The Pearl of Great Price: Tina

April 23, 2015 / Girlfriends' Community / Leave a comment

Terminally Invisible. Kat N.L.M. Flickr.

This is third and final part of a three-part series about my experiences from a recent outreach my family took to inner city Dallas. Part One. Part Two.

We all tumbled out of the van, glancing awkwardly at one another out of the corner of our eyes. Now what have we gotten ourselves into? As we unloaded and peered around, it was immediately obvious that there wasn’t a more crowded or busy place we could have come to on this outreach. I think we all took a collective gulp. We broke up into several smaller groups and each group grabbed a cooler full of water and tugged it along behind us as we set out to pick a spot best suited to engaging strangers in conversation. Needless to say, we weren’t inconspicuous, as aside from the cooler toddling along behind us, we no doubt had a deer-in-the-headlights look about us.

Of all the things we were asked to do on outreach this was the hardest one for me. I had felt right at home standing on the street corner talking with the drunks and homeless the day before – the nobodies that no one really notices and so, therefore, probably wouldn’t notice me much, either. And for some reason I related more with those helpless people. This is probably something I should psycho-analyze about myself, but for now I’ll let it go. But now we were in the very heart of very busy downtown Dallas. The buses and trains race through so quickly I don’t how everyone keeps track and the people bustle and elbow their way, hurrying up to wait at their stop. These are people from all walks of life, all races, and all socioeconomic statuses. There are drunks and homeless here, who the police quickly shuffle away. There are rushing businessmen, doctors and nurses, and transients all bottled up in this little pulsing square of inner Dallas.

I was well out of my element.

I approached a woman. “Would you like a bottle of water? We’re just here this afternoon to bless people. Could I pray for you?”

She was a big black woman, scowling as I approached her. At my offer I watched her eyes grow big and round, her mouth open in shock. I cringed inwardly as I was sure she was about to tell me where I could shove my water. But then she laughed a little and I saw the mist start in her eyes and I realized I felt pretty at home here after all.

“Yes, you can pray for me! You won’t believe how amazing it is that you are here right now of all days! I just came back from court and it looks like my son is going to prison for twelve years.” And her story poured out of her broken heart. Quickly, lest she miss her bus. I gathered her hands in mine and together we bowed our heads on that busy corner.

“Would you like a bottle of water?” I asked again. And again. “Yes.” And “Yes” again. Over and over again men and women reached for the water bottles and again and again opened their weary hearts to a stranger willing to listen.

And then there was Tina.

I watched her sit on the garden ledge. I recognized the sense of trouble, and shame, and desperation which clung to her. She hunched her shoulders and ducked her head into her hands, hiding in this place – perhaps the easiest place of all to hide, this metropolis of hopelessness. A small, dark man approached her. He belligerently got down into her face, speaking quietly, but forcibly. She cringed deep into herself and I watched as he pushed his advantage and struck her with hateful, belittling words. I could not hear what he said, but I knew the words all the same. I hesitated for a moment, frightened I suppose of the mean little man. Because he was frightening.

Decision made, I approached with a smile I didn’t feel and intentionally stood uncomfortably close to the man, looked right into the woman’s face. “Would you like a bottle of water?” As she accepted the water, I drew closer to her, met the man’s eyes and breathed a sigh of relief as he scuttled away.

And so began an encounter that snagged my heart. Tina was her name. She was running away from that mean little man. She had money for a bus ticket, but didn’t know where to go. She didn’t feel like she could go “home” to family, though I tried to encourage her to do so. She was drunk – admitted to me she’d been drinking too much lately because she was so miserable. No, she wasn’t a prostitute. Just a woman all alone in the world. I wondered if she disappeared if anyone but me would ever know or care. She cried and I put my arm around her. As she poured out her troubles I silently prayed that God would give me wisdom. I would pray for her, but I knew I couldn’t leave her with just words on the wind to sustain her. Don’t get me wrong. I know how powerful prayer is. But I just had this sense that I was looking into the eyes of woman who was staring into an abyss.

So I sent Tina to a church in Dallas we’d all come to know about, though none of us had been there. I told her she could go there and they’d help her. “Nah, I can’t go there. I’ve been drinking.” And my heart broke inside; not for the first time this trip. Because the neediest among us know they can’t walk through our doors until they clean up their lives, even as they are helpless to fix what’s broken without our help. But I had been assured that this church was different. And so I sent her there. And it felt so good to be able to tell someone that, yes, there is a safe place, and yes, you can go just as you are.

As I walked away, I saw Tina looking up the church address on her phone. I knew I could only pray that she would follow through and go. I think of Tina some days and pray for her. And my heart squeezes a little because I know that at the end of the day the Tina’s of the world have to fight for themselves. This I told Tina – that she has value; that she has to fight for herself; that she is worth more than mean little men tell her she is.

