Hey! This is Part 2 of one of those two part thingies I do. Part 1 is A Heart of Stone. You might want to read that one first. You know…so it all makes sense.

So, for reasons I couldn’t explain or understand back then, after I broke into the doc’s car I went home and dug through rubble to find my childhood Bible. Yeah, I had looked up the verse he’d prescribed when I was in his office a year ago, but for some reason (maybe I was nostalgic then too) I wanted to read it again. His words kept shouting and replaying, “You’re a good girl Teri. You’re a good girl.” But I knew the truth. I knew I wasn’t.

The folded up prescription was tucked away in the navy blue leather-bound Bible. I had to thumb through all the Sunday school stickered pages to find it. I stopped thumbing for a second just to look at praying Jesus in the Garden, the little sheep and then I noticed one of the stickers was of Jesus carrying a little lamb around His neck. I touched it softly with my fingers. Tears fell onto the page. Finally, I found the prescription where the infirmary doctor had written I John 1:9 and under dosage he’d prescribed it four times daily. What a dork! What a weirdo he was.

I found the passage easily enough. I’d always won first place in my Sunday school’s Bible drills. They called them “Sword Drills” back in the day. This is where children compete to find Books in the Bible. The teacher calls out a Book, the kids scramble to find it and the first one to do so raises his/her hand and shouts, “Found it!”

There it was. I had marked it with a pencil the year before, “If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

My heart literally was in pain. My body was aching and that little five-year-old girl deep inside me was asking, “Where am I? What’s happened to me?” My university had kicked me out (which is no small task when you consider that I was at Southwest Texas State University—a school very lenient in both its academic life as well as its student code). My employer, Safeway 707 in San Marcos, had put me on probation. Not for stealing, but because my till kept coming up over! That’s right…over! My manager explained that this meant I was a) not giving customers their cash back when they wrote a check for over the amount of purchase or b) I was short changing folks. Either way, ripped off customers weren’t usually repeat customers. She warned me, “One more time of till overage Teresa and you’ll be takin’ some unpaid time off.”

My bank had finally dropped me. I’d written too many bad checks and even though I always made them right and paid all the fees, they were tired of messing with me. My school was tired of me; my work was tired of me; my landlord was tired of me; my parents were sick and tired of me; my friends were tired of me and let’s face it… I was tired of me!

I sat there on my bedroom floor and read the Scripture again and again. “Oh Jesus, is this true? I want it to be true. I’m so exhausted and I’ve lost my way.”

It was just weeks before my 21st birthday and sitting on that bedroom floor I began to take inventory of my crappy, burned out, loser life. Everything was in ruins. Seriously. Everything. I got up off the floor and placed a collect call to my sister in Oklahoma City. Cindy was the only family member talking to me these days. She accepted the call and I just started bawling. She couldn’t understand me and she kept asking me to calm down and tell her what was wrong. I was heaving and sobbing and completely unintelligible. Finally, I settled down enough to talk.

“My life is so screwed up Cindy! I’m so screwed up.” Her life wasn’t so great either, but she did have at least an appearance of having it all together. She had a good job, was married, owned a home and my parents adored her. She was always the responsible one.

“When did I get so off track? Remember when we were kids and Mom and Dad always had us in church? Remember how we loved to hear preaching and we loved our Sunday school teachers? Where did it all go wrong?” I asked her.

I heard her sigh, there was a long silence and then she said, “I don’t know. My life is pretty screwed up too. Why don’t I send you a ticket and you come up here to visit me and Mike for your birthday? We’ll pay your way and when you’re here, let’s try to figure some of this stuff out together. Okay? Ya want to?”

I did. She did. I went.

After all, my till did indeed come up over once again. Three times and you’re out! I was on unpaid leave.

I’d been warned and still it happened. Of course showing up at work stoned out of my mind didn’t help me keep track of things very well. In fact, I remember one day being so out of it that I was putting groceries into a paper sack and trying to make everything fit squarely into the bag. I was high out of my head and when I looked up, the customers, the local vet and his wife, were just sorta staring at me pathetically and sad like. Dr. Dullnig and his wife Teresa came in to the store each week for groceries. I knew them, kinda, and it embarrassed me that I’d spaced out there for a minute and forgot where I was and what I was supposed to be doing. I snapped out of it as best I could and tried to act normal. But it was too late. They knew the signs of a druggie. They were on to me.

I arrived in Oklahoma City the day before my birthday. Cindy and Mike met me at the airport and as we drove to their home in Midwest City Cindy broke the news to me. It was Memorial Day weekend and Mom wanted to stay the night as she and Dad were meeting up for the weekend. (As always, he was living in one place and she another—not separated, but it was his work to contract out and go where the jobs were). My Mom, who was living in Wichita, wasn’t interested in speaking to me. I had screwed up pretty badly and both she and Dad believed in “tough love.” Her policy toward me was: Don’t call us. We’ll call you. And it’d been that way for over a year. Can’t blame them. I had done some pretty awful stuff.

“So, she’s coming through town and I invited her to spend the night with us and go with us to dinner to celebrate your 21st birthday!” Always the peacemaker, Cindy was trying to mend her family.

I cussed and then said, “Great! She’ll start in on me. She always does.”

Mom came the next day and there was a definite chill in the air. We had a real way of ticking each other off. Neither of us knew how to stop. It had become a habit and I was obviously no good at stopping habits.

We all went to dinner and before dinner was even over my Mom and I got into it—big time. Back at Cindy and Mike’s house we all retreated to our corners of the ring. Cindy and Mike went to their room, Mom took the guestroom for the night and I had the couch. It was my 21st birthday, it was nine o’clock at night and we’d all gone to bed. What a celebration.

I lay there on my sister’s sofa as moonlight poured in through the living room window. I couldn’t sleep. I was desperate for dope, and filled with rage toward my Mom. It’s a scary thing to be alone in a semi-dark room with thoughts. It’s dangerous too. I began replaying the conversations Cindy and I’d had over the past two days. We talked about our childhood and our faith and God. We talked about struggles and battles and fears and sadness and heartbreak and how our lives hadn’t turned out the way we’d expected. The way we’d wanted. We both were lost and couldn’t find our way back home.

I lay there on that sofa with the back of my hand resting on my forehead. Where had it all gone wrong? How had I ended up like this? I was raised in a Christian home. My folks went to church every time the doors were opened. I’d accepted Jesus as my personal Savior and was baptized at the ripe old age of five. I knew right from wrong. And yet, here I was living a garbage heap of a life and the stench of it all had become more than I could stand.

It started as just a weary whisper. Just a whisper and not that complex. “Jesus help me.” I repeated that a couple of times and then, “I’ve screwed up so badly. My life’s a mess. If You want me, if You still want me, here I am. If you can do anything with this pile of garbage I’m Yours. I need You desperately. I’m desperate. Jesus, please…help me.”

And honestly, I don’t care what your theology is or what you think happens or doesn’t happen today in this dispensation, but my God came to me. Boom! Just like that. He came to me in power and fire and might. He poured out His cleansing power and Holy Ghost on me and I thought I was gonna die!

The fire started somewhere in my feet and it moved up to my head, back down again and up again and I was on fire. It was a good fire though, but a little scary too. My heart, which was pure stone, was burning hottest of all and I had no idea what was happening to me.

I cried out, “Jesus, thank you! Thank you Jesus! Thank you!”

And whatever it was that was happening to me was taking my breath away. I began confessing my sins—each and every one of them. And with each confession came a new lightness, a new freedom. The next one and more freedom; the next and more light; the next and I thought my heart was going to burst.

“Thank you Jesus! Thank you!”

And there, lying on my sister’s sofa in Midwest City, Oklahoma, I saw His face. His beautiful, lovely, peace-filled face. He looked just like the Jesus on my Sunday school stickers—brown eyed and bearded with long brown flowing hair. And His eyes were filled with love. I looked into those eyes and I was free. Completely and absolutely free. I was forgiven. I was clean.

A song started from deep within me and I opened my mouth to let it out and a melody I had never heard before and words I didn’t even understand came flowing out of my mouth. And I sang and sang and sang. Didn’t know what I was singing but I knew I liked it. The song was leading me home. Finally, and I have no idea what the time frame was, I asked the Lord to stop because my body just couldn’t take anymore. It was too powerful and very overwhelming.

When things finally settled down I felt different. Cravings were gone. The pit in my stomach was gone. I felt lighter, free, new. I got up off the sofa and went to the back guest room, a little shaky, to tell my Mom what had happened.

She was asleep. “Mom,” I gently touched her arm. “Mom. Wake up.” She woke up and asked me what I wanted.

