly was a moment from God.
Tess thanks God that she wakes up every day to live out her task on this Earth teaching the Word of God and preaching His goodness. There is no doubt in her mind that right in that abandonminium is where God wants her to live and minister.
Last Sunday our congregation sang “I’ll Fly Away”, and I thought of Tess. Though she is content to stay here as long as the Lord would ask her to stay, I will rejoice when she finally gets to go home and see Him face to face. No more sickness, no more holes and ladders and fences, no more rats. Just Jesus and an eternal home of her very own. Praise God for what He has in store for all of us!
I returned home to my three bedroom, two bath house with the sights and sounds of Atlanta still bouncing around in my head (and the smells still engrained in my clothes!). All of the stories touched me. All of the people were fascinating, but none compared to Tess. God was amazingly present in her testimony, and to be with her was to be in His presence.
Before Atlanta, I was quick to complain about the squeaky floorboards in my hall or the issues we’re having in our front bathroom. It was nothing for me to carry on about the back deck that needs to be repaired or my fears about the roof that seems to be warping. I whined about eating leftovers and about not having the “right” pair of shoes for that new outfit.
But I came home changed – with a new eye and a new appreciation for how I’ve been blessed. Maybe I don’t have my dream house, and maybe we won’t ever drive the best cars in the parking lot at church. But we are blessed far beyond our needs, and if it was all gone tomorrow Christ would give us the strength to praise Him all the more.
Just like Tess.
See you with something new in a couple of days.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Changing My Mind in Atlanta
I love how some days you can tell where your spouse ate lunch or hung out with kids before coming home (ok, I admit that last one is a little unique to the wives of youth ministers, but I think you know what I mean). The second they walk near it’s obvious –“Mmmm…Subway…”, or “Wow, you went to Becky’s Grille – I can smell the smoke in your hair…”
It doesn’t happen with every place, but there are those certain environments that leave you marinating in their odor for hours. Some people like it, and some people don’t. But apparently enough people like it at Burger King that the restaurant giant is working on the patent for a new cologne. Soon you can pay to smell like you’ve had it your way – flame-broiled and smothered in condiments – without actually having to ingest the calories. Crazy.
Well, I’m proud to say that although I won’t be participating in the BK Au De Toilet anytime soon, my good winter jacket is still sitting in the garage because it reeks of my encounter with Atlanta. It obviously doesn’t smell all that great, but I’m thankful for it all the same, because it is truly the smell of a life-changing experience.
If you’ve ever spent any time working with the homeless population in any city, you know that it is an experience that will assault your senses. The smells are usually the most overwhelming to me. I don’t know what it is or exactly how to describe it, but it’s a heavy, strangely sweet smell that lingers in the air like a slow-moving zeppelin long after they're gone. I admit that at first it’s rather bothersome to me, but after a while you don’t even notice it that much. After a few days you don’t even realize that you’ve taken it on yourself.
The sights are definitely next in line. When you pass by the homeless on the street, you see things that impress you. Layers of clothes, maybe a backpack or a ragged sleeping bag – things that catch your attention and maybe even make you stop and think for a while. When you work with the homeless like we did, what you see leaves an impression for a lifetime.
We stayed at the SafeHouse Outreach, housed in the heart of downtown Atlanta. When we first got there those of us who were new thought our sleeping conditions were a little rough. I literally slept under a bunk bed (you think I'm kidding, but I had the bruises on my head to prove it!).
Then we took a tour of the city and saw where people who don’t even have bunk beds to sleep under lay their heads at night. Doorways and overpasses. Park benches and patches of grass. One guy we came to know sleeps under a trailer in a parking lot. Another sleeps in a chair in the lobby of an overflow shelter riddled with bedbugs and smelling of human waste. It wasn’t pretty.
It can be hard to push past what your nose smells and your eyes see, but when you do, you experience the treasure of a people who know what it’s like to cling to the Lord Jesus. With eager ears we listened to stories of real people with real lives, real pasts and very real futures. We learned that you can have a law degree and still wind up sleeping in the doorway of a church. We learned that a violent and dangerous drug dealer can be redeemed to speak the Word of God to hundreds of people every week who stand in line to call him “pastor” and ask for his guidance. We learned that not everyone on the street chose to be there, and that very few of them can even do anything about it now.
We learned that it’s a whole lot more complicated than “get a job”.
I hope I never forget the names and faces of the people we met. And I hope that I never forget that just because someone doesn’t have a home, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t just as real of a person and child of God as the next man or woman I see, and it doesn’t mean that they might not have a better relationship with the Lord than I do.
