This is a story of a very well meaning Christian womens group that I was a part of many years ago. At the time I was myself a single mom raising two children and while the church was a big part of my life, I may have been extra sensitive in this case. You decide.

Our church group had taken on the responsibility of adopting, figuratively, a family of four who at the time lived in the same area where our sanctuary was located. When I joined the group they had been sponsoring this family for several years. The husband/father was in prison and we helped by remembering the children at Christmas and birthdays with cards and gifts. At other times we would regularly bring food items to our monthly meetings and someone would volunteer to drop them off and say hi to the family. While I was part of the group the family hit a snag and their rent was raised beyond their ability to cover it and they had several months to find another home. During this time, and it could also have been during a time we were on a summer break from meetings, but somehow they were unable to find a place nearby and had to move across town to a much less desirable neighborhood where working two jobs, Betty could afford the rent.

The next time we met and brought food to drop by there was a lack of enthusiasm about anyone driving to the area where they now lived. That hit me in a very visceral way, but I merely offered to drop off the food and later met Betty and her kids for an outing with my boys at the Zoo. During both those events I was able to see her new home and also spend time with her and her children. I took some pictures of them when we were at the zoo. On our way to the next monthly meeting, I stopped at Walmart and picked up the pictures from the roll of film I had dropped off earlier that week. I tucked the envelope in my purse and didn’t open it until later in the meeting. Someone brought up the idea that since the family had moved out of town, we should really break ties and find a new, closer family to support.

I had a lot to say about that. I proceeded to say that now more than ever the continuity of our care mattered to that family. She was now holding down two lousy part time jobs to make ends meet. Her kids came home to an empty house in a cramped, rundown area of town. While not necessarily unsafe, it had none of the trappings of the more affluent area from which they had moved. The schools were no longer A rated either. Those were ways in which they had been majorly affected. When speaking to the twenty-one women gathered that day for our church ladies group, I made the point that besides those things, it never occurred to me that Jesus was concerned with zip codes, when deciding who deserved his time or care. I finished with a slight admonishment that we had not offered to help them find a new place nearby so they could have stayed in the same schools, as well as continued to enjoy the safety of the area where we lived. It seemed to me we were placing our safety and comfort in doing good above the real need. I thought we should reconsider ‘getting a new family’, and at that time I opened my photo envelope from Walmart. I was going to pass them around for all to see, but I noticed instead of one of each that I had taken, there were 21 copies of the last one I took, the one of Betty and her children leaning against their car. I have no idea why there were as many copies as there were women present, but I offered that perhaps God wanted each of us to have a picture to put on our refrigerators as we prayed about what we should do concerning this family in the future. Needless to say, they did not vote to abandon this family, at least not while I was still a member of their group.

 Last week during lunch with a dear Christian friend of the past thirty years, as I was recounting yet another adventure from my past that she had never heard before, she remarked with a smile, ‘you tell all your stories with a sparkle in your eyes like you were on this adventure with a very present partner, as though God were your husband and always at your side’. 

My romantic nature has always found its true home in the presence of God. My ability to assimilate into the places I have landed, time after time, has been warmed by the company I keep and the knowledge that I am made for His purposes and those alone. And yes, I am a romantic.  I have observed in many other women over the years that the presence of an actual flesh-covered, air breathing male person is a necessity for them for even the possibility of a happy life and if they lose one, for any reason, they will very quickly acquire another to replace him. I seem made of either stronger or less lonely stuff, with perhaps higher requirements for my life companion.

Many of my memories it seems, are of times spent with someone who was sharing my delight or my anguish. I seem to have a running conversation with a partner that few notice is with me. I found this to be kind of funny at church last weekend where someone I do not know was talking to a friend of mine, and she kept sharing how one (implied older aged woman) could meet men talking about bananas at Whole Foods. While I found this somewhat entertaining, I was in no way tempted to turn in my very present, if not obvious, partner for one I might find in a search for the perfect banana. It made me smile for the rest of the day, as I had really only seen a glimpse of how that woman felt she had to find someone soon in order to feel less lonely. Increasingly as I age I am feeling the presence of a soul mate rather than their absence, which I have to admit feeling over the first half of my life. There is a contentment that has taken me a long time to recognize, and I won’t be searching for anyone else among the bananas.

