my daily graces

When I did that...took a minute to think of gifts I already have--anything that reveals God's grace, makes you thankful, or unleashes joy in your life-- one of the first things that came to mind was Micheline, Gertha and Noel.

There are no other people in my life who pour out on my days His grace like these three sister-friends.

Noel (22), Micheline (45) and Gertha (30)...His graces!

They've seen our worst and our best.  Kissed on sweet babes and swatted bad behinds.  Cleaned and served, mopped and chopped.  Put us to bed when we've been sick, put up with us when we've been grouchy, seen frazzled, seen beautiful, seen upbeat, seen depression, witnessed arguments, witnessed beautiful firsts, seen morning sick (for 18 months).  Even uglier, seen before coffee.  GASP.

They've been there.

Better still, they've let us be there, too.  

I've put them to bed.  Rubbed their backs when their morning sickness had it's way.  Held their babies, sat in hospitals, dried tears.  Buried a daughter, the most painful Christmas of my life, sent to University, helped build houses, helped to feed, sent to school.  They've let us be there, too, and therefore have become family.

God gave us grace--Micheline--the week we moved to Haiti.  Exactly what I needed was an older woman, a wise woman, a patient woman, a loving woman...to introduce me to Haiti.  She did and has and always with the sweet love of Jesus and the miraculous patience of a mother.

And grace-Noel, she was one of the first friends God brought us when we moved to Saccanville.  Radiating with sweet humility and a natural knack with children as one of 9 herself, she was young and many of her needs and many of ours came together when we found each other.  To this day, the girls squeal when Tanti No-No rounds the bend, and every time there's no food at home, Noel finds it at ours...putting her at our table and enjoying our evenings 4 or 5 nights a week.

But Gertha?  I didn't even think I wanted her help.

Micheline needed some time off after the death of her dear daughter.  And we had a six month old who couldn't keep sitting in the secretary's office when I was teaching.  I looked and looked, but couldn't find anyone I was ready to leave chubby baby Lily with.

And Marie-Marthe just kept insisting I hire her cousin Gertha, a girl my own age I'd NEVER met, and I kept insisting I was NOT hiring someone I didn't already know.  I was getting desperate, Marie-Marthe introduced us, and I didn't know what to think.

Lily's first birthday party and her traditional gift from Gertha...a bottle of wine :)

She was obviously trustworthy.  Seemed dependable.  Was great with Lily.

 But oh man.  Sassy!  Let me know what she thought at every turn, knew everything about everything, quick to tell me everything she thought I was doing wrong--which was close to everything--and frequently held onto moodiness. 

But you know?  After much worry, and finally much prayer, I hemmed her in because I trusted her with Lily, and knew that while she might be a challenge, I was in Haiti to disciple.  Believing there to be no better way to disciple than to live life alongside of someone intimately, we started life together.

She told me why it was obviously a sin to wear pants.  Told me how I was cooking everything wrong.   Showed me the proper way to hold my child.  Wash our clothes.  Clean our house.  Talked a mile a minute, machine-gunning through rampages of opinion and constant reflection.

And bonked herself on the head continually with a stuffed sheep when she discovered it made baby Lily belly laugh.

When she got pregnant out of wedlock, I felt like such a failure.  Some discipling I was doing...walking alongside of Gertha everyday, sharing the Gospel, praying with her, living life with her, and then giving her a home-pregnancy test months before making her wedding invitations.

I remember fretting so intensely that my primary work in Haiti--to make transformed disciples for Christ through relationship--was an epic fail.  What could I possibly do in the classroom or in the church or in the street if my friend in my own home sharing my life was living in sin as she came to work?

I thought that might be the end of our relationship.

Praise the Lord that He wasn't finished with her yet, nor with me.

Because of HIS grace, we persevered.

Paid for the wedding.  Love that precious baby-now-toddler, Sofie's favorite friend.  Lived on in Him.  Spoke when He led, silenced when He led.  Showed when I could, watched when I could.  Prayed and continued and loved her.

A terrible decision not long after almost cost Gertha her life, and I remember well that afternoon in our kitchen while Micheline and I both bawled, asking each other, "How COULD she?" Sat on her bed a few days later in the hospital when Micheline took the girls outside and watched hot, shameful tears pour in streams down her face Gertha's face, too ashamed to even look at me and absolutely too ashamed to look at God.  She was alltogether ashamed and lost about EVERYTHING.  About her life outside of holiness before marriage, still haunting her.  About her stupid decision.  About coming up so short.  

When everything was finished we paid her bills and brought her home to her baby and husband, and I got bold with a very bold woman I typically shy-d away from confrontation with.

"It was very very stupid and very very selfish, Gertha.  You judged everyone for doing everything wrong, but were sleeping with your boyfriend.  And you let everybody have it when they mess up, but almost got yourself killed.  And  Thaliya could have NO mother today.  Wislin NO wife."