I was reminded yet again on this week-long outreach that “the least among us” are prized highly and especially by God Most High. They are as much the pearl of great price to Jesus as any among us who sit pretty in our clean churches every Sunday. I was convicted and challenged to stop looking through them and to really see them. To hear them. To love them as God loves them.

For Tina, the pearl of great price:

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” Matthew 13:44-46

The Pearl of Great Price: Mindy Grace

March 23, 2015March 22, 2015 / Girlfriends' Community / 1 Comment

Me and Mindy Grace. A street corner in Dallas.

To read the first post in this series click here.

As our family trotted downstairs to breakfast on our first day of outreach in inner city Dallas, we all wondered what we had got ourselves into. Our first outreach “assignment” was to drive a few blocks away to a nearby street corner and hand out breakfast burritos to Day Laborers and engage them in prayer and conversation. “Day laborers” turned out to be a loose term. We encountered a group of six or eight individuals, all in various states of dishevelment, some obviously homeless, most either high on one drug or another or else intoxicated to one degree or another.

All were hopelessly desperate.

As we approached, hungry, grimy hands reached for the food we carried with us. The smell of alcohol was redolent in the air. I had a moment of doubt as I considered that I had just brought my children into the midst of this group. I could tell most of them expected us to give them the food and then hightail it out of there. But that wasn’t why we were there.

I took a deep breath and I lifted my eyes from the cracked sidewalk and dared to look these people in the eye.

One honest and real look and my heart just melted and peace flooded through me. I smiled at each one as I met their eyes, handed them a burrito, and gave them a pat on the back or a squeeze of the hand. They smiled back. I saw on the outskirts of the group, further on down the sidewalk, a woman who was trying awfully hard not to notice we were there. Without another thought, I headed straight for her. You see, I had prayed beforehand that there would be at least one woman for me to talk to, so I didn’t want to waste a moment.

As I approached her, she looked away. She refused the food I offered. “Give it to him over there. He’s hungrier than I am.” I introduced myself and asked her name. With a bit of surprise she answered, “Grace.”

“Can I pray for you today, Grace?”

Then she really looked at me. Tears filled her eyes – the eyes of this unseen woman. And then I saw what God wanted me to see: The Pearl of Great Price. This is why I was here. And Grace began to pour out her heart.

She shared her story with me. She told me she’s the black sheep of her family. They were back in Oklahoma and didn’t want anything to do with her. She married a mean man and started drinking. Somehow she raised her kids up right. A daughter who works with disabled kids. Two sons who joined the military and now that they’re home are hard workers. But Grace, she’s a drunk now and has pushed everybody away. She can’t stop. Her kids try to take care of her, but she knows she has failed them. She prays. Often. She shares with me that her real name is Mindy Grace, but she likes to go by Grace because it reminds her of God’s grace.

I put my arm around her shoulder for a minute while she talks and cries. She sobs when she finally tells me what she wants me to pray about. “Pray that I’ll be a good mom to my kids. That I can stop drinking and be there for them.” And I can feel the shame she carries just hovering all around her, an oily, oozing presence that has completely broken her down.

As I begin to pray for Mindy Grace, another woman sidles close to us. I’ve already talked to her, but she is the most beaten down of all the people on that corner and she has refused to let me pray for her. But as I prayed, I opened my eyes and saw the tears running down her cheeks. K.K. is her name. Her heart is sweet, but if ever I saw the walking dead I knew I was seeing it on her. I included K.K. in my prayer and she drew closer, putting her hand on Mindy Grace’s arm. Both women cried as I prayed.

After I finished praying, I stood and talked with Mindy Grace for another hour. I listened to her explain her intense struggle with alcohol. I witnessed her embarrassment as she wondered aloud what we must think of her. The longer she talked, the more I realized that she desperately needed a drink. After a while she started getting sick. I wondered if I was going to leave covered in vomit. She pulled out a large can of beer she had hidden in her jacket and showed it to me. Said she was going to have to drink it or she was going to be sick.

“Grace, why don’t you give me that beer?” I asked her.

She shook her head emphatically, “I can’t. No. I need to leave now and go home and drink this.”

I kept talking to her. “Grace, you have value. You don’t have to go home and drink. You can surrender to the Lord and let Him be the strength you need.” More tears. Desperation. One of the men we were with gave her the name of a rehab clinic and a nearby church that will help anyone, no questions.

“Grace, please, why don’t you give me your beer?” Again, the nodding head. No.

Then she looked up and met my eyes. “Okay, I’m gonna give you this can of beer.”

Grace did eventually give me her beer (you can see it in the pan I’m holding in the picture above). I talked with her for a while longer. Prayed with her some more. Before we left I introduced her to my kids. My oldest son put out his hand, as he’s been taught, to shake hers. Mindy Grace looked stunned and immediately physically drew back.

“I can’t shake his hand.” I’m not worthy; I’m not clean were the words written on her face.

“No ma’am, Grace. You shake his hand. You are worthy of that honor.”

