Road Kill

I was in bed Saturday night and I was thinking about how I would like to do some sort of street ministry tomorrow instead of going to a church.  I mean just going up to people, making conversation and praying for them at random instead of in an organized setting.  John and I had planned on going to a particular church and as I was talking to God about my idea, He asked, “Why can’t you do both?” And I smiled and thought, You are so right!  It doesn’t have to be one or the other.  

We started out innocently enough with a plan to go to the church across town.  As I was getting ready to leave, I noticed that our cat had brought a chipmunk into the breezeway and was doing what cats do: playing with it, basically torturing it. I witnessed the scene and felt sick to my stomach that nature has that cruel side to it. I told John about it.  But instead of compassion, he said I should never leave the garage door open for the cat. (I usually leave it open just a bit in case of bad weather.)  Okay, now I see a chipmunk being abused and also indirectly get blamed for it because of wanting to protect our cat from the elements.

I did my best to ignore the comment knowing it was likely an attack from Satan to distract us from going to church and being able to concentrate on the message.  I chose not to get upset and simply let it go, knowing that my husband is not my enemy, even if he gets tangled up in the process sometimes.  My responsibility was just to be quiet.  And I reminded myself that God spoke to me last night and surely I don’t want to mess up his plan because of my pride.

We drove across town, chatting about other things on the way to church. When we got there we found out the service was changed to an earlier time due to a community parade.  The service was almost over and it was too late to drive back to our regular church so we decided to go for a ride and possibly stop for lunch.  We ended up in a city about 30 miles away.  I have wanted to go there to visit the women at their county jail.  I have had it on the back burner, so to speak, because I was not sure how to go about it.  I had made a special lady in prison a promise that I would do my best to see if I could help bring Jesus to her hometown, while sharing my personal testimony.  Without planning it, as John didn’t even know, I found myself in that city and with a great opportunity to gather information and be able to street witness if the opportunity presented itself.  

Psalm 37:4  “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

That Scripture sums it up.  This was definitely a desire of my heart.

We were not sure just where we should go, I was driving, and John does not know how to work my smart phone real well, so we decided we should pull off to the side of the road.   I didn’t think too much about the dead raccoon we were near but John said, “Don’t run over it,” and once again I felt the irritation of having my intelligence insulted.  First the chipmunk, now a dead raccoon, let it go, let it go.  I was unexpectedly in the town I have been praying to be used by the Lord in.  I thought to myself there really must be a blessing coming and Satan would like me to blow it by getting mad at my husband. I would thereby miss my opportunity to make the necessary contacts I needed to make.  I had heard numerous times that there is a big drug problem in this community.

As we sat parked on the side of the country road with the stench of the decaying raccoon getting stronger, I began to question my choice of places to pull over, but John noticed something. There were frogs, three at least, eating flies that hovered around the corpse of the raccoon.  And he was very happy about that.  I will try to put this in the right words. There had been a decline of frogs due to pollution and it had been years since he’s seen them. Seeing them gave him hope of their future. What at first glance was thought to be a bad choice of places to pull over really wasn’t.   It held a special blessing.   I can’t make this stuff up.

As we discussed the frogs and the flies that were the frogs’ easy lunch, I realized that in order to “get” them (the ladies) I would have to go into places where it doesn’t smell so good. Where it isn’t so clean but it is where they gather.  We discussed how the frogs catch the flies with their tongues and it hit me yes, yes, I need to use my mouth (my tongue) filled with His Word to attract and win them for Jesus.

We proceeded to travel though the city, asking directions and gathering information on who to contact and when.  We got the name of a church that is already visiting the jail and that gives us a starting point. I prayed for people as we went from place to place. Most of the people seemed surprised but the prayers were received with smiles.  One man was fishing and this was really sweet.  I told him I would pray for his fishing to be productive.  In the prayer to God I said out loud, “Remember when Peter was told by Jesus to go fishing and the first fish that Peter caught he would find a coin in the fish’s mouth.”  I asked God to make this man know You love him by bringing him a special fish, too.  Maybe not a coin but something to have this man KNOW it was YOU! We did not hang around long enough to find out what he caught but I smile when I think of the man looking in the mouth of every fish he caught from that point on.  He may look in their mouths the rest of his life as he gives thanks to God.

What could have been a day of bickering and unkind words turned out to be a day of fond memories.  In the past I have always felt a special sadness for animals that are killed by automobiles.  If I would see a “clump” on the road in the distance I always felt heartbroken for the poor little animal.  If it turned out it was just a pile of leaves I always felt better and I would say a prayer of thanks.  The truth is, now when I see road kill on the side of the road, I think humorously to myself that looks like a good place to pull over!

Stages of Life

My somber mood today is due to two situations I am made aware of that are completely independent of each other.  The first was the knowledge of a possible suicide of an 18 year old girl who was pregnant. The Facebook post by her mom was “My (child) is dead.”  I didn’t know her or her family real well but well enough to be at a loss for words and to have a lump in my throat since I heard about it.  It’s hitting me hard having lost my own daughter, and the 30-year anniversary of her death coming up in August.  

The second situation is an elderly man and his wife having no choice but to be moved into assisted living.  It’s the best decision all the way around but it was heartbreaking to watch him having to give up all he worked so hard for.  And those were his words.  