I'll never forget the look on her face of surprise, then acceptance, then shame...and again, brokenness.

In the moment she was sure there was NO WAY OUT, I knew The Only One.

"Now you listen to me, Gertha," I remember saying, holding her hands firmly.  "We've all blown it, terribly.  Beyond mend.  We deserve death and I can see all over your face that you UNDERSTAND that.  But there is something else to understand fully.  Jesus paid for your death, and instead, You Are Forgiven.  Not just by me.  God has forgiveness for you, and a new start.  A new life.  Free of guilt, free of shame."

As she and I finished praying together that day, she lifted her eyes a new person.  I knew He would continue to persevere with her.  And I with her.  And her with me.

She's no statistic.  Not a convert.  She became a new creation that day.
And the discipleship that helped bring her there, continued.

 And though the changes have come softly, they have come.  And I didn't even realize how entirely He has transformed her life until last month.

On Fridays, Gertha takes a tap-tap to the Haitian-Dominican border, crosses over, buys products you can't buy in Haiti, and brings them back home to sell.  Every little bit helps, and with a husband who has been unable to find work for over 3 years, it's a needed little bit.

Last month, Gertha paid the same man she always did to come with her with his wheel-barrow, to load up all the purchases she was making, to cross back over the border with her and to pile it all into the tap-tap for her.  But as she was crossing back into Haiti with him right in front of her, there was some sort of a riot to the side, and in the chaos, he disappeared.  With 300 dollars worth of products.

Gertha searched for him everywhere, frantic, refusing to believe what everyone was telling her.  Dude had taken everything...her two months worth of salary...the food to feed her child and support her family...and split.

She came home empty-handed, but came to mine the next day incredibly calm.  My old friend Gertha would have been spit-fire and brimstone.  But instead she was collected and sad, but thanking the Lord over and over that she was safe, and calming me down when I whelmed up in anger at the injustice.

  She was even SMILING, for heavens sakes.  $300.  Six months salary for the average household in Haiti.  And she was cool as a cucumber.  "It's ok, Stacey," she told me.  "God knows, and He's the judge, and He hasn't stopped caring for me yet.  He hasn't changed.  He'll take care of us, and that guy."

I was shocked, for the first time really aware of the transformation that day-in-and-day-out had produced, by His grace.

But more shocked was I still, when last week, she bubbled into the house singing and grasping my hand.

"Stace," she said breathless.  "I saw him!  I was at the border on Friday, trying to buy a few things again, and there he was!  And there were lots of other merchants around me, and one ran and got the police, and I had him cornered, and even reached out and grabbed his arm!"

"And he was petrified," Gertha said, "just sure that he was about to go to jail, and started sputtering that he would get me back the money, somehow."

"And you know what, Stace?  I just was praying and praying, and saw the policeman coming, and praying, and when the policeman approached, he asked if there was a problem, and you know what I said?  I said NO, thank you.  And he left, and I turned right to that thief, still holding his arm, and I SMILED at him, Stacey, because of Jesus, and I said to him, 'Sir, I forgive you.'"

"And you should have SEEN the look on his face!  I was surprised even hearing it come out of my mouth.  And there he was, in my grip, and I forgave him, just like that, and my heart felt clear, and I walked away!  Can you believe that?  Hah!  Everytime I think about it I laugh, because the Lord has done something great in me, and maybe He'll do something great in that theif."

My jaw was on the floor at this point, not only because I was still very much so wanting to slug the man who would rob from a mother trying to provide for her child--my FRIEND--but more because my old GERTHA would have eaten the man for breakfast.  Ripped him to shreds.  Clawed her $300 dollars back and sent him to jail.  Filled my day and everyone else's with the emotional, fervent DRAMA of it all.  Would have gotten her revenge in the face of injustice!

And here she was, grinning in my kitchen, filled with His forgiveness, His love, despite being terribly wronged, and radiating His peace.  His joy.

God has used many things to transform Gertha's life.  But, just as He's used hers to transform mine, He's taken all those minutes, all those hours, all those meals, all those Bible studies, all those prayers, all those hours in the kitchen together, and used our life-on-life relationship with Gertha and turned her into a NEW creation.

The days I used to grimace...the days Gertha came instead of Micheline, have become the days that are my favorite.  The Prince of Peace who has always slipped through my door with Micheline now comes with Gertha, too.  And by His grace, some mornings I leave the house with half-naked daughters who haven't had breakfast and a sink full of dishes and a mountain of laundry, and she kisses my cheek and chats about Thaliya and pulls them into her lap.

And when I come home from work, she is crawling on the sparkling floor roaring like a lion after squealing Sofie now in braids and polka-dots, and we're both happy I'm home and I'm thankful, every day, that I have a dear friend...a Godly one...to have lunch with.  To share my girls with.  To live life with.  Discipleship.

Gertha, Micheline, Noel.  They reveal God's grace to me daily, make me thankful, unleash joy.  

So what's on YOUR list??