“Mom, something just happened to me and I don’t know what it was.”

She sat up in bed and turned on the night stand lamp. “What do ya mean?” She was still a little sleepy.

“Listen to this,” I said and I started singing just like I had sung on the sofa.

“What is this?” I asked her.

“I don’t know, but I think it’s speaking in tongues,” she answered.

I put my hand up to my mouth, “Oh no! We don’t believe in that!” I was devastated. I’d been raised and saved in an independent, fundamental Bible Baptist church and we did not believe in tongues. Tongues were of the devil.

“Well,” my Mom rubbed her eyes, “if it’ll get you out of the mess you’re in, I’ll take it! Anything beats how you’re livin’ now.”

“Mom, I love you and I’m sorry…for all of it. I’m sorry,” the words came easily and I really, really meant them.

“I love you too Teri. Let God do His work in you,” she said.

And with that I went back to the living room, lay down on that sofa and slept like a baby—peacefully, comfortably, happily resting in my Father’s arms. The struggle was over, the battle had been won. Jesus was indeed victor.

The next day Cindy asked me what’d happened ‘cause she’d heard me singing in the night. I told her. I told her everything. My Dad showed up later that afternoon and needed to bum a cigarette. I’d thrown mine away. The thought of them made me nauseous. God had cured me of a two-and-a-half-pack-a-day habit. Sorry Dad. Don’t smoke anymore. It was then, sitting at my sister’s table that he looked at me, strangely and kind of staring, “When did your eye color change?” he asked. “Your eyes look funny.”

“Funny?” I asked.

“Not funny. Different. You look different.”

And I did. If the eyes are truly the window to the soul, my soul had had a major overhaul. In one moment, in one instant God had delivered me from drugs, cigarettes, lying, sexual sin and He had healed my heart of stone. I was a new girl free and happy and clean. I was so clean.

After that I hungered for the Bible and I’d read it for hours each day. You see, God had cut out all the bitterness and ugliness and He had taken my old heart of stone, which was solid rock, and He had given me a heart of flesh that was able to love again, feel again, to do what the human heart was created to do—worship God.

There’s so much to tell and this blog just shouldn’t be this long. So let me wrap this up…I flew back to Texas. My boyfriend picked me up at the airport. I was wearing the same clothes, I had my usual makeup and hair, I hadn’t altered my physical appearance and yet when I got off the plane my boyfriend asked me, “What the hell happened to you?” I was seriously different.

I started working again. I told my employer about stealing money. She helped me set up a plan to pay the store back a little each week out of my check. Safeway 707 customers noticed a difference in their grocery store clerk too. In fact, Dr. Dullnig and his wife Teresa noticed it right off. “Teri, you look wonderful. What happened to you?!?”

“Well, I don’t know how to explain it, but God has touched my life. I’m free. I’m absolutely and totally free and clean!” I was almost shouting it.

“We can tell! Praise God. We’ve been praying for you for months now and it’s great to see God has answered prayers,” they were practically weeping. They both came around the counter and gave me hugs. It was pretty emotional. It was glorious.

They left the store and about an hour later Dr. Dullnig came back carrying a small package. “My wife and I wanted to give you this. We just felt God told us to share this with you.”

It was Don Richardson’s The Peace Child. I started reading it as soon as I got off work and I couldn’t put it down. I stayed up all night until I’d finished it. It’s a missionary story. After reading it I gave my life to missions. It was the main thing God used to call me to be a missionary. I told the Dullnigs that. They were happy.

But honestly, how on earth could I be anything but a missionary? How could I be anything else? How could I keep this wonderful and good news to myself? God had set me free. I had found the cure to the cancer of the human soul and to keep that life-giving message all to myself and not share it would’ve been horrific. Immoral actually. Just plain wrong.

So now, almost 30 years later I still want to shout it from the housetops. I want to tell everyone I meet that Jesus set me free. He’s my Deliverer, my Savior, my Healer, my Lord and King.

And for those who question doctrinally if the Holy Spirit is still poured out on believers today? I can only say, like the blind guy healed by Jesus in the Temple, “I was blind and now I see.” I know what happened to me was real and I know that God pouring out His Holy Spirit on me empowered me to live a Christian life—something I had never been able to do before. Call it what you will—sanctification, Baptism of the Holy Spirit, second act of grace, a Damascus Road experience—that night on my sister’s sofa forever changed my life. I never did drugs again. I never smoked again. And I became celibate and remained so until I married. I was blind and now I see. I was in bondage and now I’m free. I was weak and now I am strong because of God’s grace in filling me with His Holy Spirit. And because of this I’m compelled to tell anyone and everyone who’ll listen that Jesus is the only hope for the ills suffered by the human race.

He did it for me and He can do it for anyone who asks. There is no struggle, no bondage, no darkness, no fear, no sin, no brokenness, no pit too great for Him. He is able. And all these years later I can truly say I know my Redeemer lives. Praise His name forever! Peace.

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

I had an empty Dr. Pepper can in one hand, using it as an ashtray, and a half-smoked cigarette in the other. I was sitting in a big leather wingback chair Indian style staring at a sign on the desk that read, “No Smoking Please.” Whatever. I was stoned. It wasn’t even noon yet.

The young doctor hurried in the room apologizing. “Sorry to keep you waiting Teri. How are you doin’? You okay?”

No I wasn’t okay. I was miserable. I was 19, flunking out of school, addicted to drugs and smoking two and half packs of cigarettes a day. No. I was not okay.

This doctor worked for my university’s infirmary. He was the doctor who had told me only weeks before that I was pregnant. He was the doctor who strongly encouraged me to choose adoption. I hadn’t. And even after I had gone against his counsel, he was also the doctor that tenderly and kindly took my hand and told me, “If you ever need to talk, I’m here. My office door is always open to you any time. Don’t forget that.”

I remember when he had first said those words to me I thought he was lame. I didn’t need him. I didn’t need anybody. The last thing I wanted to do was talk to some stranger about my “feelings.” But days were getting tougher to get through. I was “self medicating” just to survive and to help take a bit of the edge off of life. Pampers commercials were sending me into deep mourning. At 19, I felt as if my life was over. So, on a whim, without much thought or planning I showed up at the infirmary and said I wanted to talk to the doctor.

The receptionist opened his door for me and I went in, lit a cigarette and sat down. And that’s where he found me.

“I didn’t come here to talk really,” my voice was hard and raspy from all the smoking. “I don’t even know why I came.” He listened. Looked me straight in the face, but just listened.

“I’m having kind of a tough time right now. I mean, I’m ridiculous. I’m crying at commercials. I don’t know what the heck is wrong with me.” A couple of renegade tears had escaped and were slowly moving down my cheeks. I swatted at them acting as if they weren’t really there.

Still. No response. Just listening. Nodding his head gently. His hands were folded on his desk. It was a big desk. A massive desk. One he had inherited from the doctors before him. The school’s infirmary was free and everyone knew only the rookies took this job. He was young. Probably fresh out of medical school. He wore the mandatory white coat, pocket filled with pens and a name tag. His hair was blond; his eyes blue; his complexion tan. I kept thinking, “He’s the perfect guy, with a perfect wife, who has the perfect job and probably has a perfect baby at home.” I hated him and yet I was drawn to him at the same time.

“You see doc this isn’t really me. Ya know?”

“No,” he said it kindly. “What do ya mean?”

“Well, this girl sitting in front of you. It’s not the real me. I’m kinda like two people. There’s this Teri who’s smoking in your office brazenly disregarding the No Smoking sign. I do drugs, go clubbing, cuss like a sailor, sleep around and smoke constantly and my life’s a wreck…”

Still smiling; still listening; still gently nodding his head, “Go on…”

“But ya see, there’s another Teri deep inside me. She’s five years old. And I have to protect her from all of this crap. She’d never approve of my lifestyle. She’s different than me. She’s not aware that I exist. And if she knew what I was doing, she’d be devastated.”

“Teri,” he asked, “what happened to you when you were five?”

And without hesitating or thinking or even formulating the answer I quietly said, “I accepted Jesus as my personal Savior.” It was almost rote. It came from some place deep inside and flowed out of my mouth easily and quite naturally.

Boy! Did that ever have an impact on him! He jumped up out of his chair and ran around the enormous desk and knelt right by my chair, “Teri I knew it! I knew it! The first day I met you I went home and told my wife, ‘This girl is different. She’s got to have a Christian background.’ And we’ve been praying for you every day! Every day Teri we’ve been asking God to draw you back to Himself. I knew it! Oh Teri, Jesus wants you back! Jesus loves you!”