So, I’ve been trying to find the silver lining.  I am reminded of a dream someone had about a father and his child on a playground.  The child fell and got hurt and was crying.  The child’s father was holding out his arms to comfort the hurting child.  The child came running, seemingly into the father’s open and loving arms.  But much to the father’s disbelief the child ran past him into the arms of another.  

I don’t know if that is a good analogy of these situations or not.  I don’t know all the details but I do know the Father is holding out His arms ready to comfort us.  God the Father is always there to receive us, despite our condition.  

In the case of the man who has to “give up all he worked so hard for,”  all I can think of is that perhaps it is a lesson to the rest of us to work for those things that do not perish, those things you can take to Heaven with you, the people you have helped lead there.  

In Matthew 6 19-21, Jesus said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰ But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

This is my goal. If someday I have to move into an assisted living facility I will be a living testimony to the staff and the other residents of the power and love of Jesus.  I will look for people to pray for everyday as I do now.  I will not allow age to make me a victim of physical limitations, nor will I be a burden.  The value of a life of following Jesus will be evident and contagious to the people I will interact with every day.  

In the book of Daniel after the decree had been issued that anyone caught praying to other gods would be put into the lion’s den the following Scripture shows what Daniel did:

Daniel 6:10 - Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before. (emphasis added)

The key is “just as he had done before.”  Storms in life will come and are made easier when you know the Father ahead of time.

With the young girl, life may have became too much to look toward life’s challenges.  With the older man he was looking back wishing for things in the past.  I don’t have easy answers for these situations. In both cases I believe the Father was/is holding out his arms for His child to be embraced by Him. At the end of a long day of contemplating both situations with love and sadness, I’m going to go talk to my Daddy some more, just as I have done before.

Captive Audience

For six and a half years I’ve been fighting with a particular utility company over many issues.  I have to admit that, for the most part, the quality of their product is good.  It has more to do with everything else about them.  We don’t have an option to change to a competitor as there is none.  We are a 100% captive audience.  Every neighbor and family member I have ever spoken to about them is in agreement – if we had an option, any option, we would go with a different company.  Because we are a captive audience and we need them and they know it, they can treat their customers in any way they find fitting.  

Billing has always been an issue.  I have lost my witness with them on the phone. I have said things like, “I am going to scream.”  I have been put on hold for endless amounts of time, often in never-never land where they simply push a button and let me sit and never return.  If it sounds like I’m paranoid, I have lots of witnesses in the community that would confirm my testimony.

Whenever we would make a change to the plan, within 12 hours our service would get knocked out and we would have to call their tech department and get it hooked back up.  After about three years of such incidents, I got confirmation from one of their call center people that that was indeed the way they designed it.  Mind you, they would not tell you this information. You simply had to muddle through why doesn’t it work, and then in frustration call the tech department.  Here I thought I was just paranoid.  I figured they were trying to deter us from making changes as a punishment.  

I have grown greatly in my walk with the Lord as I looked at one past bill and I had listed things to meditate over while I waited on hold.  You know, make good use of the “down” time so I would not just get mad.  Every six months we would have to call and reissue our discounts.  This sounds reasonable enough, I guess, but after calling every six months, then for the next three months the bill would be wrong. I’m not exaggerating.  So every month when I got their bill in the mail, I would raise it up to the Lord and pray for strength to open it.  Sometimes I gave up and opted to just pay whatever it was, it was not worth losing my peace over.  

Last week it was our six months to call to maintain our discounts.  Yes, I do have better things to do.  Yes, I have complained as everyone else I know has, too.  They have a monopoly on the market and we get what we get.  I prayed before and during my call.  The lady started telling me about a new plan.  No!  I will not get anything else from you, I just want my discount and then I will fight for the next three months to save it.  She kept talking telling me how her company has been listening to customer complaints and they are going to change things and I should believe her.  Six and half years of the opposite and I knew she’d heard it before because she even gave me complaints from other customers that I did not even voice.  She said it will be better, cheaper and easier.  And I said as someone who has been abused for a long time, “What’s in it for you?”  She said the company has been listening.  As I got off the phone, having agreed cautiously to have the tech come out in a few days to install an updated component, I said to my husband, “Either they have found Jesus or the FCC is after them.”

The tech came out in a few days to install the new component. I said, “You know we always haven’t been very happy with your company.”  His response was dead on, “Like I haven’t heard that before.”  And then it hit me: the poor guy.  We can’t go look someone in the face as their call centers are all over the country, but when this real live human being is in front of us in our house he must take a lot of grief for “the rest of them.”

That morning I was praying to God knowing the tech was coming.  We had an 8 hour window of time to expect him.  I did not want to be consumed by how long we would have to wait, what could go wrong, etc.  I was praying and in my spirit I felt that I should ask the tech if he had any pain in his body.  Well, okay, that changed the dialog in my mind.  So instead of him coming and me rehearsing all the company’s faults I decided to pray for him (assuming of course it was a him) and be ready to ask if he had any pain and if I could lay hands on him and pray for him.

He arrived and installed the component and we were educated on it. Then I told him, this has nothing to do with the install but, “Do you have pain anywhere in your body?”  He said, “Well, yeah my back hurts”, and he told us what he had done to it.  I asked him to reach out his hands and I simply said, “In Jesus’ name, pain you must leave this man’s back.”  He said he still felt the pain but he was hopeful. As am I.

Now only God could write a story like that.  Wouldn’t it be like Him to grow me up for six and a half years as I learned to act loving in obedience, top it off with a healing for an employee in the very same company I had such disdain for?

I may pen this stuff but I don’t write it!