I was on the receiving end of an angry outburst recently, realizing on some level that it didn’t have everything to do with current events, but rather was compiled of many small cuts caused by an accumulated misunderstanding of personal perspectives regarding previous events, now compounded into a huge snowball of repressed anger and pain.

I have always believed in the “put on the Armor of God” theory of protection, particularly to shield me from insults and name calling that God has not revealed as truths about myself I need to work on. However the armor always seems extremely heavy to me as I reviewed the items involved and so I am inclined to leave the house without it. There are, very fortunately for me, some rare times when anger of a close relative has exploded near me like a land mine I had unconsciously stepped on. Aware on some level that an outburst may well have less to do with me than with the current drama they are experiencing in their own life, I instinctively grab God’s ‘raincoat’ and throw it over my shoulders. Instead of the conversation becoming an unwanted playlist to be replayed ad nauseum in my head, I replace it with a much calmer visual of a bunch of words falling in puddles at my feet. When the torrent of accusations ends, I can step over them and get on with my day; perhaps returning later on in my rainboots to selectively process the damp ground to see if there are some words/thoughts I need to examine, possibly learning some valuable insight from the sudden storm. Wearing my invisible ‘raincoat’ allows me to hear without getting soaked in a negative, hurtful downpour that would contribute nothing positive to my future relationship with that person; or at least nothing I could clearly identify in the midst of the defensive tempest with which I might have responded. However, there are often nuggets of wisdom to be found in hearing, but not absorbing, another person’s pain, especially given a little time and distance afterwards. I may also find I need to ask forgiveness for some past behavior or make amends for current behavior that could be causing someone I love unintended emotional pain. God can heal those wounds once we can name them and claim them, and forgiveness can clear a slate that has been in an unknown fog for years. My experience has been this is the best way to put a valued relationship on a new and better course for the future, and my invisible raincoat has made a huge difference in my ability to process my own emotional responses.

Remember that charismatic church I mentioned in a recent post? Well, in the rear view mirror I can see so many reasons God had me stop there on my journey. One of them was to bring hope or to at least provide a huge ray of light to a woman he cared for dearly. She had been a member of that church for many years.
She was one of a small number of single moms who had been drawn there and while she possessed an incredible knowledge of God’s Word and a strong foundation in Christ, she was seen as a less than honorable woman based on the fact that she was a widow at a very young age and had a child out of wedlock afterward as well as two from her marriages. At least that’s the way it appeared to me as an outsider and certainly seemed interpreted that way in the very male-oriented construction of that church. The only women allowed to mentor or teach were those married to pastors or elders; well, except for two single women who happened to be very wealthy. They were held in high esteem and had preferential treatment very different than the single moms I was closer to. This was a church that had long practiced a strict tithe of 10% of one’s income. I’m sure that their wealth didn’t have anything to do with their acceptance, although some of the other moms were on government assistance.
I arrived at the church neither wealthy nor long immersed in Christian theology, however I had a strong love of the Lord and a feeling of full redemption from recently being saved that was unflappable. I was a breath of much needed wind of the spirit for my good friend of the now over forty years. We broke bread together often and our fatherless boys at least had an emotionally similar friend in the church community. There were things I loved about the music and worship, which was indeed the mainstay of this community, but as I began to read hearts I saw a lot of hurt concealed there as well. That wasn’t something I could fix, nor were the pastors interested in addressing it, but I always believed I was meant to be there for the time that I was. It was part of an incredible ‘real time’ education in my walk with Jesus and He continued to teach me as we walked the road of Christian community together. God knew learning in real time, rather than by reading, was always a better method for my retention of important things.
The reason for this post is while I left that church only a couple years after I arrived, my friend was not so fortunate; when she finally did leave a great deal of damage had been done to her spirit. As she says, she walked away from Jesus for a long while after that, although He certainly never left her. Just last week she renewed her commitment to Him and her terrible anxiety of the last decade or more has finally begun to lift from her. The prescription of anti depressants a current doctor had given her sent her into a tailspin and then to the emergency room of the nearest hospital last week. After all the tests were run, she realized that there was no physical reason for the anxiety tearing her apart. After that she recommitted her life to God through Jesus and she went home, literally and figuratively, to a new life with no more anti depressants. I spoke with her today and she sounds more like the hopeful young woman I met forty years ago than the one I have spoken to by phone in recent years. Total dependence on Him is the fastest way to rid ourselves of anxiety and also by truly trusting the outcomes of our situations to His love and care. He does not disappoint, though the way he takes us may be new or unusual, often I find they were never even on my dashboard. Looking back there is not one that I would have wanted to miss!

