Just before we turned onto the highway, my husband saw the big blue department store sign and remembered he needed some car supplies. I offered to sit in the truck with our three little ones to wait. Truth be told, I just felt too heavy hearted to be lost in a sea of people that morning.
Sitting there with my thoughts, I tossed and turned inside myself wondering at things that might never have answers. It’s wrestling with the why - what - where kind of questions that tend to lead me to surrender in my faith.
Why am I here?
Why did I give up on that dream?
What am I doing with my life?
Should I be doing more?
Lost deep in heavy thought, I barely noticed my husband who slipped into the seat beside me until I heard the swish and swoosh of the plastic bag holding his purchase.
We rounded the corner of the parking lot and as I flicked on the blinker, I noticed her. A middle aged woman standing in the snowbank on the corner of the busy intersection. With only a two-foot section of ground cleared off, she stood shaking on her little snow peninsula.
Her sign read, “Trying to get home. Anything will help. God Bless.”
Divinely orchestrated, traffic was at a dead stop. The pause in cars allowed a pause in my heart. I starred at her and studied her as if she was a piece of beautiful art I wanted to understand. She weakly stood wearing old worn tennis shoes, tattered jeans, and a light spring jacket over a sweatshirt that stretched above her mouth to keep the cold from her neck. It was twenty-two degrees and breezy that day.
She’s cold, I thought to myself. She’s…cold.
For a moment I am ashamed to say that my jaded, bitter, cold-hearted, privileged, American, attitude began to whisper doubts. Did she really need the money to get home? Was she really that desperate?
I snapped out of my pondering trance just in time to hear God remind me…”Open your eyes, your heart, to see what she really needs.”
She’s cold, I pondered as I watched her shiver.
“Will you give her the coat off your back?” God whispered loudly to my soul.
Without taking my eyes off of her, I began to speak to my husband in a slow voice that resembled someone in shock.
“She’s cold honey. She’s really cold. I think I need to give her my coat.” And without another thought I put our truck in park, right in the middle of stopped traffic, and began to hop down to the ground. Jake handed me some money and I jogged over to her while unzipping my coat.
Lord, forgive us.
Without any pomp and circumstance I simply offered her my coat, the money, and a prayer for God to get her home safely. I walked away after receiving her big hug, just as the tears began to form in her tired eyes.
My husband teased me when we got home that it didn't even shock him - my giving away my expensive coat without a thought. He sees all my weakness and all the times I fail to follow Christ the way I desire to, but my man also knows that when I am most abandoned to Christ, I am also the most unpredictable. Because the work of the Holy Spirit is unpredictable. He is less about us giving when its comfortable from abundance, and more about us obeying in the moment to give what He’s already given us.
God put a stop to my wrestling that morning by reminding me that He has placed me where He wants me, and He will use me how He wants to.
I get this wrong a lot. I confuse myself with a longing for more to give more. But God doesn't ask us to give from what we wish we had, He asks us to give from what He’s already given us to accomplish what He calls us to.
The more I surrender to Jesus, the more I see firsthand that a wild, fulfilling life with Jesus is not about the Why or the Where or the What that we tend to grasp for. He doesn't need us to be in a different place, as a different person, living a different life. He will use us right now. He is here. Now.
If we’ll listen in the places that he positions us, wherever that is, the adventures with Him will be endless.
Tara is her name. She is trying to get to Billings Montana. What a priceless treasure she is. If I could do it over, I’d tell her that she is brave. I tell her that she is beautiful. And I’d tell her that the world needs to hear her voice and her story, because she matters.
And so do you.
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A Prayer
Father, forgive us for allowing our hurting people to not expect help when they ask. Open our hearts to love the least of these. The ones you've placed right in front of us.
Forgive us for praying to you for help, never expecting our prayers to be answered. Help our faith rise up to believe in you, the God who loves us and hears every prayer. May we believe you for the miracles we pray for, and even more.
Father, forgive us for longing to be somewhere else, someone else and something else than what you've willed. We surrender to your will and find JOY in the place that you've planted us.
Use us. Restore the broken in us. Renew us. And make us into the iron pillar of faith-filled, Holy Spirit led people you made us to be.
In the name of Jesus Christ whose blood ransomed us, Amen.
