Brother Harold and Angie left today, though, as always, I heard him more often referred to as the Honorable Reverend Doctor Harold :) As the chairman of EBS's board and as a friend, it was great and really helpful to have him here for a few days, and wonderful to finally meet Angie!
For the many of you who followed and prayed us through the near-death experience of Gertha last spring, I wanted to give a quick praise report from yesterday.
Through different stages of life here in Haiti, I have questioned our decision to ask women like Gertha and Micheline to help us in our home. Can't I do it all myself? Shouldn't I have to do it all myself? Do they not have enough to do? How does this LOOK to people, that I have women helping me?
It's about intimacy, about relationship, about inviting these women to live life alongside of us...not just out in their part of the world, not just to help them in their lives with a job--but also to INVITE them into ours. To welcome them to influence our children. To be involved in the lives of their children. To ask them to influence us and to be influenced by us. Intimately. To be a part of the good days and the bad, to see us at our best and worst, and to have that precious and intimate opportunity for discipleship...and to be discipled, as has very often been the case.
What we've seen over these years is that it is these closest and most vulnerable relationships that have perhaps most imitated Jesus' ministry here on earth...living and eating and serving and being served by His disciples. And THAT is a sweet opportunity we have found too good to pass up. Whether a dish was ever washed or a child ever played with or not.
ANYWAY.
The last year or so, I have been distraught over Gertha, questioning all this, wondering if we had failed. Some choices of hers seemed to indicate just that. I had done my best to influence her and guide her in Christ, but...I seemed to have failed.
But yesterday, many months after the accumulation of bad choices that almost cost her her life, it was just the two of us and a big plate of corn grits, and she quiet unexpectedly started to cry as we talked about Thalyia over lunch.
"Remember last spring, when I almost died?" she asked quietly, and for the next hour, in hushed tones and with tears in both our eyes, we finally we able to talk about it, the secret she has kept from everyone but her husband and myself, the choices that almost left Thalyia motherless.
She talked and talked while the corn grew cold, poured out her heart and begged...not me, but Him...for forgiveness. And, as she has often ministered to me, I was able to minister to her, intimately. To pray with her. To hold her hand. To encourage her heart. And to send her home later, finally forgiven and free and FIXED on Him.
That which I had named failure, I should have deemed HOPE. He was still working.
I believe now more than ever that it is those life-on-life, messy, painful, questioning, perseverant, unconditional and intimate relationships that truly disciple...
What a reminder for myself, who is quick to bring everyone into my life but very hesitant to bring anyone into my heart...who is quick to share our bread, our finances, our clothes, our time, but resistant to receiving, a key element in true relationship.
Join me today in re-evaluating some of our relationships--relationships perhaps that we have given much to, but maybe not ourselves...that we have invested in, but not with abandon, that we have preached Him, but perhaps not died to ourselves in. There may be great opportunities for great transformation all around us that we are cutting short.
It might be the messy relationships that bring Him the most beauty, with time.
I'm such a work in progress :) Thanks for learning and sharing with me!
Well, this seems to be just for me today!! God's timing is ALWAYS perfect :)
ReplyDeleteMy friend Dora also said once that when we get help for other jobs, we are allowing others to glean, like Ruth did in the fields. Boaz told his workers to leave grain for her to pick up to live; sometimes others need to glean work from us. Whether that's help around the house, childcare, mowing the lawn, whatever.
ReplyDeleteEven when I get help sewing or cooking, I feel like someone is letting me glean from their talents.