This was quite possibly one of the biggest lessons I’ve ever learned in my life. I only learned it after years of hurting myself and my son by holding onto betrayal and believing I was somehow owed some sort of apology. I had a husband who fell in love with my best friend and neglected to deal with it until we had a son and had purchased a new home. I gave them both the benefit of the doubt, even when my own mother suspected them, continuing for some time believing they could never possibly do that to me.

I was wrong. They could and they did. When I finally found out it became a soul crushing betrayal by two people I thought cared deeply about me. It was difficult for me to recover and continue in relationship with them, yet I had to because we shared a 1 year old son when he left. She left her husband a year later and they were married for over 25 years before she died much too young of cancer. We continued with a polite but empty communication style for years, often snagging when my son spent vacation time there.

Fortunately, long before we lost her and while our son was still in college, I had an amazing conversation with God that changed everything. I was crying out to him that they were causing great emotional harm to my son and therefore to me. Everything seemed a horrible triangle, with my ex blaming me to her and her to me, for anything that had to do with the financial support of our son. It was always difficult to get to the truth of anything. In the very old days I might have trusted my friend over a cheating ex husband. But this was the friend he had cheated with. An absurd mess that I didn’t want my son in the middle of, ever. He loved all of us, and did not want to choose sides. Nor should he have to. We were supposed to be the grown ups. I cried my heart out to God and asked Him to please intercede on our behalf. What I heard back in the silence was ” are you willing to forgive them?”

Nope. That was easy. I was not willing. Yet, as I sat with the pain of my son caught in the middle, I tried to find some way around that question. I didn’t do it, why should I have to forgive them? Silence. At this point my mind started to query whether I had ever done anything for which I should ask someone’s forgiveness. Of course there was less than total clarity on that issue. In my mind, I could find at least some questionable behaviors of my own, even within my marriage. There were certainly many other relationships I had been in where I might not have behaved well, or as well as I could have, all the time. Yet I did not remember any specific apologies on my part. The thing I wrestled with most was the agony caused to my son, when he had done absolutely nothing wrong and got caught in the middle of our adult drama.

I reframed the question I felt God had asked me, rolling it around in my head. While my response didn’t change, I did realize that an act of God might be absolutely necessary for the results I had requested. I then quietly whispered to Him “I am not willing, but I am willing to be willing”. I thought that was a way of somehow distancing myself from the consequences of my reluctance to obey. Wrong. What I had forgotten was the fact that God changes hearts, and I had effectively just given Him permission to change mine.

It wasn’t a minute later that I realized I had nothing but love for my ex husband and my friend, who had now been his wife for many more years than I had been. What? Wait a minute here. What? Where did all my justified anger go? What about all the…(^$%*&($#@!) things (that I suddenly could no longer remember) that hurt me? Ironically they had been replaced with thoughts of …why shouldn’t a child enjoy the love of two moms, both his Mom and his step Mom, when that love was offered to him so genuinely? Why would any person want to come between that? And so it went from there, for at least five more years.

