Woman On A Mission Ministry

On Sun­days for the last 3 years, I have noticed Jimmy sit­ting by him­self, a few rows in front of us on the aisle for the hand­i­capped at St. Andrews. He’s most notice­able because he sings praises to God with such gusto. Lean­ing on his metal walker, he raises his hands heav­en­ward. Seem­ingly unaware of any­one except Jesus, I could tell that he truly was wor­ship­ing the One who saved him. Some­times Jimmy would begin to joy­fully clap his hands, caus­ing a rip­ple of praise all around him as oth­ers would join in.

At com­mu­nion time, every­one could hear the sound of his walker as he made his way to the altar. Clunk, clunk, clunk came the sound as he slowly pro­ceeded for­ward among the crowds to be blessed with the bread and wine.

A few weeks ago, I real­ized I’d not seen Jimmy at church in a long time. I called the church office to get his phone num­ber or even his last name, but it seemed there was no record of Jimmy at all. I won­dered if he’d been sick or per­haps even died with­out any­one knowing.

Then in early Decem­ber, there he was again in his reg­u­lar spot qui­etly read­ing his Bible before the ser­vice, his walker rest­ing by the pew. Glad to see him, I gave him a hug and asked, “Jimmy, where have you been?” Smil­ing, he told me he’d been sick and in the VA hos­pi­tal. This dear man had fought for our coun­try but now he seemed nearly lost in the crowd and ignored at this time in his life. I invited him to come to the prayer room after com­mu­nion so that our team could pray for his health, and he nod­ded, promis­ing that he’d be there.

Then I asked for his phone num­ber. Low­er­ing his head, Jimmy said, “Mam, I’ve had a few finan­cial set­backs lately. I’ll give you my num­ber but you won’t be able to reach me until I pay my bill. Then you can call me anytime.”

Return­ing to my seat beside my hus­band, I asked him if he had any cash that we could give Jimmy to pay his phone bill. Wayne gladly gave me a suf­fi­cient bill.

When it was time for com­mu­nion, I slipped in beside Jimmy and placed the bill in his had. When he saw what it was, his mouth fell open, tears sprang to his eyes and he looked almost shocked. I made my way to the alter think­ing that Jimmy may indeed be often forgotten.

As the ser­vice came to a close, Jimmy entered the prayer room with the famil­iar clunk, clunk, clunk. As he approached my friend and me, we asked him how we could pray for him. A big smile broke across his face and he exclaimed, “I don’t need a thing! I just came back here to get some­one to thank the Lord with me for meet­ing my needs!” As tears rolled down his face, Jimmy said, “After all these years, I almost lost my faith a few weeks ago. I was sick. I felt like Jesus didn’t hear me any­more, like He’d for­got­ten me. This morn­ing Jesus showed me that He did hear my prayers. I know today that Jesus remem­bers Jimmy.”

We laid hands on him, joined him in thanks­giv­ing, and prayed for his health. As Jimmy left the prayer room, his tears rolled across a big smile as he made his way back to his seat.

Our Lord can do great things with even the small things we give in His name. No only may we meet a need, we may even have the chance to see Him do far more–restore the faith of some­one who feels forgotten.

I Peter 5: 6, 10: There­fore, hum­ble your­selves, lower your­selves in your esti­ma­tion under the shadow of Almighty God, that in due time, He may exalt you. Cast­ing all your anx­i­eties on Him, all your wor­ries and concerns–once and for all–upon Him who cares for you watch­fully. After you have suf­fered a lit­tle while, the God of all grace–Who imparts bless­ing and favor —will com­plete and make you what you ought to be, estab­lish and ground you securely, strengthen and set­tle you.

Friends, let us be alert to the Jim­mys in our path–and sen­si­tive to the Spirit who loves them with the great­est love of all.

My dear friend, Lynda Elliott is an author, life coach, speaker, and, most impor­tantly, NOTa for­get­ful hearer, but a faith­ful doer, of the Word.

A week ago I came home from work early with the worst migraine of my life. Think­ing I shouldn’t drive, I called my hus­band to pick me up. Wise choice. As soon as I got home, I began throw­ing up and later passed out cold on the bath­room floor, frac­tur­ing sev­eral bones in my face. A trip to the ER by ambulance–a first for me–and test after test, I was sent home after deter­min­ing it was “just” a migraine and not some­thing worse.

Pain has a sober­ing effect on the soul. Unex­pected bless­ing is found in hav­ing the time to reflect, pray and read. I have a renewed deter­mi­na­tion to live the motto my friend Bob Buford intro­duced me to a while back: Go bold or go home.” To live unafraid for Jesus, uncon­cerned with people-pleasing and mate­ri­al­is­tic triv­ial pur­suits. To be about the work God pre­pared before­hand for me to do, with­out fear-driven hes­i­tancy. Ordi­nary inse­cu­ri­ties still plague me far too much. God wants me–us–free.

My head–it hurts some­thing awful but my heart is full and happy.

Tears are falling.
Hearts are break­ing.
How we need to hear from God.

Though a Christ­mas song about the birth of the Christ child, the haunt­ing lyrics keep ring­ing in my head this mid-September. Every Thurs­day evening when 10 women on the Woman on a Mis­sion lead­er­ship team and I visit a prison in Pine Bluff, we hear story after story of sor­row, pain, and regret. They are women very much like you and me– they love their chil­dren, enjoy a good laugh, com­pas­sion­ately care for fel­low inmates, long for dig­nity, respect, love. They want to know they mat­ter.