Whoa there partner. I physically recoiled at his response. I started pushing myself out of the chair in an attempt to just get away from him.

“What? What are you talking about?!?” I motioned for him to go back to his seat.

His face went from bright excitement to a shaded expression of disappointment.

“Hold on there doc. I’m not going to have some kind of religious experience right here in your office! Okay? You need to just settle down there.”

“Why not?” he asked flat out.

“Well, for one thing there’s no way on earth that God is going to forgive me. The other thing is I have tried Christianity and the truth of it is, I just ain’t no good at it. I believe in Jesus. I believe the Bible is true, but man I have struggled all my life trying to be a Christian, trying to live for God and I just can’t do it. I don’t have what it takes. So, thanks but no thanks. Besides, God is not going to forgive me for what I’ve done! He’s not going to simply look the other way. I had an abortion for pity’s sake. You think He just forgives crap like that? You’re crazy.”

The young doctor pulled a prescription pad out of the top drawer of his desk. “Now you’re talkin’!” I thought to myself. After all, this is what I’d really come for anyway. I needed something to get me out of the darkness. Finally we were getting somewhere.

He finished writing and then looked up from the prescription pad, “Do you have a Bible at home Teri?” he asked.

Oddly I did. When I’d left for college I packed my childhood Bible for some reason. It was a navy blue leather-bound Bible with my name inscribed in gold letters on the front. The front and back inside covers, along with all the white lead up pages were covered in Sunday School stickers I had received as a child. Pictures of Jesus praying in the Garden; small lambs, praying hands, several crosses and some stars. Achievement stickers: verses memorized, perfect attendance, bringing a friend—I had them all.

“Yeah, why?” I answered very skeptically.

The doctor pulled the written prescription from the pad and slid the piece of paper across the massive, leather topped desk. I looked at it and was completely confused.

He had written, I John 1:9.

“Teri, I want you to go home and look up this verse. I want you to read it every morning, every day at lunch, every evening and every night before you go to bed. I want you to memorize it. I want you to recite it. I want you to speak this verse out loud until it’s in your heart and your mind. Okay?”

Not what I wanted, but he was crazy and it was useless to argue. He insisted on praying with me before I left. I was craving a joint and couldn’t wait to get out of there.

I wish I could say that immediately things got better. But they didn’t. They actually got worse. My drug habit increased. I started stealing from my employer. I lied every single day and I was constantly in financial trouble. Overdrafts, health problems, broken relationships. Life was dark and bleak and oftentimes I felt it wasn’t worth living.

One day, about a year after I had been in his office, I ran into the doctor in the parking lot of a small strip center near my work. He was trying to break into his car. Apparently he had locked his keys in there and didn’t have a clue how to get the door unlocked. He was working quite unsuccessfully with a bent up coat hanger he’d gotten from the dry cleaners he’d just been to.

“Hey doc! What’s up?” He was more than a little frustrated.

“Teri!” no doubt he was distracted. “Hi. I’m just an idiot. I locked my keys in my car.”

I took the hanger from him and started working on pulling the nail-headed lock into the up position.

“Hey Teri. My wife and I are moving. We leave day after tomorrow. We’re going back to the small town we grew up in. She’s a nurse and well, we believe God is calling us to go there and set up practice. They’ve been without a doctor for a long time and uh, like I said, we just feel this is the right thing to do.”

I kept working on the lock and was thinking, “Who gives a rip? Why should I care what you’re doing?”

Finally I pulled up the knob and got the door unlocked. He was relieved and smiling.

“You know, I was so frustrated that I’d locked my keys in my car, but now I’m thinking God planned it this way. I’m so glad to see you. Are you doin’ okay?”

No I wasn’t. I believe he could tell that from the weight loss, extreme dark circles under my eyes and my lack of enthusiasm.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Good luck to you doc. I hope you have a wonderful life.” I hated him. I hated that he was happy and successful and moving and living and I wasn’t.

I started to walk off and he hollered at me, “Teri!”

I turned around.

“You’re a good girl Teri! Please don’t ever forget that. Don’t listen to the voices that tell you you aren’t. ‘Cause you are. You’re a good girl.”

I faked a smile and waved halfheartedly. I turned back around quickly because I wasn’t about to let him see me cry.

I don’t know who reads this old blog. I can’t even tell you why I’m writing about this today. I’d like to finish the story tomorrow. I want to tell how God pulled me out of that pit and cleaned me and healed me and made me new. I hope you don’t mind me indulging in this memory. Is it nostalgia? I don’t know. But I just keep thinking about how good God is and how wonderful and vast His love is and I guess I just wanted to share a little of myself with you. I’ll close with this verse and then I’ll finish up the story tomorrow. Revelation 12:11. “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony and they loved not their lives even unto death.” Peace.

There is nothing more frustrating or discouraging when tragedy strikes than hearing folks say, “Well, it must have been God’s will. He allowed it to happen.”

What?!? Wait a minute! Put on the brakes! I’m a Calvinist and I don’t even believe that.

The truth of the matter is God’s will is not being done in most places in most lives in most of this world. Where is this coming from? Well one source is Louie Giglio founder of the Passion Movement. He believes the Lord’s Prayer isn’t for today’s Christians. He thinks it doesn’t need to be prayed today because of the New Covenant; it was just a sample prayer for the Disciples and once Christ rose from the dead, that prayer was insignificant and outdated. Giglio believes today the Father’s will is being done. Our sins are forgiven. And we need to just thank God for these truths. Really? Giglio obviously has never heard Brian Williams deliver the evening news. OMW. God’s will is not being done and never before in the history of Christianity have we needed the Lord’s Prayer more than today. We need to be shoutin’ “Thy Kingdom come! Thy will be done!”

(Let me add here that Giglio also believes that we don’t need to ask for forgiveness of sins once we’ve accepted Jesus as our Savior. God has already forgiven us of our sins—past, present and future and now all we have to do is thank Him for forgiving us. Guess what? I disagree with that too, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog).

Sorry, I interrupted myself there. Okay, back on track…I really, really disagree with this whole concept. I think God’s will is NOT done most of the time: every time someone is murdered, God’s will is not done. Every time I hate someone, God’s will is not being done. Every time a drug addict pokes a needle in her arm, God’s will is not being done. God’s will is not being done on this earth and Christ has called us to pray that it would be done. He has told us, “When you pray…pray this way.”

Horrible things happen. Heartbreaking things happen to both the believer and nonbeliever. There are times in our lives when our faith is shaken to its very core and all hope seems lost. These crises of faith can be seen in the violent death of a loved one, the incurable disease of a young mother, a tragic car accident where a drunk driver stole the lives of innocent people. A pastor once told me of a young couple he had to counsel whose three-year-old daughter had been brutally raped and murdered. This couple had followed Christ all of their lives and had even prayed that day for their daughter’s protection. Who in the world would be so bold and heartless as to tell that young couple God’s will was done—that He had allowed their precious baby to be raped and killed? The very thought is appalling. The truth of the matter is that we still have an enemy out there and that God’s perfect will is not always done. Bad things, evil things happen to good people. Innocents suffer. And this is why our wrecked and broken lives are in such dire need of a Savior. We need a Comforter, Helper, Teacher to navigate these difficult, dangerous and stormy waters we call life. Our hope, even when tragedy strikes, is found in our Redeemer.

Here’s what we DO know about God: He is faithful and merciful and He has promised to redeem the whole world and all that is in it. This is why heaven is described as a place with no more suffering, no more tears, no more pain. Heaven, not earth, is described this way. We focus on heaven oftentimes to help us remember that the best is yet to come.

Here’s what we DO know about God: He is able to take the most heartbreaking, horrible circumstances and actually redeem them; actually turn them for good in our lives. Remember Joseph? His brothers beat him, threw him in a pit and then sold him off to slave traders. Joseph suffered horrible injustices, false accusations, broken promises, but when he finally hooked up with his brothers years later he said to them, “You meant it for evil, but God turned it for good.” Don’t tell me that it was God’s will for Joseph’s brothers to sin. No way. It is never God’s will for the human race to sin. God sent Joseph prophetic dreams about his future. God let Joseph in on the plan. Then Joseph’s brothers had a jealousy meltdown and sinned. God could have gotten old Joseph into Pharaoh’s courts and made him a leader in Egypt without Joseph’s brothers doing evil. We won’t know until heaven what had been God’s original plan for getting the boy in there, but I will guarantee you Joseph’s brothers sinning wasn’t in that plan.