If there is any story I have shared more in Christian circles and prayer groups, I cannot remember it. Even when it is hardest to change our stubborn minds and hearts, I always offer this advice: Tell God you are not willing to change, but you are willing to be willing to change. He will do all the rest because all He needs is our permission and He goes right to work! I never knew what hit me, but hit me it did. And I was the one who experienced the loss of our deep friendship when she passed away so young and who understood my son’s heartbreak at losing her. It is I who have missed her bright illumination at our future family gatherings with the amazing grandchildren she never got to meet or love “to the moon and back!”. God restored a deep, respectful relationship between us that, while not exactly the same as it had been before, was magnificent, made even more precious because of the cracks that had been so delicately and purposely filled within it.

I got a sweet thank you note from one of my nieces yesterday and included in her response to my joy following the birth of her daughter was an admission similar to many others I’ve received from my nieces and nephews (and sons!) as they welcomed their first child into the world. That first week or two and often again, even much later, were moments where they became fully aware that having a child (especially on your own, lacking a supportive spouse, nearby family and financial stability), was suddenly a daunting revelation to them. Add into it being a single parent already raising an amazing five year old with a 7-day-a-week storefront to run, ten employees to schedule, supervise and pay, and you have an even better glimpse into my complicated life 43 years ago. I really don’t remember that much of it, yet moments like this when I can pause and reflect are somewhat mind boggling to me too, for sure!

How did I do it? Well, that’s I guess that’s how it became the point at which I asked God into my life, having my actual ‘come to Jesus’ moment on Dec 9th, 1983. I knew I was truly outnumbered now with two small sons under six and I was definitely going to need some help. It is definitely the anniversary I most remember and celebrate in my life, one my Mom always phoned me to mark as well. Not because it was so special on the actual date. It was a just a day that a single mom from my church had come to help clean my house, while I was home recovering after the birth of my second son. Her money was tight, but she always tithed ten percent of her time to the Lord and I was the grateful recipient of her love and service that particular day. Although I had regularly been attending our Presbyterian fellowship for the past three months, she didn’t take anything for granted so somewhere in our day she asked me if I had ever asked Jesus into my heart? I replied something along the lines of “not in so many words.” Having been raised Christian, baptized, confirmed and having always attended church, I didn’t know there was anything missing, at which point she said ‘Well, let’s make sure’, and then she gently led me, with my permission, in the sinner’s prayer. It was not an event followed by lightning bolts from the sky and yet, looking back now, it was definitely the most important moment in my life.

After that, all my decisions were no longer made alone but with the quiet guidance of the Holy Spirit, as the Lord took up residence in my heart. As with any move-in, there were things to be sorted out and cleaned up, some to throw away, some to move to a secondary position, some to add to the existing mores and celebrations that were already in place with my little family tribe. We made room for a newcomer, Jesus. And my life was never the same after that; by that I mean never as lonely, never without joy, never without provision or the hope of provision for me and my boys. Life changing.

I guess this website is the story of some of those times as my memory is jogged here and there, just a note or a quick story, to pay tribute to the all encompassing love that came to fill my heart that day, assuring me that I would never run out of that love, regardless of any other struggles and circumstances sure to come my way. Such complete fullness, impossible to describe, though I do try.

Psalm 27:5-7 NIV

A year ago I received a call from the lady who plans the annual Gala that supports the crisis pregnancy center in St Petersburg, Florida. She was getting people lined up to head committees for that year’s celebration and she was reminiscing over the year prior. I had moved to town only one year before and had known no one involved in the pregnancy center ministries there. I had found a church family and about that same time one of the pastors announced she was forming a team to look into the possibilities of our church helping to support that ministry and I stepped forward to assist that committee.

