...and Butter

Two days have passed since my last blog and to put it in my simple terms, those two days have definitely been the butter on my grits :) 

Rita, Cleo, Reece, Sara, Barbara, Nancy, Mary, Hailie, Shirley and Ruby have reminded Jennings and I both of the value of family and true friendship.  Each in their own special way, these women from 60-93 blessed our hearts in ways I cannot begin to explain to you.  They each have a story - and I could spend hours telling you each one - from the one that wanted to take the hammer and knock my diamond off because we knocked the stick out of her door jam, but let me fix it AFTER we had already cleaned for her :) - and then cried tears of joy when we gave her a prayer shawl as we left her...to the two single ladies that God has brought together as neighbors to care for each other - one who can't talk and the other who has come up with a "system" for them to use on the phone so she knows if the other is in trouble.  I think the best way to sum up these women and their lives is how Jennings so simply put it "mama we just need to love people."  I said "what people Jennings?"  He said, "everybody mama, cause everybody needs love - and everybody just don't have the kind of family and friends like we do."  Enough said...

We had a God ordained opportunity to re-visit the house that Jennifer, Tricia, Jordan and Jenna spent the whole entire week at last year.  This is the home of Billy Joe and Rowena Weston.  I knew when the opportunity came up it was not going to be a pie job, but what I didn't realize was that God's intentions for us went far deeper than house and yard work.  Trina spent 4 hours with a push mower wading through knee deep grass while Heather, Shawn myself and the children tackled the kitchen.  Now when I say tackled the kitchen that is exactly what I mean.  I knew what to expect, but knowing and seeing are 2 different things.  We prayed before I went in the house, but on my way back out to "debrief" the gang I prayed some more.  I knew they had never seen anything like this and I also knew when we went there could be no gagging, no holding noses, no stares, no cringing at the sights, nothing but smiles and acting like everything was fine.  We were going into "clean" house and what I would soon come to realize was to help "mend" hearts.  The kitchen counter tops were covered up to the bottom of the cabinets, kitchen table stacked as high as it could be without falling off, stove and sink full, all covered with months of old food, trash, live roaches, dead roaches, live maggots, dead maggots, ants, other random bugs and rat droppings.  The floor was just as bad along with remnants from the dogs that live in the house and don't make it outside when necessary.  Combine all that with the smell you can imagine accompanied it, and the flys we stirred up when we moved pots and dishes, and to say we were overwhelmed is an understatement.  When we finished we had 13 big black lawn size garbage bags full.  We only scratched the surface...but this was not what upset me.  When I went to pray with her before we left she started talking about her past, the people who had hurt her....friends, family, church people, her husband....all "Christian" people.  She talked about how much she missed Jennifer and Tricia and how she longed to see them and how much she missed them.  One of the few places still kept clean in her house was a shelf they fixed for her with their pictures.  You see for her they are 2 of only 3 people that she feels loved by and cared for.  We started talking about her salvation and got to the point where she admitted to Shawn and myself that she was not sure...she could not tell me for sure where she would be when she died.  Oh how she wanted to be in heaven with her mama but she had just been hurt so badly and hated too many people, how in the world could God ever love her and ever forgive her...we kept talking and many things came up that we were able to share with her that it was no accident that we ended up back at her house.  But she just kept going back to the "church people" and others that had hurt her, and her husband who is supposed to be a Christian but does not treat her like he should, and she just didn't think God could love her like she was.  Finally, I looked at her and I reminded her of how Jennifer and Tricia had come in her house and cleaned it up, took out all the trash and made it look like new.  Cleaned her up, made her feel better, look better, smile and most importantly feel loved.  I told her that was exactly what Jesus would do - He would come in and take her just like she was, fix her up, clean her and love her...right where she was.  I told her to forget about all those other church people and her husband...that Jennifer and Tricia and those girls, that was what Jesus looked like.  At that point she cried, we all cried.  She still was not ready to pray and be sure of her salvation, but she did let us pray for her.  Walking out of that house was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.  We did what we could, we did what we were sent to do...cleaning out the kitchen was the small part - and I'd do it all over again tomorrow.  I'd sit on her couch with bugs crawling on me, I'd kneel on her living room floor with dog mess and everything else on it if it meant that God could use me to let her see His face again. 

That is what it's all about.  That is why I cannot ignore when God tells me to GO, because there are people all over this world that need to see Jesus.  That is why we come on these trips and why we do things at home...that is why everyday in everything we say and do we should bring honor and glory to His name because you never know when you are going to be the ONLY Jesus that someone will see...