Again, tears filled her eyes from the simple gesture of being treated like a human being.

I stood on that street corner and talked with Mindy Grace for two hours. Other members of my team had similar conversations with some of the men standing around. A homeless man actually gave my children money; the men teased them and complimented us on how beautiful our kids are. For two hours these people laughed with us, cried with us, and opened up their very battered hearts to a small group of people who bothered to see beyond what lies upon the surface.

I heard the Lord whispering in my heart, “Marnie, this is the pearl of great price. These are the ones the man in the Bible was willing to sell everything he had to purchase. These I would redeem. When you look into their eyes, it’s the pearl of great price looking back.”

For Mindy Grace, the pearl of great of price.

The Pearl of Great Price – Part 1

March 20, 2015March 20, 2015 / Girlfriends' Community / 2 Comments

Globe in Hand. Ajith Achuthan. Flickr.

My next several blog posts will be centered around a recent outreach my family took together and the ways in which God stirred my heart along the way.

This past week my family and I had the opportunity to travel to the Dallas, TX area for a two-day mission’s conference followed by five days of outreach in the very heart of downtown Dallas. In truth, I was not all that excited at the outset. I knew I would be put in uncomfortable positions and I expected the mission’s conference to make me feel uncomfortably guilty about being a “spoiled” American. But my husband and I felt like God was leading us to lead our family through an experience that would help our children connect with our faith and put that faith into action.

We did that and so much more.

I did not walk away from the mission’s conference feeling like a spoiled American. Rather, I left feeling deeply privileged and supernaturally blessed by God. The conference brought into perspective the realities of the spread of Christianity throughout the world. Here in the United States we currently hear and read a lot about the so-called decline of Christianity and the problems plaguing our churches as a generation seems to be leaving them en masse.

However, the mission’s conference pointed out the reality that Christianity is rapidly spreading. Just a few short years ago there remained an estimated 5,000 unreached people groups across the globe. “Unreached” refers to those ethnic groups of people who have no Christian witness and no Bible in their language, who have been unreached by missions of virtually any kind. Today, there remain less than 500 unreached people groups. Many nations who were themselves “unreached” not so long ago are now sending out missionaries themselves. And here in the United States, where the church is, indeed, facing a crisis, we nevertheless still lead the world by a wide margin sending and funding missionaries the world over. This fact, more than any other, highlighted for me the amazing truth that God has blessed our nation to be a blessing to The Nations. We truly are spoiled, but in our comfort and luxury there exists a generosity of spirit that is literally changing the world.

I found these truths so comforting and so encouraging.

Throughout the mission’s conference, we had the deep privilege of learning about a martyred missionary. Conference leaders did not share his full name nor the country he served in, as the country is a closed nation, meaning Christianity is not only not tolerated, but is actively persecuted against. The missionary felt called by God to take his wife and children into this country and preach the Gospel, despite the dangers. In the end he was murdered for his faith and his boldness. The final night of the conference, his wife took the stage and shared the final piece of her story. She and her children have since returned to the same place where he was martyred. They plan to return again and continue to preach the gospel, despite the dangers. They harbor no bitterness toward the people there, but rather embrace them in their lost state and endeavor to continue his work lest their loved one’s sacrifice be for nothing. She reminded us there is no wasted sacrifice where God is glorified and His name is proclaimed throughout the nations.

I left with a deeper understanding of John 12:24: “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” Of course, we make the connection from these words to the act of martyrdom and take from them the true understanding that no one who dies for Christ dies in vain, as his or her sacrifice inevitably causes the further spread of the gospel. But there is a more personal truth to them, in that we are each called to death in order to advance and establish the kingdom of God.

When James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the ship captain tried to turn him back, saying, “You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages.” To that, Calvert replied, “We died before we came here.” These words struck at my heart as I realized that no matter where God calls us, we must answer our most courageous “Yes.” We must set aside anything and everything that would hinder or distract from anything less than God’s calling. Scripture reminds us that Jesus did the will of the Father. But what we so often miss is that Jesus did only the will of the Father. How far have I truly died when I can look at my life and see only segments surrendered fully to the will of the Father? If I have not fully died to my own will, I will not have space in my life to fully and only do God’s will.

As the mission’s conference came to a close, they spread out a giant map of the world across the floor and invited us to stand near a nation for which we felt burdened to pray. As they read Matthew 13:44, we were encouraged to “buy” a field. As everyone began to step upon the map and spread across the globe, I did not go rushing for a continent or country. Because for me, my field is the one whose earth is salty with the tears of brokenhearted women. And I always know just where to find them. But I stood upon the map and wept and prayed over my “field,” even as my children stood as close to the country of North Korea as they could get.

I was mindful in the days ahead, as our family set out for our Dallas outreach, that though my heart might be burdened for a specific “field,” the reality is that wherever the Lord has me now, the field where He has me placed now, this is the field I must treasure and whose ground I must work.