Within a few short weeks I had met the woman who ran the center and bonded with her immediately as if we had known each other for a lifetime. Actually I have learned over the years that that is exactly the feeling one has when God puts you in a place where you never thought to go on your own. With that in mind, I signed up to be on the decoration committee, feeling it would be an inobtrusive place to help wherever I could. We were zoom calling our meetings at that time and I attended each of those where they admitted they had yet to find a head for that committee. I knew no one but had met the Director one time, so I just listened to try and get up to speed on the needs of the center. The gala date was only three months away and they were feeling a bit desperate. I volunteered to take the lead and come up with some ideas and prices for the formal evening for 250-300 guests for dinner at the huge and not exactly cozy Coliseum. They had no theme and no color scheme. In retrospect, I have often found God has me step in when no leaders step forward and then He supplies both the ideas, skills and the people I will need to succeed. I call myself a place card holder because I never really take possession of a role, knowing the rightful person will be arriving sometime soon. I fill in the gap. It always happens that way and it is easy for me to also step to the side when it does. I am a sub, by gifting and by nature, it seems.

The plans and team came together and all was provided that was needed. I was even able to use some of my ‘decorator’ talents to save the center a lot of money on the presentation. It was a gorgeous and warm welcoming evening. My abilities to do elegance on a shoestring allowed for a significant gain to their bottom line that evening. They had usually hired a decorator or event planner. When the financial officer looked back on it she called me to ask “Where did you come from?” as she couldn’t remember how I swept in and then, just as quickly, swept out of their midst ( I moved to Jacksonville two months after the Gala on the spur of the moment, to be in place for the birth of my newest grandson). In trying to replace me, she had tried to think through the whole scenario of how my being there had come about. We enjoyed a great conversation, as we retraced how God had supplied the very need they had laid at His feet in prayer, by a means they could not have foreseen (i.e. no one they knew!) and in His own perfect timing. We decided to pray together that He would do that once again and to trust that He would, as we already had proof that He had.

It is always fun to be reminded of things that He has done and the way He has provided for those who put their trust completely in Him. I came as an outsider. These women, many of them the same who started the center, had put together this Gala for twenty eight years. The revelation to us both on that call was that even though I was an ‘outsider’ to the center, I was an insider to the faith that ran it. They knew me because we both knew the One who sent me, and we recognized, from our long but separate journeys with Him, that our hearts were indeed already family. They trusted me implicitly, because they trusted Him completely. How often I have witnessed that in my lifetime and it is so beautiful. No egos to put aside. Grace.

Recently my grandchild was rehearsing for a part in a play and was resistant to feedback from her parents during that time. After losing star billing to someone else, there was great consternation. Her main query was “why didn’t you tell me?” implying that if they knew what she could have improved, why didn’t they share it with her before it was too late? The response of course was, “We did try, but you didn’t want to hear it.”
I often wonder right now, as I am often on the opposite side of many hot political as well as recent medical options with close family and friends, if I will one day hear similar words from someone I love.
I often check my thoughts at the beginning of any conversation, because they may well be quickly rejected out of hand with ‘that’s not happening here’, or ‘not in our community’, ‘its perfectly safe’ and ‘your news and information sources are all wrong’. Are they though? Do we truly have all the critical facts we need to make important decisions for our children, and have we always been told the whole truth? And who do we trust as our sources for truth? Will any of these family members or friends some day say that same thing to me? Or me to them? Some of us will undoubtedly be proven wrong by history, but who? And what might the cost of that omission be? The cost of saying anything right now seems terribly high in many of my closest relationships. It is a dilemma that many families are experiencing across the globe. No good or easy answer, and none without risk, I am afraid. Yet silence may have a price of its own as well I fear.

I wonder if God is often feeling the same way with us. “Why didn’t you tell me?” we plead, after taking some wrong turn in our lives. “I did, but you didn’t want to hear me.” And isn’t that the real truth?

Reflecting on the children’s game of Simon Says, it seems as though the Holy Spirit was the one whispering the ‘not Simon‘ directives in my ear. I often seem to have taken the path that no one else heard, as it was likely not meant for them, nor were they nearly as apt to follow it if they had heard. I mean, who does that? Hears voices? And they would probably have been quite angry at themselves for not following the crowd (and thereby also having been put out of the game), by righteously heeding only Simon’s instructions. I guess I took the path less traveled, as it were; the one that was whispered into only my own listening ear. “Go to Ithaca” said The Voice, clearly (although when I repeated these instructions later on the phone to a dear friend he replied “does God lisp”? Funny.)