So, God is able to turn things in our lives, the most horrific things, into good. That’s called redemption. He is able to take our circumstances and weave something productive and healing out of them, uh…that is if we surrender them to Him, of course. We take the broken pieces of our lives, those broken by others and those we break ourselves, and we lay them at the foot of the Cross and then a miracle happens. Redemption. Healing. Restoration. And our loving Father provides these things to us because He knows His will isn’t always done.

Never in the history of mankind has the world needed followers of Christ to pray the Lord’s Prayer more often and more earnestly than today. I keep thinking about the passage in Matthew 11:12, “and the violent take it by force.” Maybe the Lord’s Prayer is a weapon Jesus left with us to take back our world for Jesus Christ. Maybe the Lord’s Prayer is an action we participate in where we cry out to the Living God…THY WILL BE DONE! We declare to the heavens, “YOUR KINGDOM COME!” The Lord’s Prayer is for all believers everywhere and is to be prayed by followers of Christ until Jesus comes and makes all things new. Let’s pray it loudly, boldly, with heart, soul, mind and strength and let’s pray it often. It’s the perfect prayer given by our Perfect Savior and we have been told by Him to pray it until He comes…

Matthew 6:9-13 (Amplified Bible)
Pray, therefore, like this: Our Father Who is in heaven, hallowed (kept holy) be Your name.
Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven (left, remitted, and let go of the debts, and have given up resentment against) our debtors.
And lead (bring) us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen

Peace.

In 1991 the average Muscovite woman had 18 abortions in a lifetime. (The national average for women across Russia at that time was six). The procedure became so common and such an everyday occurrence that most Muscovite women ceased calling it an abortion and decided to call it douche or a cleansing. It was a tough statistic for me to grapple with going into Moscow to teach in the fall of 1991.

Natasha was the perfect Soviet woman: highly educated, self-reliant, able to prepare a feast out of nothing, great sense of humor, pleasantly plump and very self assured. My university assigned Natasha to me when I first arrived in Moscow. She and her husband Gerrig met me at the airport, loaded my oversized suitcases and boxes into their small Soviet-made Lada and took me home with them. “Terezzza. Yuur flat is reddy, but I kannot bearr this idea of you beink there all alone. Itz too awful foorr me to stand. You stay with us foorr a few dayz.”

Like with all Soviet Union females, you don’t argue. You just agree and do as you’re told. Actually I welcomed the opportunity to be in their home. They had two exquisite boys: Misha 12 and Danny 10. They both spoke English as did Gerrig. They all made me feel right at home. A hot shower, a delicious home-cooked meal and a warm cozy bed—it was a great way to start my new life in the USSR. One week after arriving, the Soviet Union collapsed and we all had trouble knowing what to call this powerful nation. It was a lot like the artist formerly known as Prince. We were a country without a name.

In the fall of 1991 food shortages in Moscow were escalating. Stores were empty, breadlines took six hours sometimes and the overall atmosphere of the city was desperate. People were glad that the communists had been removed, but they didn’t know what to replace them with. The Soviet citizens were suffering from some of the same ailments as the Hebrew children coming out of slavery from Egypt. They just didn’t know what to do with their new found freedom. Life was hard and if it hadn’t been for Natasha and Gerrig I couldn’t have made it. Gerrig had ways of getting milk, yogurt, cheese and even meat on the black market—a place that seemed to exist in some alternate universe. Natasha was always giving me care packages filled with apples and small packets of sugar and even coffee. Where they found these things I have no idea but whatever they had they always shared with me.

My ruble salary, which was equivalent to that of the university’s president, went from the value of $600 US dollars (a very good living wage when negotiated) to less than $60 in only 30 days. Inflation was a nightmare and trying to survive on $60 a month was absolutely impossible. In my first year living in Moscow I lost over 100 pounds. I called it the Moscow starvation diet. There was no food, no milk, no bread, no products. I survived that first year because of the generous hearts of Natasha and Gerrig.

Many frosty and cold winter weekends I spent with Natasha and her men in their small high-rise flat out in the burbs. We took midnight walks in the snow under a full moon. They tried to teach me to ice skate on a frozen pond and taught me how to make delicious meals from scratch with only a handful of ingredients. Gerrig loved to serenade Natasha and me at the cramped kitchen table with only candlelight. He said he like to pretend it was a French café and we were loyal fans. (He probably meant groupies).

Natasha had a PhD in English literature from Moscow State University—the Harvard of the Soviet world. She wanted to go for a thing called a habilitatus. This is a degree just higher than a PhD and while common in Europe, most North Americans aren’t familiar with it. I wasn’t.

Anyway, she wanted to get this degree and her dissertation topic was: fabrics and textiles found in the Bible. Now, in 1991 Natasha had never owned a Bible. She had read parts of it on a study program in Great Britain, but she did not own a Bible and had never read it through—actually had only read excerpts. She asked me to help on the project and it was a blast! I gave her a brand new English Bible and I had my own old trustworthy Bible and we would sit at her kitchen table into the late night/early morning hours hunting stories of fabric, cloth, and textiles in both the Old and the New Testaments.

We had Joseph’s coat of many colors. Stop for the story. Rahab the Harlot’s scarlet rope. Stop for the story. Jacob and Esau’s birth and the thread around the wrist. Stop for the story. The veil in the Temple. Stop for the story.

Finally we came to the New Testament and the scene at the foot of the Cross. And there, discussing the seamless robe of Jesus, Natasha heard the Redemption story for the first time in her life.

The boys were asleep. Gerrig was out of town and it was so very quiet there in Natasha’s little kitchen. It was cold outside and she had the oven on to give us some extra warmth. I told Natasha of Jesus’s love, of his sacrifice, and of his joy and peace. I told her of his promised return and of heaven. She listened intently, earnestly, with both her heart and her mind.

“Natasha, would you like to accept Jesus as your Savior? Would you like to invite him into your heart?” I asked almost in a whisper.

“Yes,” she whispered back, tears just ready to spill over the brim of her eyes, “but I cannot.”

“You cannot? Whadda ya mean?” I stopped whispering and looked her right square in the eyes.

“God cannot accept me. You don’t understand.” And with that, the conversation was over!

Natasha got up, started cleaning up the remains of our tea, and we were off to bed. Good night.

I prayed for Natasha as I slipped into sleep, but the subject didn’t come up again the entire weekend. However, we remained very close.

One afternoon I was heading home finished with classes and meetings. I was tired and hungry and wondering what I had in the fridge to eat while I was waiting for the bus. Out of the corner of my eye I saw this well-bundled Babushka waddling toward the bus stop. No problem. Mass transportation is most people’s main way of getting around. I didn’t think anything of her approach until she got way too much into my personal space and then…she touched me! She actually started pawing at me and crying and pawing and crying. Scared me to death. I had no idea what this crazy woman was saying and I couldn’t get her off me.

After a few moments, I saw Natasha heading towards us. Thank God! She was hurrying because she saw the “wild caged animal look” in my rolling eyes. She approached quickly, but gently asked the crazed woman what the matter was.

They exchanged a lengthy dialog. Then Natasha says to me, “This old grandmother thinkz you are Angel from Heaven. She sez she won’t walk away until you give her a blessing. She meanz it Terezzza. She wantz you to give her blessing. Okay?”

I looked confused and I ask Natasha, “Did you tell her I’m not an angel?!?” (Note here: Where’s my Mom at times like these? She needs to hear that some folks think I’m an angel!)

“Yez. Yez. I explain everything to her, but she iz very insistent.” Natasha sighs.

“Well, okay. I can do that.”

And with all the strength I had and with a great amount of joy I might add, I laid down my stuff, put my hands on her scarf covered head and prayed a blessing over my well-bundled Babushka. I prayed a blessing on her that she’d be healthy and strong and happy and that all of her needs would be supplied, that Jesus would be the light of her life and that he would cover her from the top of her head to the soles of her feet and I gave it all I got!

When I was finished I said “Amen.” The Babushka said “Amen.” Satisfied, the little Babushka went waddling on her way and there in the silence, waiting for the late bus, I was left alone with Natasha.

Awkward.

Then, Natasha broke the silence, “Well Terezza, you do have very pleazant look on your face.”

And that’s all we ever said about it.

Week after week; month after month; I’d spend weekends with Natasha and Gerrig. I’d go to the summer Dacha with them, took little road trips and watched the boys grow up. We went to Christmas and Easter services together at the Orthodox Church in their neighborhood. Often I’d ask Natasha if she was ready to ask Jesus into her heart and she’d always have the same response: He could never love me. I believe in God. I do. But he could never love me.

