Stopping for Deborah

Today I stopped to pick up a pop at the gas station on the way to our prayer room.  There was a lady outside the little convenience store, partially hidden by the ice machine, who was wearing a thin spaghetti strap tank and a pair of shorts and flip flops (unusual attire for a chilly autumn morning).  She was  very thin and her hair was disheveled and she kept flailing her arms and legs around, almost as if she was arguing with herself or with something unseen.  Her motions were erratic enough that I assumed she was strung out.

My heart was drawn to her but I was not sure what to do, except quietly pray.  I entered the store, grabbed my pop, stood in line to pay, looking back out the window to see if I could catch of glimpse of her still.  Suddenly, this same woman entered the store and headed back to where I had grabbed my drink.  After I paid, I went back to find her.  She was pacing erratically back and forth, holding a large bag of popcorn and a fountain drink.

“Are you okay?  Can I help you with something?”

She immediately tried to cover her semi-exposed chest from my eyesight. 

“I’m so embarrassed.  I’m so embarrassed.  [Mumbled name] sent me here like this.  I feel so sick.  I have a fever.  I have a fever.  I have money,” as she clung to a bill folded in her fist.

She continued to move her head and body like she was strung out.  Dark rings circled her glassy eyes that avoided eye contact, blue and grey bruises speckled her entire body with sadistic patches, and her right arm had a large, dark hole.  Literally, a hole.  Her body looked like it was slowly dying.

“How can I help you?  Are you coming down from a drug right now?  [Yep, I actually said that.]  Can I pray for you?  What is your name?”

“Yes, yes, please.  I’m Deborah.  No.  I really want drugs right now.”

I felt her head to see if she was feverish.  Her skin was clammy, but not burning.  I laid my hand on her shoulder and I prayed and declared healing for her as well as asked the Lord to intervene in her life and give her the help she needed.

“How can I help you?  Can I drive you somewhere?  Can I take you to the Gospel Mission?”

“No, no.  I’m fine.  Too much God there,” she mumbled.

“Thank you [for praying].”

I walked back to my van and thought about the new sweatshirt I was wearing.  Father, should I give her this one?  She obviously could use a shirt to help her feel more covered.  As I was contemplating how best to help, I opened the van door and spotted a brand new, light-weight jacket my mom had given to me last week (did not fit her or me) and she wanted me to give it to someone at my church.  I immediately shut the door and walked the jacket back into the store for Deborah.

“Deborah, I have a jacket.  Would you like it?”

“Yes, thank you.”

She put her food down on a shelf and I helped her put it on.  Then, not sure what else to do, I turned to exit.  

Deborah called out to me, “Hey, what should I get if my stomach is not doing good?”

“I’d get Vernor’s and some bread.”  And with that, I walked out and returned to my van.

With tears stinging my eyes, processing my encounter with Deborah and thinking about all the Deborahs out there, I drove to KHOP in silence. 

Stopping for the one.  

I’ve heard Heidi Baker say over and over again that we should stop for the one.  Jesus Himself taught about the Good Shepherd who leaves the 99 to go after the one.  And He modeled this truth over and over again in His earthly ministry by purposefully interacting with people whom the world had marginalized: the Samaritan woman at well, Zacchaeus, the woman with issue of blood, etc.

So, I’m thinking about this in the context of Deborah, a woman whose bruised and tattered body shouted drug and probably some sort of physical and/or sexual abuse.  So many things I should have said.  But in the end, I said what I said.  I know I can’t change that.  I offered what I could in that unscripted moment: I offered her an encounter with our beautiful Savior.  And a jacket.  Not sure it was enough, but it was what I had.

 Here’s what I’m processing - what if the one we go after does not want to be rescued? 

God obviously knew I needed some encouragement, so a few hours into my time at KHOP, an older lady named Theresa walked into the prayer room.  Her right arm was in a sling.  She told me that she had come to give God thanks for helping her survive cancer and to ask Him to help her find freedom from drug and cigarette addictions.  She wanted to live to be a blessing to her grandchildren.  We prayed together, believing that the Lord was releasing freedom into her life.  Then, at the end we prayed for her fractured shoulder and we both felt heat enter her shoulder.  (Always a good sign!)  She left our prayer time encouraged and uplifted, as did I.

I am thankful for my encounter with Deborah.  I am growing.  I am learning.  Help me to tangibly love those around me, Father.  Please help me not to judge.  Help me to see everyone through Your perfect eyes of hope and love.

And I am thankful for my encounter with Theresa.  Her thankfulness reminded me of of the story of the leper in gospels who remembered to return and give thanks after Jesus healed him.

And I am thankful for a beautiful Savior who freely offers new life to everyone: extravagant love offered to everyone, every day.

Choosing to Remember Corporate Pain: The Holocaust & Me

Back in the early 2000s, my husband and I had the opportunity to take a team of young adults to Auschwitz, one of the Nazi-run concentration camps in Poland.  We were serving in Poland on a mission trip and had asked our Polish pastor friends if we could use one of our “free” days to visit the camp.  I remember one of the pastors incredulously asking us why we would want to visit that place.  I responded that we needed our day to be “ruined” so that we would never forget.

Walking into Auschwitz was surreal, like strolling through a still graveyard, but not a graveyard with beautiful flowers and grass and trees.  We were walking on gravel around sterile and empty, crumbling buildings intersected by an old train track.  In my memory, everything seemed grey and beige, as if all color had been swallowed up by time and desolation.  

Somehow the silence of the grounds was deafening - as if the buildings and very land were screaming of all the atrocities that had been committed there, though imperceptible to my physical ear, my heart could hear the cry.