I was home with a very new baby and a six year old at that time. I had a mortgage on the home I had received as the result of my recent divorce. I was the sole proprietor of an ‘open seven days a week’ gift shop in a sweet suburban town in New Jersey. It was a store I had started from scratch with a friend only seven years prior, which now boasted a handful of terrific, loyal employees. I had great friends and tons of wonderful, supportive customers. I had a vibrant church community. Why would I sell everything and go to a place I had never been, where I knew virtually no one? Remember in those days, forty years ago, there were no “virtual” ways to know people; no Facebook, no next door apps etc. It was either a huge leap of faith, or just plain crazy on my part, come to think about it. Yet it remains one of the clearest commands I can remember hearing in my lifetime. So I sold my house and my store and moved me and my boys upstate to Ithaca, N.Y (actually to the adjacent town), never to look back. And my adventures with God had only just begun.

My pastor wrote in his blog several weeks ago about his encounter with angels 25 years ago and it reminded me of a similar situation that happened at about the same time to me and my sons, then living in Florida.

We had recently moved from upstate New York to Jacksonville, and were fascinated by the beaches all around us. One sunny day in early November we drove  our Ford Aerostar van down to the beaches of St. Augustine, where we had heard they allow cars to drive on the sand, to check it out. The beach was totally deserted that day, even though it was beautiful; Floridians typically do have a season where they frequent the beach, and that had already passed.

This was my first time driving on the beach, there was no one to instruct me, and the boys were very excited that we had a roadway between the dunes and the water of about 300 yards so we hit the sand running……until we realized we were no longer moving forward. Our wheels were still spinning but we weren’t going anywhere, except deeper into the soft sand into which I had driven (funny, I thought I would be safer farther away from the waters edge, but the sand was actually easier to drive on the closer one got to the water, not the other way around). Our laughter and excitement quickly turned to fear, as we realized we were on a desolate beach with no idea how to get our heavy car out of the sand. And while the sky was beautiful, the sun was beginning to go down. We also were in a pre-cell-phone era and houses, stores and people were nowhere to be seen.

My sons were then aged ten and four. My older one, a type A firstborn, hopped out of the vehicle and began digging furiously behind the back wheels with his bare hands, determined to dig us out by himself. My youngest, a more laid back dude with much more patience, decided to go up on the nearby hill and play in the sand dunes. As he did, I could hear him talking to God. While his hands were forming sand castles, he was saying “Lord, my Mom needs your help right now. Her car is really stuck in the sand.” That was it, and he continued playing.

Not two minutes later there was a woman at the side of my car, motioning for me to get out. A man…her husband, I assumed, was behind the car, getting ready to push it. She climbed into my seat and within a matter of minutes the car was on hard packed sand again, and I was back in the driver’s seat, calling my sons to get back in the car. I turned to point out the couple who had helped me and they were nowhere to be seen. There wasn’t another car or person on the beach and I had no idea how they could have disappeared from sight so rapidly.

I haven’t asked the boys about this in any recent time and they may well not remember. As for me, I will always believe God sent angels to help me out of that predicament and that they appeared and disappeared without so much as a word. Except for the words and faith of one very small boy, who totally believed God would help out his Mom.

Although both those encounters took place 25 years ago, I am believing there are angel sightings every day, though sometimes we may discount them because we cannot prove it, even to others who may also have been there at the time. Faith, belief, and the eyes to see; let them see. This story also reminds me that I am safer on the hard sand, closer to God’s living water, than I am walking on the softer sand nearby. The softer sand is a really good place to stop, lie down and rest awhile, but if I want to be the hands and feet of Jesus, I will get much more traction on that well-packed, wetter sand… closest to Him.