After nearly two years I found myself once again sitting at Natasha’s kitchen table with the oven on for heat and the boys sound asleep and Gerrig out of town on work.

“Natasha, don’t you want to accept Jesus as your personal savior? He loves you so much,” I delved right in.

“Terinka, you do not understand. God could never love me. You? Yes, he can love you. Look at you! You’re such a good girl and nice girl and of course God loves you. Jesus loves you. But he could never love me. You see I have sinned so great that God could never to forgive me. It is the worse thing anyone could do and God cannot forgive it.”

She looked so weary in that moment. She had the weight of the world on her shoulders and looked as though she would crumble under its burden.

“Natasha, I’ve shown you in scripture that God forgives us of all sin if we only ask. Jesus’s blood can cleanse us from all things—it’s that powerful.” I held her hand.

“Not this,” she said. She could barely get the words out, “I had an abortion when I was 19. It was Gerrig’s baby. We were too young and we had our schooling. Everyone said it’s no problem, but I knew! I knew it was wrong! And I never can forget that I killed my own little baby. And God cannot forget it too.”

And there it was. The burden. The weight. The heartbreak that time and time again had prevented Natasha from accepting Jesus as her Savior.

She took a deep breath, “It’s different for you Terinka. You are so kind and lovely. It’s easy for God to love you. You are good. You do good. You help others. Of course God loves you and Jesus is your Savior. It’s just not the same for me.”

I waited. I struggled. I cried. Then I got up my courage…

“Really Natasha? You think I’m good and that’s why God loves me?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“No Natasha! I’m good BECAUSE God loves me. You see Natasha I too had an abortion at the age of 19. It was horrible and I carried around the weight and pain of that sin for years until I asked Jesus to forgive me and HE DID! He did Natasha. He forgave me and cleansed me and took away all the pain and burden of my sin. He gave peace and he cut out the ugly.”

Natasha looked up. Unbelieving at first and then she broke down weeping. Finally she looked up and there was this little glimmer of hope—a small little light in her face, “Teresa! If he can forgive you then certainly he can forgive me too! Correct? He can forgive me too?!?”

And there, on that cold snowy night in a small cramped Soviet apartment kitchen my sweet and gentle friend Natasha bowed her head and asked Jesus into her heart.

And there also at that small kitchen table I learned what true redemption is all about. That we serve a God so big and so mighty that he can take the most horrible and vulgar things in our lives and actually turn them for good. The thing I was the most ashamed of, the thing I would never share with my brothers and sisters in the church, the thing that I knew I was forgiven for, but believed others could not forgive–that thing was the tool God redemptively used to explain to Natasha how great and wide and deep are his mercies.

I’ve often wondered why God chooses mere mortals, frail, undependable, flawed, weak human beings to be conveyors of his love, truth and grace to a hurt and dying world. I’ve often asked him, “Isn’t there a better way of doing this?” But it is clear. It’s these broken, flawed, forgiven vessels of grace that are able to point to the lost and say, “HEY, if he can do it for me, he can do it for you.” And there we are as free will agents living in God’s love and grace shouting to other free will agents, “Here’s the way! Here’s the answer! Come on! Follow me!” And we all rest in the safe, healing and loving arms of our Father…together, broken, yet mended. Peace.

I hate folding laundry. Don’t even get me started on putting up the dishes. I don’t like monotonous work like making my bed every morning, going to the grocery store, putting gasoline in the car, or even showering. (Sorry, but personal hygiene is SO monotonous; have you even seen my hair?).

I’ve always struggled with routine. That’s why teaching was such a great job for me. It’s cyclical, but not routine. Every day we could do something different; mix it up a little. And if I (as the teacher) wanted to fly off the radar screen a bit, it was okay, ‘cause I knew where we were going. I was free to take different routes in getting to the same place. Fun. Very unroutinish.

But routine is mundane. Daily tasks can be very monotonous. I hate repetition. (I took piano lessons for four years and I still can’t play scales). Mundane things take a lot of energy and a lot of discipline. Discipline. Ugh.

There have been times in my life, especially in recent years, where I covered up my big pile of lazy slothfulness with a tarp I liked to label “depression.”

“Oh, I’m depressed.” Or, “I’ve got the blues today.” I’d use this excuse so that others would back off and not expect too much out of me or from me. “Daryl, could you do the grocery shopping this week? I’m really struggling with being down right now and just don’t feel like it.” (My heartfelt apologies to those who truly do struggle with depression—it is wrong of me to use that term to cover up my simple laziness).

When I allow this kind of slothfulness to take over, I don’t answer the phone, get the mail, or even leave the house. Everything seems like so much effort. How do I know I’m not clinically depressed? Because if it’s something I WANT to do, I miraculously get my big rear off the couch and do it with great zeal and enthusiasm. There’s a big difference between chemically imbalanced depression and plain old, “I just don’t feel like it.” The first is a real medical condition; the second is just laziness. I know because I’m a lazy girl.

Kathleen Norris has written a book, Acedia and Me. She nails me in this book. Pins me right up against the wall. Acedia is not a word we use in common, modern, everyday English. I had to look the thing up. I had no idea what it meant. Was it a town in Maine? Was it an exotic spice from the far East? What the heck does acedia mean? Norris explains it very clearly, creatively and in great depth. Sadly, (or not so sadly), in defining the word Norris actually describes me. Reading the book, it is as if Kathleen Norris has been a secret guest in my home and watched me slothfully excuse my way out of life—out of living a productive and meaningful life. I feel she exposed me to the whole world. Thanks a lot Kathleen Norris!

Acedia is a thief we allow into our lives. It is an attitude that we cloak with other, more sympathetic names. But the bottom line is: acedia is sin. One of the seven deadly. And, in my opinion, it’s actually one of the deadliest.

Lust. Not a real problem for me. Greed. Not so much. Envy. Nah. Pride. Sometimes. Wrath. Occasionally. Gluttony. Don’t get me started. But sloth…acedia…yeah…that’s mine! Especially when it comes to repetition and routine. “Oh! I’m sorry. I’m just not wired that way. I’m more of the artistic type. Can’t help the way I’m designed, right?” Give me a break.

In the letter to the Colossians Paul writes, “Whatever you do in word or deed do it all (everything) in the name of the Lord giving thanks.” Paul. Why did he have to be such a prolific writer? He certainly didn’t struggle with acedia.

The only cure for acedia is discipline. Hardcore, good old fashioned discipline. You’d think I’d know that by now with my intense love for all things Richard Foster including his best-selling book, Celebration of Discipline. But I got off track somewhere. Is it life in these United States? Am I suffering from acedia because of the ease in Zion? I’ve never struggled so much spiritually as I have while living in wealthy, no-needs, consumer town, self-reliant, self-absorbed Johnson County, Kansas. Maybe acedia is a disease of the middle-class American, who is obsessed with feeling good, being entertained, anesthetizing-oneself-out-of-any-pain. When our motto is “If it feels good…DO IT!” Then might our other motto, the unspoken one, be “If it DOESN’T feel good, don’t do it?”

Acedia is my sin. And the only antiserum for this sin is spiritual discipline. It is me opening up my heart, mind and soul to the living God and inviting him into the most mundane tasks of my life and celebrating his love and beauty in the most monotonous of those tasks.

Chopping onions for chili? Praise the Lord! Folding two weeks of laundry? Worship the living God by thanking him for all those clothes when others don’t even have enough. Going to the grocery store? Rejoice in arms and legs that are fully functional (big, but fully functional) and a car to drive.

There is something absolutely holy about the mundane. The sheer discipline of routine and inviting the Holy Spirit into these monotonous chores creates in me a right attitude, but also exercises my spirit to see God’s hand and grace in all things.

Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Kathleen Norris writes, “Showering, shampooing, brushing the teeth, taking a multiple vitamin, going for a daily walk, as unremarkable as they seem are acts of self-respect. They enhance the ability to take pleasure in oneself and in the world.” In caring for myself I can better care for others—that should be my motivation. For me, the greatest weapon against acedia is to get off the couch, put down the remote control, turn off the Internet and hit my knees. Through prayer, worship, Bible reading and doing all the mundane tasks of life with great joy as unto the Lord, I can stop the sin of acedia in my life and as Kathleen Norris has helped me understand I can begin to see clearly again and reclaim my life through ordinary, mundane acts. There is indeed holiness in the mundane. Peace.

Retarded. That’s what we called folks back in the day when I was an MR education major at Southwest Texas State. MR = Mental retardation.

