Miracles we could share?

[happyleeParticipant]

Hi everyone.  It’s so awesome to meet all of you.  

I’ve seen quite a bit of miracles in my life and perhaps some of you have too.  Miracles that have little to do with the way the church may or may not have treated us, but more about how God acted in our lives.

I’d like to share one (I have two pretty big ones) and if you have one, please do.  Things like this warm my heart and allow me to soar beyond the hurt and the discontent I have with the man-made church institution.

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Walking is that special time when I get to listen to music, do some exercise (I dislike gyms for some reason I can’t put my finger on) and feel God’s presence.

It’s as though when I walk, I walk within an invisible God-cloud.

Sometimes I whisper his name “Yaweh Elohim” and smile thinking that yes, I do know him by name, just as he knows me.

And walking was the instance God used, one night, to show me just how much he cared.

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A long time ago, I was rather confused, hurt and obsessed with a certain feeling that I couldn’t acknowledgde in a waking state, but that stubbornly resided in one of my small brain-nooks, sometimes working it’s way into my conscious.

I’m mainly referring to an unsettled debt I felt the universe had with me due to my Dad’s death, our ensuing poverty and the broken dreams my brother and I carried as a result.

That day had been particularly rough.  Damn… I still recall the ache.

I was lying in bed, probably worried about making ends meet, about having enough money for food, transport, rent, providing for my family… probably over-worked, probably trying to make peace with never being able to go to the university and probably heartbroken over still being single and never finding a man who would want me, with all that “me” included (financial responsibility for my mom and financial help for my brother)… I cannot really remember the particulars, it was after all, almost ten years ago.  We’ll just call it my 20-something existential angst.

But I do remember one thing very clearly.  My prayer.

God, if you’re really there, if this whole salvation thing was for real… if you really care, then I’m going to ask you for something, like Gideon did… mainly because I need to know, I just need to know you care… I ask that you send me a street prophet, someone who doesn’t know me… someone with a message from you.  A stranger who will approach me on the street, out of the blue.  That’s what I need from you.  Sorry if I sound all doubtful, but it’s getting hard down here.

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About a week or so later, I was walking down the Alameda, Santiago’s busiest downtown avenue, which was really rather deserted.  It was 11.30 pm and I had just gotten off work (I was teaching English at an Institute for adults).  Suddenly I remembered I had left a package at work and went back to retrieve it.  By the time I was at the Alameda again, it was almost midnight.

I was crossing the Alameda over to the bus stop when I noticed someone walking next to me.  He was carrying an amp on a small cart and a backpack.

He was whistling the ONLY SONG I ever liked from the church repertoire, the only one that actually spoke to me (as the rest just seemed a bunch of cheese to me).

I stopped dead in my tracks and heard the words come out of my mouth, I couldn’t help uttering them.

“They sing that song at my church as well,” I said.

Bear in mind that talking to a stranger at 12pm on a deserted Alameda is about the last thing I would do…  But I just spurted it out.

Now, safely on the sidewalk, the man approached me.  He dressed casually, dark slacks and a sweater.  His eyes were technicolor blue set against dark skin.  I was mesmerized.

“You know,” he began, “the Spirit of God said Go, speak to that girl.  Ok, Lord, I answered, but only if she speaks to me first, otherwise I will just end up scaring her.”

I gasped and stared at him in wide-eyed wonder.

“And you spoke to me,” he continued.  “God has a message for you… there is something he wants to say.”

“Oh my gosh, what is it!!” I wailed.

“He wants you to remember the joy you felt when you first knew him.  When you first converted.  He wants you to go back there.  And he wants to tell you that he knows the pain in your heart… He knows.”

God knew.

Oh my goodness how liberating that was to me.  God knew.

I fought back the tears as I told my street prophet about the request I had made that God would send me him.

He smiled back at me.  We talked for a couple of minutes about our lives, hugged and went our separate ways.

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My circumstances didn’t change significantly after that.  I was still struggling with broken dreams, money, fear of the future… It is a fractured existence we lead, after all…  But my outlook changed.  Boy, did it change.  I now knew God was in the midst of the brokenness.  He knew.

And my street prophet marked beginning of the road I was about to travel, a road that included bankruptcy once again, at 30,  a stubborn cross seen through a window and deliverance in the guise of a trip to a city at the end of the world; city where I was forced to just… grow… seeing God in a whole different light.

So now, when someone asks me why I believe, if I feel I can trust that person, with childish amusement and the same wide-eyed wonder I displayed that night, I tell them story of a broken young girl, who just couldn’t make peace with her brokenness.  And the grace of a God who chose to answer her testing prayer…  A God so kind and lovable, she cannot deny who he is to her and what his love means to her.

Sometimes they’ll smile, other times they’ll fall silent.

But I can see the same type of wonder in their eyes.

• This topic was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by  David Hayward.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by  David Hayward.

[Ruth AnneParticipant]

Great story Happylee. I’ve got a slew of these kinds of stories – so it can be so amazing to me when sometimes I just wonder if God is real – because… duh… these are pretty incredible occurrences – or miracles as you would call them.

The one I just thought about when I read your story was 25 years ago. I was working at a large church as the Director of Children’s Ministries. It was my first formal ministry job and I was really into “changing the world”. I was in charge of all the religious programs for over 500 children ages 11 and under. When I got to the church, the programs were a mess and I spent the first 5 months putting everything back in order, staffing the programs, enlisting volunteers and making sure everything was running smoothly. When I look back at it, I did a pretty fantastic job!

After that I wanted to start revamping the curriculum and the programs so that they were more meaningful for the children. I wanted them all to experience God in a real way and not just be involved in a babysitting service. One day in the pastoral staff meeting I brought up my plans. I was met with complete resistance with the senior pastor who told me to leave it alone. That my job was to “get those kids out of the service” and that I was not there to actually “minister” to the kids.

I was crushed. Anyway, one thing led to another and soon I ended up having to resign from my position because things became pretty unbearable. In the midst of this conflict one night I went to a church 45 minutes away from my home, just to worship and seek God. I knew no one there.

At the end of the service the woman sitting next to me in the pew looked at me and said “I have a message from God for you. You work with children and your boss does not approve of what you want to do. God wants you to know that he is pleased with you. He has seen your heart and loves your intentions.” I burst into tears.

When I got to the parking lot and was backing out of my space, a big truck came out of no where and crunched my small car like a tin can! I was not hurt, but my car sure was. I was so blessed by that “word from God” in the church I didn’t even flinch when my car was hit. I knew that God had my life in his hands and it would all be okay.

I did end up a month later moving away and after a summer of unemployment, I started a really great job where I got to travel and do all the things I loved to do. To me, it seemed like a “God promotion”.

[happyleeParticipant]

Thank you so much for sharing Ruth Anne.  That made my day.     What an amazing message God delivered to you.  He’s so sweet like that.  During the worst times of my life, I’ve always held on to that, the sweetness.  I’m sorry such tenderness gets lost in the midst of church abuse.

[Ruth AnneParticipant]

Me too Happylee… evil finds a place to play in the church… and why wouldn’t it? How much better to mess with God’s people?

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