He came up to me last night at our ministry. Tall, gaunt, reddish gray stubble on his thin chin. He wanted to show me something. He pulled it up on his phone - a poem, then another, then a song, a hymn of praise he had written. I told him they were very good. I told him I loved words too. I loved how they helped us process, helped us heal.
He then started pouring out story after story - the things he needed to write about. The things he needed to get out, purge. About the time he and two friends were under a bridge and a Voice told him to not take the drug. "That voice had told me that before, but I usually just ignored it and did it anyway. But this time was different. I listened. Then I watched my friends take the drug, OD, and die right there in front of me." He explained they had had a pact, that if anything like that happened to any one of them, the survivor needed to just pick up his backpack and keep walking. So that's what he did...
He told me about the time he watched his jail cell roommate hang himself. A pedophile. He felt he had had a part to play in his death. He carries it still.
The depths of pain seemed like a black sea without a bottom, about to swallow him whole. Drowning in grief.
His only Lifeline was his words. The Word. A black sea except for the One he was writing about.
Last night, I told one of my original Bible Study girls that I saw her leading the group one day. She scoffed, but I fanned the flame harder. It'll happen one day. She's so smart, has to understand everything; she's kept me on my toes with questions, and she knows Truth better than most. Because she understands it, she's able to live it in a way that is changing her. She told me about the Gate that Jesus is, and how she wants to be on the right side of the Gate. Later on, I overheard someone else speak of leadership giftings in her without us ever conferring. That's just what Holy Spirit does when He wants to give a word to someone - to heal, to call forth.
My butterfly has been coming for about a month now, week after week after week, and I can tell she loves it. Over tacos in the car (our weekly tradition), I asked her honest opinion about a group I want to start under the umbrella of our ministry (for butterflies like her), and she said, "I've actually been meaning to talk to you about that. What if I stayed in town?" We talked about the possibilities. She's torn between what she knows and what is new, between her hometown and this new home. And I hold it with an open hand; their lives are so transient. Roots are so hard to come by. Roots need a safe place. And she didn't have the words to say it, and I didn't press the precious, but I know it was her way of saying, "I feel safe here, with you." She saw the heart of the ministry. She knew she had found, for as long as it lasts, a place to belong.
I have been helping a family for months ("Capes" is about the stubborn matriarch), and her daughter finally came to our ministry after many invitations. She told me every time she tried to come to church, to the ministry, there were barriers after barriers. She asked why that was, and I told her the enemy didn't want her to hear the Truth or see the Light. I asked her if she had ever stepped into a relationship with Jesus before? She said she had wanted to, had tried, but didn't know how. I got to lead her to the Lord last night! And one of my other Bible Study girls - the one who's been a missionary at her workplace, who knew my butterfly from their past life in the life - works with this lady too! She was so ready! It was so easy when the Holy Spirit does it. She asked for a Bible and I ran to the storage area to grab one. I scribbled a quick note with the date - 1/31/24.
She's reborn.
Twice today, in different places, the Lord has reminded me of why I came to the church in the first place:
"I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age." - Matthew 28:18-20
The Great Commission. I have felt commissioned. It's happening, all around me. In ways I can't control or comprehend. And when I write it all out, read the words over again, I'm in tears of disbelief that all that could happen in one night! And yet, in this ministry, when the Holy Spirit wants to move, it's all in a night's work. It's easy. It's effortless. When I open my hands, let go, He's there.
The last phrase is what has stuck with me today: "Be sure of this: I am with you always." His authority and His presence are the bookends of our work. the going, the making, the baptizing, the teaching...
In this precious work, He is with me always. I am not alone. And when it all feels too big, uncertain, lonely, that word heals the deep places in me.
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