I was actually a member of a group called TARs: Teens Aid the Retarded. But people started frowning on calling kids retarded. So, it went from retarded to mentally handicapped. But that was determined too derogatory. So, we switched to mentally challenged. Uh…still too derogatory and finally, years later we came up with special needs. Special. Well, I don’t know what’s so special about special needs.

Sunday as Daryl and I were pulling into a space in the church’s parking lot I saw this big guy, 6’2” maybe 6’3”, leaping out of the passenger side of a big old Buick barely waiting for the car to come to a complete stop. He was dressed nicely in a pair of crisply ironed khakis and a navy blue V-neck pullover. But his running was…well…spastic. Very spastic.

Daryl and I got out of our car and I said with a smirk, “Look at that weirdo guy running…” And then we got closer, ‘cause he didn’t run too fast, and then I realized he’s a “special needs” guy. He’s so tall and has beautiful blond hair, very well cut. His outfit is so sharp and if it weren’t for his motor skills being a bit off, you might not notice his issue at first glance.

He stopped running and held tightly to the handrail to negotiate the fifteen or so steps up to the church entrance. We caught up with him on the stairs and I couldn’t stop looking at him. Sorrow entered my heart, deep and heavy. I whispered over to Daryl, “Another one of those God mystery things. Think about it man, one chromosome off and he’s ruined for the rest of his life.”

I saw his Dad get out of the car. He was a senior citizen, well into his 80s.

Watching this guy, 35 to 40 years old, I could see what he could have been—a handsome athlete, a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher—there was a real essence about him like when someone’s fragrance stays in the room after they’ve left. It was like that—a hint, a glimpse into what he might have been. It made me grieve. That was my attitude as we entered into the church Sunday morning.

We go to a big church. A traditional church. The kind of church where people sit in the same pew, the same row, the same section every single Sunday. Even though I like to mix it up a bit, Big D is a creature of habit and likes to sit in the same pew, the same row, the same section every Sunday. So we do. But oddly enough, for the first time, the special needs guy came and sat right in front of us. I’d never seen him before. I watched him. Sorrow filled and disturbed, I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.

He on the other hand was so happy. He was looking around at everyone smiling and greeting folks, totally uninhibited by anything. Then he sees a friend of his and with the delight and joy of a child he leaps up from the pew bounds over to grab his friend, a girl of the same age, who is not only retarded, but blind. He walks her carefully over to the pew where his stuff is. He carried a Bible. I’m thinking, “Uh-oh! I’ll never be able to focus on the message today because I’ll be staring at them.” I’m so easily distracted. Oh brother.

They talked a little bit to each other. He was very protective of her, the way our grandson Jack, who is three, acts around his three-year-old girl cousin Carrie Lynn. Exactly the same.

We are all standing up singing. The blind girl was wearing a heavy down jacket, it was like 50 degrees outside, but anyway, she decided to take it off and it was hung on her bulky woolen sweater, so I reached out (shut up) and helped her off with her bright red, fur trimmed, down filled jacket (did I mention it was like 50 degrees outside?). I pulled off the jacket and folded it carefully and placed it next to her. Then the blind girl, totally unexpectedly, turned around and with total abandonment and deep sincerity she hugged me. Big and strong and awkwardly long, but it happened. And suddenly, I felt God. I felt Him in that hug. It was as if His arms were around me; it was His warm embrace and it felt good, really good and full of unconditional love. I didn’t want to let go and neither did she. By the “American standard of hugging” it was too long; for a hardened fifty-year-old, menopausal, grumpy woman, it was perfect. I felt myself melting and all the hard, ugly stuff that had built up over the week was rapidly evaporating. I was in the presence of the Lord and I knew it.

After singing we did the obligatory uncomfortable handshake with our neighbor. The big guy turned around, “Hi! My name is Todd. What’s your name?” A little too loudly; a little choppy. In all of our months of attending this huge church, it’s the first time anyone has asked me my name—week in; week out, handshakes every Sunday and yet it’s Todd who is the first to ask me my name. Sharon gives me another hug and tells me her name, sweetly, shyly, beautifully.

As the announcements were being read and business was being handled I couldn’t take my eyes off of Todd and Sharon. I started thinking about how excited Todd was to enter the house of the Lord. How he ran to enter the church. I thought about how he came into the sanctuary with a big, unreserved smile on his beautiful face and how he looked to and fro for his good friend Sharon. I thought of Sharon’s blindness, her “handicap” and her ministry to me. They sang so joyfully, uninhibited, smiling, happy, worry free. And as I watched my little special needs couple I realized they are the lucky ones. They are the blessed ones. They are God’s gift to all of us here on this earth. They are free to love without reservation. They don’t know how to be rude, or cruel or unfriendly. I began crying as I realized they should be feeling sorry for me. I am the pitiful one.

Jesus said that if anyone wanted to enter the Kingdom of Heaven they had to become like a little child…Todd and Sharon will always have the hearts of children and that missing chromosome is a gift that allows them to love God and others fully, unconditionally and without shame.

Corrie ten Boom (yes, I just had to mention her) worked with special needs kids before WWII and her imprisonment by the Germans. The Germans knew of her work with these kids and it frustrated many of them—confused them; irritated them. Nazi policy was to execute all handicapped citizens. Mental or physical handicaps were not part of the program so anyone with these challenges was killed.

One German officer at the concentration camp was so irritated by Corrie’s work among the mentally retarded that he called her into his office one day to question her about such meaningless and worthless work. Corrie tells her story in her book, Common Sense Not Needed. Here’s an excerpt:

“Once, in a concentration camp, I was questioned by a Nazi officer. He asked me much about my life, about my work in the Underground, and about my spare time. I told him that I had given Bible lessons to subnormal people.

“‘Don’t you regard that as a waste of time?’ he asked. ‘Surely it is much better to convert a normal person than a subnormal one.’

“This was fully in accord with his Nazi way of thinking. So I told him about Jesus, who had always cared for all who were weak and despised, adding that it might well be possible that the officer and I were much less important in the sight of the Lord Jesus than one of these poor creatures. I was sent back to my cell.

“The next morning the officer sent for me and said that he had slept badly. He had thought much about what I had said.

“‘You spoke about Jesus,’ he said, ‘I don’t know anything about Him. Tell me what you know of Him.’

“I then spoke of the Lord Jesus as the Light of the World who can lighten our life, if we give ourselves to Him and receive Him as Savior and Lord. Three days I was questioned and three days I had the opportunity to speak about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

“A conversation about the feeble-minded had changed a most dangerous moment for a prisoner into a testimony to the glory of God.”

Corrie goes on to say, “I like Mongoloids. Often they are such lovable people. Why does God allow them to be born to quite healthy parents, who neither drank nor committed those sins which so often cause the birth of subnormal children? I don’t know. Mongoloids are sometimes as sweet as very little children. Their IQ is exceedingly low.

“Anton was a Mongoloid. He could neither speak nor walk along. He was for a very short time in my class. He listened to my Bible stories, but when I spoke too long to suit him, he yawned like a monkey. I did not know how much Anton understood really.

“Once I took his hand and touched his five fingers one after another and said, ‘Jesus loves Anton so much.’ The next week, immediately Anton saw me, he took my hand and with his fingers outspread he just looked at me with a face full of longing.

“‘Jesus loves Anton so much,’ I repeated, touching a finger at every word. Then I taught him to do it himself.

“After that, every week, Anton showed me with his fingers how much Jesus loved him. The last time I saw him, I told him while he touched his left fingers with his right hand, ‘Jesus loves Anton so much. How thankful I am for that! You too, Anton?”’

“‘Yes,’ said Anton, as his face lit up.

“It was the only word I ever heard from Anton. It is the most worthwhile word that any normal or subnormal person can speak to the Lord Jesus.”

I Thessalonians 5:14-15 says, “and we exhort you, brothers and sisters…comfort the feeble-minded, support the infirm, be patient unto all; see no one renders evil for evil, but always pursue that which is good one to another and to all…”

I saw clearly Sunday morning how Todd and Sharon lived out that Scripture because I am the feeble-minded, not them. And I suddenly realized what’s so special about special needs. Peace.

Remember Billy Joel’s 1970′s hit “Just the Way You Are?” I like that song. Don’t go changin’ to try and please me…I love you just the way you are. Pretty. I like it.

