i've missed writing to you, whoever you are.
it's not that nothing's been happening here on the west side, because it has, there is.
and you really deserve regular updates and reflections, and i have not written those. i really am sorry.
ahh, writing is always a bit awkward when you've neglected it for a while, so here i am: with so much to say and no idea how to say it.
two weeks ago i applied for food assistance for our family. my caseworker Patti sat across the desk from me as i tried to explain that we don't get paid unless sufficient donations have come in, and there was nothing. no. thing. in the bank for february. not the end of the world, not even close. but the bills need to get paid and groceries need to be bought.
we depend on God to provide, i said to her.
uh huh. and what are you going to do? are you going to get a job?
well, um, we already have one, it's just looking like we might not get paid to do it.
so you and your husband haven't been laid off.
no.
you didn't quit.
no.
this is a voluntary lay-off.
i guess so. sort of. no, not really. well, maybe...
bless her, maybe there's no category for this kind of work, and she was trying to make sense of it the best she could. she was kind, she really was. and incredulous.
so what, patti repeated, are you going to do?
we're going to pray. we are praying. i mean we've been praying. God will provide. He will.
two days later. two days! someone very dear to us comes over to our house and hands us an envelope with a check for $10,000, the last bit of the inheritance she received from her parents. $10,000! and this woman, this woman has not always been so generous. this woman has been afraid to give away too much and not have enough for herself. and this woman has enough, always will.
but Jesus has rescued this daughter from herself and He has slowly been showing her His way, and she is trying harder than most to learn what that looks like. and she's learning that Jesus did not spend his time on earth making a beautiful home for himself overlooking an olive grove. Jesus was in the thick of it. Jesus went to the poor. So this woman has found herself driving all over downtown and the west side with blankets in her trunk, asking Jesus to show her someone she can give one to.
And she has gone into the thick of it with friends who are addicted to one thing or another, telling them that Jesus has a better way to live, which she knows because she's lived it her way too and that didn't work out so well.
she's fallen in love with her husband again, which i think tends to happen shortly after one falls in love with Jesus.
and so she found herself listening to the Holy Spirit one day this week and feeling a strong guidance to give us this money. she fasted for a day. and prayed. then she obeyed.
that, patti, is what we're going to do.
::jenn::
a clarification, because it occurred to me that you might need one: this donation was to the sbr and not to us personally. which just means that i - or the rest of us who get paid from the sbr - won't be asking patti for money any time soon. praise God.
