Grace, Mercy & Miracles

I met a homeless woman about six months ago that was standing on the side of the road with a blanket wrapped around her in the middle of the night. I pulled over to see if I could help her. I had just gone through the drive through at the 24 hour McDonalds and purchased food for two people, but didn’t know who it was for yet. As I offered her the food, I noticed that she was pregnant. I am not sure how I even noticed that, because it wasn’t obvious when I looked at her later, and she seemed shocked when I asked her about it, so I guess it wasn’t noticeable to others yet. Anyway, it was cold outside and this poor woman had no where to go, because she was in the midst of trying to break free from a painful past that was still forcing her to live on the streets and be separated from her children. I made her get in my car to warm up, and I told her that I would pay for her to stay in a motel so she could get a good nights sleep and a shower.
After I got her checked in to the only place in the area that would take her, I ran and bought her some water and oranges and other snacks at the QT, and I grabbed her some clothes and a few books filled with Bible Promises that she could read and know that God loved her. (God usually has me bring items with me that I am going to need, so I know if I still have a car full of stuff, it isn’t time to go home yet!)
When I returned, I could feel so much pain and torment coming from her that I asked if I could just pray for her real quick, so she could have some peaceful sleep, she was eager to receive my prayers and desperate for help.
I won’t go into her personal story, because she doesn’t need to be identified by her past, but I will say that what God had sent me to do that night was more than just give her a place to sleep for the night. He wanted that poor woman free from the evil that was tearing her apart with shame and guilt for all of her mistakes. He needed her to know that she wasn’t forgotten or too far from rescuing and restoring. She was a beautiful daughter that lost her way, but God didn’t lose sight of her. He wanted her to know that she was not going to continue believing the lies about herself, because He was ready to heal her broken life and show her how much he loved her.
Jesus paid for all of her sins with his life on the cross to give her abundant life, and he wanted her to know that she no longer had to carry that heavy burden of guilt and shame. We talked for an hour, and I told her to get some sleep, and to call me in the morning. I left her with such a sweet peace from Jesus that she slept better than she had in years she told me the next day.
I truly didn’t know what would happen to her, but I continued to pray for her over the next few months. Then God sent me out in the middle of the night to help her again. I didn’t know I was going to help her, but I drove right to where she was standing all alone shivering in the cold. She looked terrible. She seemed to be very hardened and hurting terribly. I tried to just give her $40 and go home, but God put it on my heart to take her to my house and help her, because she needed someone that wouldn’t judge her, but would show her the kind of love that He had for her regardless of what she was doing to herself and kids.
I told her that she could stay in our guest room for the night, and I would bring her wherever she needed to go in the morning. She was so cold and so tired, that she couldn’t say no even if she wanted to, so I got her some food and hot coffee and brought her to my house.
People often have a look of panic when they hear that I bring total strangers to my house to shower and rest, but I don’t bring just anyone home. It has to be someone that God sent me to get. I trust God, and He has never failed me. In fact, He always blesses me for helping his hurting children.
Since it was already 4am, and I knew she just wanted to be alone, I didn’t try to have a deep conversation with her. She seemed so sad that I really didn’t know what to say, so I just told her that we would figure something out in the morning, but to just please rest and let all of the worries go for the night.
She seemed to have a new hope and a sense of restoration the next morning, so we hung out in my kitchen for hours just talking. She had a real sense or longing to want to help others more than herself, and the more I talked to her, the more I could see myself in her. I wondered how it could be that I had everything that I have and she had nothing when both of us had so much in common as far as personality and deep rooted beliefs. I wasn’t sure if I was sent to help her, or if she was actually helping me at that point, but I knew God was working on something that day.
I ended up taking her to a parking lot later that afternoon where she hung out and knew the people in the area. I stopped and got food and some extra pizzas for the other homeless people there, and I felt a little sad leaving her there, but she said she would be fine, so I told her what God had put on my heart and shown me about her baby, and I prayed for her baby to be protected and healthy before she got out of the car.
I truly didn’t know if her baby would make it, because of the things she was dealing with, and the fact that she never went to the doctor the whole time she was pregnant, but I couldn’t imagine that God would send me to her if He didn’t have a plan already for her and the baby, so I left it all in his hands.
A few days later, I get a text from her asking if I could please get her a room for the night. She didn’t want to stay at my house, but wanted me to pay for another filthy motel room, so I was a bit reluctant and concerned about her possibly taking advantage of my generosity. I truly feel like a jerk for all of those thoughts now, but I am sharing them so that people can see that I am not the perfect servant of the Lord, but Christ in me, won’t let me just ignore a hurting person when I have the means to help and pray for them.
“And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.””
Luke 10:25-37 ESV
http://bible.com/59/luk.10.25-37.esv
They will know us by our love!
I did pay for another motel room for her that night, and she kept telling me how grateful she was, and how awful she was. It was hard to hear her speak so negatively about herself, because I knew how God felt about her. I finally told her that was enough. She could no longer believe or speak lies that the enemy had told her about herself, because God now lived in her, and she was not the person that she once was. She tried to say that she knew she needed to be more positive, but she just didn’t feel worthy of love or acceptance by anyone. She wanted her daughter to know that she loved her so much more than she could know, but she just couldn’t get her life together.
I told her that an addiction can never stop a person from loving, nor can it keep her from being loved. She was living on the streets in Chandler, because her daughter lived in Chandler, and it was her only hope of ever getting to see her. She said that she planned to see her everyday, but somehow the pull of the cravings for a drug would always destroy those plans. Satan probably knew that he was in trouble when he knew that I was sent to help her, because not only would she soon understand that in all of her shame and struggle with addiction and other issues, that God still loved her 100% as much as He loved me or anyone else, and He was eager for her to ask Him for help.
I haven’t seen her since that last night in the motel room where I left her, but a few weeks ago the Holy Spirit told me to look her up on Facebook. After I pulled up her page, my heart melted and tears began streaming down my cheeks. There she was holding her new baby with her daughter smiling right beside them. She had several photos of her daughter and her doing things together, and when I looked at her posts over the months I saw how she went from posting evil pics that seemed like witchcraft to slowly moving into pics of scriptures and positive, encouraging words of hope, love and faith.
God is so good! Won’t you please allow Him to use you to change a desperate life in darkness?
Ezekiel 34:11-16 (ESV)

The Lord God Will Seek Them Out
11 “For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. 12 As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. 13 And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. 14 I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. 15 I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. 16 I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy.[a] I will feed them in justice.