Anne Lamott writes in her book Travelling Mercies, “God loves you just the way you are and He loves you too much to leave you that way.” In my life I have often found it difficult to understand the healthy spiritual balance between God’s unmerited grace and acts of holy living. We as Christians are called to live holy lives, but quite honestly I have struggled with that from time to time—especially when I was a single gal. Let me share with you what happened to me once…

The Wagners were an awesome German family who lived across the street from my friend Terri Fleming. Terri was teaching for the U.S. air force base in Dresden, Germany. I was staying with her while traveling around the globe on a missionary journey. The Wagners had two sons, one of which I found very attractive—I mean very “I-want-to-go-out-with-you” attractive. When we first met I got the sense that he was interested as well. And at that first meeting he asked me to go out. I wanted to go out. So I said yes. When he came to pick me up that night he asked me if I wanted to go to a dance club. Now, dance clubs are not in themselves evil. In fact, I know great, godly Christians who can go to a dance club, have a great time and not sin. There are even those radical, wonderful, street-savvy Christians who can go to a dance club and actually do evangelism. I, however, am not one of those people. Dance clubs for me are simply wrong. Going out with a guy who was not a Believer, was also wrong for me. That entire date with Wagner Boy was not only wrong, but for me it was disobedience…okay, call it what it was: sin.

At the end of our date, Wagner Boy asked me if I would like to go out the next day and do some sightseeing. I said yes (!) without a moment’s hesitation. Even though the time at the dance club had given me a pit in my stomach, I still wanted male attention so badly that I was willing to disobey God… AGAIN! Please know that not once in the entire evening, nor during our time together the next day, did I ever mention my faith, my commitment to Christ, or the purpose of my travels ( missions). Not once did I speak the name of Jesus to Wagner Boy.

I’d been in Germany three weeks and I was seeing Wagner Boy on a regular basis. I liked him. He liked me. It felt like I had a boyfriend. An interesting and exotic boyfriend. I so dug his accent.

But, I knew it was time to move on. Like the old Apostle Paul said it, “I was impelled by the Holy Spirit to go…” I needed to go to Brussels. People were waiting on me there. I had plans there. Brussels was on my missionary journey agenda. But I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to leave Wagner Boy. So I made all kinds of excuses not to head on down the road.

I kept telling myself that I had a good excuse not to go. I was out of cash. No mula. Nada dinero. So whenever I felt the “impelling” to leave Germany and the Wagner Boy, I would simply remind the Lord that I didn’t have the money for the train ticket to Brussels. Period. Settled. Done. And at this time my devotional life was, well, nonexistent. I wasn’t even praying for the train ticket money to come in. I wasn’t reading my Bible, seeking God’s will or even attempting to.

One afternoon, my friend Terri Flemming needed to go to the PX to pick up some stuff from the USA. Terri had PX privileges because even though she was a civilian, she worked at the Department of Defense Dependents Schools (DODDS) and that gave her access to the PX. I told her I would ride along with her, but would stay in the van.

Terri was a church-goer, but I wasn’t sure if she had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And quite frankly, I was just too busy with Wagner Boy to find out where Terri was spiritually. I had talked to her about it a couple of times, in between my outings with Wagner Boy. (You see, I called them anything but dates because subconsciously I knew dating an unbeliever was wrong.) And Terri always answered my question correctly—but a little too text bookish perhaps. She never said that she was actually “born-again.”

So, I sat there in the van on that beautiful afternoon in Dresden, Germany, waiting for Terri to come out of the PX. I had the doors open and was enjoying the sunshine. I was taking it easy. I saw a woman come out of the PX and she was walking right toward me. She was absolutely, without a doubt, 100 percent all American. She was short, had a nice figure and looked like an officer’s wife. I saw her looking at the van and it appeared that she was coming right toward me. I looked around to see who she was staring at as I was trying to figure out what she was doing. She looked like a heat seeking missile and I suddenly felt as if I was her target. She was a woman on a mission. She had no grocery sack in her hands. Her purse was draped over one shoulder and she was walking very fast right toward me and the van.

Sure enough, she was headed straight for me. This fiery woman from Alabama swung the car door all of the way open and so quickly that I almost fell out of the van. I was trying to recover my balance when she asked me, “Are you Teri Hodges?”

I was surprised, a little uncomfortable, but mostly surprised! “Uh,” I stammered, my brow a bit furrowed. “Yes I am.”

“Well, listen here Teri Hodges,” she paused a moment, “Do you know what a Pentecostal is?”

I nodded, “Yes ma’am I do.”

“Well,” she hotly continued, “I am a Pentecostal and we believe that God speaks to people today and one of the ways He does that is through a word of knowledge. Here’s what I mean: You are messing around with sin and you are hanging around with someone you are not supposed to hang around with. Am I right?”

She wasn’t really wanting an answer.

My head was spinning. What had Terri Fleming told this fireball, religious zealot?

“I guess so,” my eyes shifted to the ground and my voice was only a whisper.

“What do you mean, ‘I guess so?’” She was kind of shouting at me.

“ I was in that there PX just shoppin’ around and mindin’ my own business when I saw Terri Fleming. When I saw her I felt the Holy Spirit nudge me to go and talk to her; so I did. Terri told me that she had a friend visiting from the States out in the van and immediately the Lord told me to come out here to you and issue you a warning. I just walked out of there and left my cart filled with groceries. Terri didn’t tell me anything but your name; she didn’t tell me any of your business, but the Lord did. You’re gonna fall into sexual sin young lady if you do not stop seeing this young man. And is he a German? Is he even a Christian? ”

Now I was getting a little spooked. I knew the Lord had been convicting me to stop seeing this guy. I knew what the Word said about this type of relationship. I was aware that we were headed for trouble, but for this woman to come marching across the PX parking lot to issue me a direct, how’d she call it, “word of knowledge?” Well, hey, that was a little on the freaky side.

“And here’s another thing: The Lord told me to give you all the money I have on me.” I was wearing a skirt and she told me to spread it out and then she did something amazing. She opened up her wallet and emptied every bill and coin she had in that thing right there onto my lap.

“There!” she said. “I have done my job. Now I suggest you do yours. God bless you and let me pray for you.” She reached inside the van and laid a hand on my shoulder, and not too gently I might add. She prayed a righteous prayer. Gave my shoulder a squeeze and headed back to the PX.

I gathered the money out of the pool of my skirt and stuck it in my purse. Terri came out of the PX and I helped her load groceries into the van.

“Hey did you see my friend Edie? She seemed really eager to meet you. She left her grocery cart and everything just to come out and say hi. Isn’t that funny?”

“Yeah. Really funny,” I said. I hesitated just a moment and then asked, “Say Terri, before we go home would you mind running me by the train station? I think I need to be heading on to Brussels and I want to check the cost and the train schedule.”

Terri agreed and we stopped by the station there in town. I jumped out of the van and ran to the ticket counter.

“Excuse me,” I got the attention of the clerk, “what does a one-way train ticket cost to Brussels, Belgium?”

“Which class would you prefer?” she asked.

“Uh…just the cheapest is fine. I need the cheapest ticket to Brussels.”

The clerk looked up the price and gave me a piece of paper with the cost of the ticket written in German marks. I stepped aside and counted the money Edie had given me in the parking lot. It was the exact amount of the ticket down to the last cent. It covered the entire cost of the ticket. I stepped back to the counter and purchased my ticket for Brussels.

We got back to Terri’s and unloaded groceries. I saw Wagner Boy getting home from work and we waved across the street at each other. As soon as we got things stowed away I went to the room where I had been staying. I knelt down by the bed and began to sob. What kind of missionary am I? I was more concerned about Wagner Boy liking me than I was about his salvation. I wanted him to want me more than I wanted him to have eternal life. I felt like a big fat looser. I was a phony, a jerk and worst of all I was a hypocrite—the thing I hated most in others.

So, yeah, Jesus loves me just the way I am, but He loves me too much to let me stay that way. Scripture is very clear, “You be holy just as I am holy.” God used Edie the firecracker to confront me with my sin. He literally issued me a warning and then He gave me a way out. The Bible says, “There is no temptation that comes to a person that God does not make a way out for that person.” There is grace, but there is also judgment and I think both are good. Judgment holds my feet to the fire, judgment disciplines me, judgment says, “Stop! You’re in danger!” So, in a way judgment is God’s greatest grace in our lives.

A few days later I was headed off to Belgium and on to the next lesson. I wish I could tell you that before I left Dresden I had an incredible conversation with Wagner Boy and gave him the plan of salvation, but that didn’t happen. What did happen was that I realized that I never wanted vanity to get in the way of soul-winning ever again in my life. It just isn’t worth it. And I learned that my actions, my thoughts and my secret desires are all exposed to a holy God who loves me just as I am, but won’t allow me to stay that way. Peace.