I was truly challenged by the faith of the friends we made on the streets of Atlanta. They showed me clearer than anyone ever has before that people who have nothing – literally nothing – but the Lord Jesus in their hearts, can be joyful, content and blessed.
Joyful and blessed. With little on their backs, nothing in their stomach and only the night air over their heads. Truly joyful and blessed. What a challenge this was to the recent call on my heart to learn to be content with what turns out to be a great abundance in my life. Suddenly my mind began to change – what I once saw as “needs” were being redefined as mere wants. I began to see that “need” can be a relative term in our society, and that I should take more care in how I throw that word around.
God was showing me that all anyone truly needs is Jesus. No one spoke that message from Him any clearer than a woman I’ll call Tess.
(to be continued one more time)
It doesn’t happen with every place, but there are those certain environments that leave you marinating in their odor for hours. Some people like it, and some people don’t. But apparently enough people like it at Burger King that the restaurant giant is working on the patent for a new cologne. Soon you can pay to smell like you’ve had it your way – flame-broiled and smothered in condiments – without actually having to ingest the calories. Crazy.
Well, I’m proud to say that although I won’t be participating in the BK Au De Toilet anytime soon, my good winter jacket is still sitting in the garage because it reeks of my encounter with Atlanta. It obviously doesn’t smell all that great, but I’m thankful for it all the same, because it is truly the smell of a life-changing experience.
If you’ve ever spent any time working with the homeless population in any city, you know that it is an experience that will assault your senses. The smells are usually the most overwhelming to me. I don’t know what it is or exactly how to describe it, but it’s a heavy, strangely sweet smell that lingers in the air like a slow-moving zeppelin long after they're gone. I admit that at first it’s rather bothersome to me, but after a while you don’t even notice it that much. After a few days you don’t even realize that you’ve taken it on yourself.
The sights are definitely next in line. When you pass by the homeless on the street, you see things that impress you. Layers of clothes, maybe a backpack or a ragged sleeping bag – things that catch your attention and maybe even make you stop and think for a while. When you work with the homeless like we did, what you see leaves an impression for a lifetime.
We stayed at the SafeHouse Outreach, housed in the heart of downtown Atlanta. When we first got there those of us who were new thought our sleeping conditions were a little rough. I literally slept under a bunk bed (you think I'm kidding, but I had the bruises on my head to prove it!).
Then we took a tour of the city and saw where people who don’t even have bunk beds to sleep under lay their heads at night. Doorways and overpasses. Park benches and patches of grass. One guy we came to know sleeps under a trailer in a parking lot. Another sleeps in a chair in the lobby of an overflow shelter riddled with bedbugs and smelling of human waste. It wasn’t pretty.
It can be hard to push past what your nose smells and your eyes see, but when you do, you experience the treasure of a people who know what it’s like to cling to the Lord Jesus. With eager ears we listened to stories of real people with real lives, real pasts and very real futures. We learned that you can have a law degree and still wind up sleeping in the doorway of a church. We learned that a violent and dangerous drug dealer can be redeemed to speak the Word of God to hundreds of people every week who stand in line to call him “pastor” and ask for his guidance. We learned that not everyone on the street chose to be there, and that very few of them can even do anything about it now.
We learned that it’s a whole lot more complicated than “get a job”.
I hope I never forget the names and faces of the people we met. And I hope that I never forget that just because someone doesn’t have a home, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t just as real of a person and child of God as the next man or woman I see, and it doesn’t mean that they might not have a better relationship with the Lord than I do.
I was truly challenged by the faith of the friends we made on the streets of Atlanta. They showed me clearer than anyone ever has before that people who have nothing – literally nothing – but the Lord Jesus in their hearts, can be joyful, content and blessed.
Joyful and blessed. With little on their backs, nothing in their stomach and only the night air over their heads. Truly joyful and blessed. What a challenge this was to the recent call on my heart to learn to be content with what turns out to be a great abundance in my life. Suddenly my mind began to change – what I once saw as “needs” were being redefined as mere wants. I began to see that “need” can be a relative term in our society, and that I should take more care in how I throw that word around.
God was showing me that all anyone truly needs is Jesus. No one spoke that message from Him any clearer than a woman I’ll call Tess.
(to be continued one more time)
If you want to experience some of the sounds of our trip, check out this youtube video of Jimmy Jackson, one of the people we met downtown. He's got a gift of singing the Word!
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