I remember visiting a room that was filled with human hair; hair that had been shorn from mothers and fathers and children as if they were sheep before they were sent to the gas chamber.  The smell was pungent - all those years later, even separated by a wall of glass, I could smell the hair…..hair that was probably intended to be used to make lamp shades or some other household or clothing items.  I will never forget that smell.  There was another room filled with the leftover suitcases from people that did not know they were never returning home.  And another room with children’s crutches, toys, etc.  Seeing any sort of article once belonging to a child sucker-punched my soul. My feelings were a toxic (but awakening) mixture of anger, disgust, and shock.

My heart was seared with the understanding that this level of hatred is demonic.  To hate someone for any reason is terrible and anti-Christ, but to hate someone and devise a system of torture and mass extermination for the simple reason of the color of their skin or their ethnic or religious background is pure evil.

In May of 2015, I had the honor of visiting Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Israel.  It was my first visit.  So many things caught my eye - from the beautiful trees that were planted in honor of the “righteous gentiles” to the detailed stories and images of individuals who had died while trying to protect the Jews in Europe.  However, this time I was also encountering the holocaust as a mom, and my experience was completely heart wrenching. I shed tears most of the time I was walking through and at times had to keep myself from sobbing.

The stories of heroism and sacrifice captured my heart.  Yet, none of these people wore a cape or had the ability to fly, like a Marvel or DC Comics superhero.  

It was normal, everyday people that exhibited profound super hero-like resilience, courage, hope, and strength in the face of overwhelming odds.

I was so mesmerized by all of the stories and images, that I did not realize that my tour group had long ago reached the museum cafeteria and had just about finished their scheduled lunch.  I believe it was our tour guide who came and found me and helped me rejoin our group.  Every narrative was powerful and I felt this desire to honor every act of sacrifice and heroism with my full attention.  I just could not rush through, even if it meant I was a little hungry for the rest of the day.

Yad Vashem in 2015

There was one overwhelming feeling that burrowed deep into my spirit that day - I knew that I would do my part, no matter the cost, to protect the Jews from terrible persecution.  A secondary (a bit more random) thought I had was that if I were to ever get a tattoo, I would choose a Jewish star so as to forever align myself with this people group that had experienced such a horrific genocide.

I remember reading Anne Frank’s Diary in 7th grade and deciding I would have been her friend.  But would I have been her friend even if it meant the demise of my own family, just as Corrie ten Boom’s family paid the ultimate price for their courageous resistance against the Nazis in Holland in WWII?  

Would I have been someone who stood up against slavery in the early 1800s, or the Jim Crow laws of the 1900s, even if it brought persecution upon my family?  

Would I have been someone who publicly supported Jesus’ ministry, like Mary and Martha of Bethany, even if we would have become ostracized and blacklisted by the Pharisees?

I hope so.  I truly do.  But I can say without reservation that I choose to stand up and speak out now to the best of my ability with the platform God has granted me.  Today I choose to stand for righteousness and justice.  Today I choose obedience to Jesus over bowing to the fear of man.  Today I choose to love.  Today I choose to be a voice.

Discussions on Civil Righteousness: The High Calling but Lowly Business of Peacemaking

The Wall - a silent, public prayer meeting to end racism.  www.civilrighteousness.org

A few years ago, I was leading worship during a pastors’ prayer luncheon for Jesus Loves Kzoo (an 11+ year old evangelistic unity movement in our region).  As I was sitting at the grand piano, I saw an internal vision of my husband and I laying down on our faces, with our arms outstretched in front of us and our legs stretched behind us.  I saw our region’s spiritual topography laid out around us.  Our hands were touching one group of people and our feet were touching another.  In the vision, I saw people walking over our backs from one people group or church to another.  We had become human bridges that connected ethnicities, people groups, and denominations.  In the vision I saw others laying prostrate to serve in the same way.

In that moment I had a revelation of God’s beautiful strategy of peacemaking.  He uses His children to serve as peacemakers, as bridge builders.  However, it required us to go low….really low…..so low that it would feel like people were walking all over us.  Talk about humbling!  But if we could lay our lives down so that His Bride could be unified, then the world would acknowledge that the Father sent Jesus into the world.  According to John 17:23, our stunning, supernatural unity would become a sign and a wonder that reveals Jesus as the Son of God.  

Jesus Himself is a powerful model for living as a peacemaker:  He stretched out his arms and his legs on a wooden cross to become the ultimate human bridge, the ultimate intercessor, connecting a dying, lost, and, corrupted humanity with a loving Father.  

Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God.  Matthew 5:9

This word “sons” is the Greek word “huios” [υἱοὶ] , meaning a mature son.  This is the son that could conduct business as his father in the marketplace.  It was the son who can wear the family signet ring with authority.  When the Father announced Jesus at the Jordan River, He said, “This is my son (huios), whom I love, with him I am well pleased.”  (Matthew 3:17) Peacemaking is what mature sons do.  They destroy chaos and disunity with their peace.  According to one definition at HELPS-Word Studies, a peacemaker “bravely declares God's terms which makes someone whole.”  A peacemaker chooses to view someone through the lens of imago dei, one created in the image of God.

How do we access this peace?  We learn in Galatians 4 that peace is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.  In essence, we cannot release what we have not grown.  King David the psalmist declares that we thrive as fruit-bearing trees when we daily meditate upon His Word.  Peace is grown from a life rooted in His love, daily meditating on His Word (Ephesians 3, Psalm 1).

In an age where people are often blinded with offense, division, and rage, it is this vision of serving as a peacemaker that continues to grip me.  Let’s step into our calling as mature sons of God.  Let's go low.  Let’s be the bridge.  

Civil Righteousness Pt. 3