Yup! This is the blog’s one year anniversary. Or should it be called a birthday? I don’t know. One year, 71 posts, 7,326 views, and a whole lotta hot air later I’m still amazed at the excitement I feel every time I sit down to write a blog. Thanks everyone for reading and commenting and allowing me to share a little bit of myself with you. Thanks again to Kev for setting me up and getting me started. I know it’s provided hours of peace and quiet in his life. Since I have an outlet now, he doesn’t have to hear me blah blah blah anymore!

Please be praying with me today. I got an email Friday from InterVarsity Press and our indexes are incomplete. I’ll be working like a maniac on these today and need to have them done ASAP. It’s tedious work that has to be done in a limited amount of time–but with God all things are possible, right?

Thanks again everyone for reading. And for the 72nd time…Peace.

I’m terrible with directions. I think it has something to do with being left handed. Really. I mean it. My mother-in-law is left handed too. Once I was driving her to the store and she was giving me directions. She said, “Turn right.” And I turned left instead. OMW. “Ruth! I turned left, sorry. I don’t know my left from my right.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “Obviously I don’t either because you turned the correct way.” I guess this is a case where two lefts do make a right.

Sometimes in my walk with God I get a little confused on the directions as well. What am I supposed to be doing? Where am I to serve? How am I to live? I guess followers of Jesus have always felt this over the centuries, but somehow I feel that today in our culture it is even harder to navigate in these stormy and often murky waters called life. Sometimes it’s frustrating; other times it’s just plain scary. A loved one’s life-threatening illness, an unfaithful mate, being laid off from a job and still needing to provide for your family, financial hard times in general—all of these are rough, choppy seas. But I’m thinking here more of issues of right and wrong, legal and illegal, holy and unholy. I’m thinking about the Body of Christ in my nation. How did we lose our way? When did we lose our internal navigation system? When did we lose the Holy Spirit GPS? Because we have. We honestly have. We as the Church in America have lost our way—our true North. And that grieves me and it scares me and it breaks my heart.

I’ve been reading lately about Warren Cole Smith’s book A Lover’s Quarrel With The Evangelical Church. Daryl’s getting the book for me and I am eager to read it, but just some of the excerpts and commentaries have struck a definite chord with me. Smith says, “American evangelicalism, for all the good it has done, is in need of a modern reformation.” I believe that with my whole heart. We need revival.

I was asked to speak on a missions Sunday at a mega church near my home. The pastor’s secretary phoned me the Saturday before I was to speak with a gentle reminder not to quote too much Scripture and not to bring my Bible to the stand. “We’re a seeker-sensitive church,” she explained, “and we don’t want visitors to feel like outsiders if they don’t have a Bible. So we tell members to leave their Bibles at home.” Before God, I am telling you the truth! That really happened to me. Two years later the pastor was asked to resign because it was discovered that he and that secretary were having an affair. I think there was a direct correlation. The Bible matters. Standing for something matters. Standing for God’s Truth matters.

A national women’s ministry headquartered in the Kansas City area asked me to speak at one of their meetings a couple of years ago. The president of that organization called me a week before my scheduled event, “Now I need to go over a list with you of things we don’t like our speakers mentioning when presenting. We feel these particular words are too ‘Christianese’ and make unbelievers uncomfortable.” Really? Really madame president of the evangelical women’s group? Then she starts with the list, “Bible, born-again, sin, anything about the blood, hell, you can quote Scripture, but just don’t call it that and don’t use the King James Version.” I cancelled with her while on the phone. You gotta be kidding me?!? It might as well have been a Rotary Club meeting. I can’t talk without mentioning those things—those things are the very reason I do speak!

And let me add here: the seeker, the lost, the unbeliever—they love it when you shoot straight with them. For the most part, people are looking for something to believe in and something solid. My most receptive audiences are those that are unbelievers who dig that I don’t dilute the message but tell them what Jesus said about life, and death, and right and wrong. The world is looking for guidance. The world is looking for Truth. And we’re cheating them Church when we don’t do just that. Smith addresses this in his book when he says “The world wants the Church to be the Church. It’s the Church that doesn’t want to be the Church.” I think he’s right.

There’s a strange urge that sometimes comes over me and I feel like I want to go running from church to church and shout, “Wake up Sleeping Beauty! Wake up. You’re to be a Glorious Church, salt and light, a vessel of hope for the lost and the bearer of Truth—His Truth—the only Truth that sets the captives free!”

Even as I write this I fear there are Believers who don’t know that I just referenced Scripture here. You see, I speak on college campuses and I can’t tell you the number of times that I realize my audience has no idea that I’m drawing words and phrases from Scripture. Some of the Christian kids I speak to were actually raised in church, but in churches where Sunday School was replaced with something that looked a whole lot like Disneyland and teaching basic Bible stories (i.e. doctrines)—flannelgraph or no flannelgraph—became uncool, unattractive and somehow irrelevant. A whole generation of churched young people has lost out on a Bible foundation because of this. And how are we supposed to construct what we believe and how we live based on a Scriptural foundation when so much of the Body of Christ in the US today doesn’t know what Scripture actually says?

I know. I know. I’m ranting and raving here. Sorry. But I started this blog a year ago so I’d have a place to do just that. I need an outlet or I think I might explode.

I used to teach women’s Bible studies here in Kansas City. I stopped because many of the women I was teaching weren’t being transformed. I didn’t see life-changing results. Stories of weekends in Las Vegas and who had the coolest car were focal points of conversation during the breaks and I realized I wasn’t making a bit of difference. Oh, and these were the church members and leaders having these discussions.

In my humble opinion, I believe Jesus cares how we live out our daily lives. God is truly in the details. Gambling is wrong. Sex outside marriage is wrong. Sex with any partner other than your spouse is wrong. But there are other things that matter too.

How can I frivolously gamble money away in Las Vegas (or any stinkin’ casino) when there are the poor among us? The hungry? The needy? How can I justify buying a $60,000 car when a $20,000 car will do? How can I focus so much of my time and money on the exterior when the interior is broken, corrupt and in dire need of repair? Most women’s Bible studies I visit these days are filled with conversations of Botox and fat-free dressings. In a recent church bulletin I read, “Ladies’ Bunko Night. Looking for a girls’ night out? Join us at the church for a time of fun and fellowship and food as we play Bunko and laugh the night away.”

I’m not against having fun. Honestly. I’m a fun girl. But how might our families, our churches and our nation be transformed by a handful of sincere praying and interceding women who dedicate one night a week to fasting and prayer? What could happen in their midst to change lives, families and our world? I think we have anesthetized ourselves as a Church with entertainment and the constant seeking of feel-good comfort. I’m tellin’ ya folks–we need a reformation! We need a revival!

We’ve become so acculturated here in America that we’ve lost our distinctives as the Body of Christ. We’ve lost our way. And how does Jesus define Himself? “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” We as the Body of Christ are to be His hands and His feet. We’re to be His witnesses. In the early days of Christianity the Church in Rome grew in leaps and bounds even though they were persecuted, burned at the stakes, thrown into the coliseum arenas with lions and tortured for their faith—and yet the Church grew! Wow. Not a very seeker sensitive message, is it?

So why did the early Church in Rome grow? Because it stood for something; it had distinctives that spoke to the culture, “This is always wrong and this is always right.” Rodney Stark writes that the early Church in Rome transformed culture because of its love for life; because it ministered to the disenfranchised; because it rescued unwanted babies from garbage heaps, cared for the elderly and the poor, loved its enemies and its neighbors and faced death with hope. Christians sang of God’s glory even when being burned alive. It was these things that drew the lost, these things brought crowds into the faith in droves until one day Rome became the center of Christianity. The Christian witness brought light to a dark society; the Christian witness transformed a filthy culture, transformed lives and the Church of Jesus Christ thrived as a result of its standing for Truth.

Where are our distinctives today Church? What are we standing for? Are we taking any stands at all? (And I don’t mean the political ones). Where are our voices? Why aren’t we transforming culture instead of the culture transforming us? Wake up Sleeping Beauty! Wake up. Jesus is coming for a Bride without spot or wrinkle. And the only way we can prepare, not just ourselves but a hurt and dying world for that event, is to turn on our internal GPS. We must ask the Holy Spirit to cleanse us, convict us of sin, to lead us and guide us into all acts of righteousness so that we might “find out what pleases God and do it.” And may it begin with me Lord Jesus. Let it begin with me. Peace.

Interview With Dr. Teri McCarthy

Here’s an interview (it’s 13 minutes long) I did with a local church on how I got into missions in the first place. It’s like I always say, “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.” I was 23 years old when I first went to the mission field and I was the most reluctant missionary on the planet. Peace.