Most of their pain seems to cen­ter on the deep heav­i­ness they feel over the fool­ish choices that landed them there–behind razor wire, away from chil­dren, friends and free­dom. Lately it seems prac­ti­cally every­one of the 60 in our class has lost a loved one to death or fear they soon will.

“My mother is dying of heart fail­ure –and I’m here… I may never see her again, the god­liest woman I know.”

“My brother –only 49–died sud­denly on Sun­day of a heart attack.”

“Rebecca, an inmate in my unit, her hus­band, dad, and daugh­ter were killed in a car wreck on the way home from vis­it­ing her this week. She got an early release to go home and care for the baby, a one month old, and her 9 year old daughter.”

Tears are falling.
Hearts are break­ing.
How we need to hear from God.
You’ve been promised; we’ve been wait­ing.
Wel­come to our world.
Wel­come to our world.

The dif­fer­ence between them and me, and per­haps between them and you, is the polar oppo­site start they had in life. Abused, neglected, aban­doned, exposed to the under­belly of soci­ety at ten­der ages, they per­haps did the best they could, at least most of the time. Per­haps not. Hard truth is, they are where they are today –in what is pos­si­bly the best prison in the state–yet impris­oned all the same. Lonely, afflicted, needy, oppressed, out­cast, poor, bro­ken­hearted. Not across the big blue ocean in a remote vil­lage in Africa. Right here, 50 min­utes from Lit­tle Rock. Hun­gry for every morsel we toss them, grate­ful beyond belief that some­one cares.

Jesus said Fol­low me, not Come sit and study. Fol­low. Me.

What do you have to give oth­ers? Give it to Me first and I’ll bless it. Then you offer it to oth­ers. Be a part of a mir­a­cle. Come, walk on water –just like Me. (See Matthew 14 and Mark 6.)

Skit­ter­ing along the branches of a giant pine, the squir­rel hur­ried toward the nar­row end of the limb. There he paused and stud­ied his sur­round­ings for what seemed to me to be a long time in busy-squirrel world. Look­ing left and right, down and fur­ther down, he pon­dered his options and risks. Will that flimsy, leaf-ladened twig hold me? Can I jump that far? What if I miss?

Cal­cu­la­tions com­plete in sec­onds, he bounded off his perch, legs splayed, and launched him­self far­ther than I imag­ined he could. Fly­ing some 20 feet out and down, the branch careened earth­ward under his weight. As it rebounded upward, the ambi­tious pas­sen­ger barely seemed to notice, so focused was he on con­tin­u­ing his trek. His des­ti­na­tion, unknown to me, drew him excit­edly onward. Though I can’t be cer­tain, I think I saw a tiny smile punc­tu­ate his face just as he skit­tered out of view. Or maybe it was my smile, trans­ferred onto him.

So, how do we go from here to there? To where our hearts long to race? Risks give us pause, longer than mere sec­onds, and tiny first steps are never taken. Years hur­tle past and we for­get to even cal­cu­late the cost or what was lost. Or what might have been found. A flimsy dream is all it was, now hid­den in the rub­ble of flights unflown, of smiles unknown. It is, after­all, a leap.

What aban­doned dreams remain unsought?

What des­ti­na­tions forgotten?

Does the nar­row perch that holds you satisfy?

A final shop­ping trip before my daugh­ter was to head back to U Penn for her third year landed us in Tar­get. Sit­ting on the stool out­side the dress­ing rooms, I enter­tained myself by people-watching. That’s where I spot­ted God.

A tall, hand­some man with two sons and a daugh­ter saun­tered up to the dress­ing room area. There was some­thing wrong with the lit­tle girl, a beau­ti­ful, blue-eyed blond, who appeared to be about nine. She was in a large stroller. She looked nor­mal but for her arms and legs which were pro­por­tion­ally much smaller than the rest of her body. She must have also been blind because she seemed unable to focus on anything.

While her broth­ers tried on clothes, the lit­tle girl became increas­ingly anx­ious and fid­gety. As her body twitched awk­wardly, she tried to say some­thing but appar­ently couldn’t. That’s when the father came from behind the stroller and leaned down to within a few inches of her face. As he stroked her fore­head and hair, he whis­pered to her for sev­eral min­utes. Though I couldn’t hear what he said, she obvi­ously could. Her response was imme­di­ate: she leaned back in her seat and became very still. With her unsee­ing eyes wide and star­ing directly in front of her, the child vis­i­bly relaxed. Per­fectly still, she lis­tened to her father as he spoke words of com­fort to her. It was beautiful.

There’s some­thing wrong with all of us. Our prob­lems may be less obvi­ous than this lit­tle girl’s, but our expe­ri­ence is sim­i­lar. Anx­iously flail­ing about with­out focus, we wring our hands and seek relief wher­ever we can find it. Though we can’t see our Father, His voice is hear­able. He whis­pers sweet love songs to us con­stantly. If only we would be still and lis­ten.

Sh-h-h, don’t fret. I made no mis­takes when I cre­ated you. You are my mas­ter­piece, my beau­ti­ful lit­tle girl. I’m right here, as close as can be. Hear me whis­per words for you alone. Remem­ber:
You are the apple of My eye!