“He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not uphold the truth, because there is no truth in him. Whenever he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies.”( John 8:44).
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. (John 10:10)
I met Carla (not her real name) 12 years ago when she was 15 years old and a freshmen in high school and started waitressing at the Waffle House. Her family was dysfunctional and low income, so for her to be involved in any sports or any other activities at her school and pay the fees, and have a cell phone, she had to work to pay for them. Carla had a sweet heart and I encouraged and poured into her. She would come around the counter and give me a hug every time I walked in the restaurant.
Not having the a family to guide her, she began listening to and being influenced by the wrong voices, the wrong crowd, and the lies. Seeking love and attention, she received it from men who were abusive, manipulative, and controlling. Over the years I watched as those that prey on the naïve and speaks lies slowly destroyer her. She began using drugs, being abused by men, got pregnant, used, manipulated and caught up helping a guy in a drug deal and sent to jail for over a year, and lost custody of her child. Carla has shown up to the Waffle House with black eyes, bruises on her body from being beaten and neck from being choked. She would not however press charges against her “man that loved her” and said it was her fault. She went into coma’s and almost died twice from using drugs laced with fentanyl. Myself and others have tried to get her to go into rehab however she did not listen to us, but the lies of her “friends.”
Monday she was at some house and locked herself in a bedroom to get away from her boyfriend who was trying to hurt her. The man poured gasoline around the bedroom door and set it on fire, and burned the house down. It was in the news. She escaped out the window. Carla reached out to a a friend of mine who also loves and knows Carla history, and she went and got her. Carla finally agreed to go into a rehab. My friend found a rehab that ministers to pregnant women and they had an open bed. She told me the intake fee was $300 and I told her I would cover that if it would get Carla in. She had Carla in her car and was driving to rehab before Carla changed her mind and I told her I would meet her there.
When I got to the rehab my friend and Carla were already there. My heart broke inside as I saw Carla. It has been a year since I saw her. She was filthy and she black ashes on her from digging through the burnt house trying to salvage any of her things. She as thin. pale and the light in her eyes was gone. I hugged her, told her I loved her, and with tears in our eyes we entered the women’s home. To make this long story short, by the end of the conversation with the lady over the home who was admitting her, Carla changed her mind. She said she needed say good bye to her “friends”, get her “things”, and she would go in tomorrow. The lies in her head were what she was listening to. Even though she had almost been burned alive the day before, and the day before that she had been raped, she now refused to go into the home and wanted to return to her “friends” to say goodbye for one more night. Which means she will use. She called a friend who came and got her, and they drove off. And I drove home with tears in my eyes saddened, angry, hurt, just a mixture of emotions over darkness and deception that has control and is destroying this beautiful young lady, and I have daughters about her age.
Jesus said “Blessed are those that mourn” So I guess I am blessed. The “church” experience that day did not take place in a “sanctuary” from life with a cup of coffee in my hand and smiling faces around me in which I walked away singing a hymn and feeling good. It took place in place that ministers near the gates of hell, and I got to experience the pain of having someone I love and care for deny and walk away from hope and life and choose darkness. I got to experience having my heart broken by rejection. I got to experience in reality a small portion of the heart of Jesus.
My thoughts go to when Jesus’ disciples James and John asked Jesus, “Permit one of us to sit at your right hand and the other at your left in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You donʼt know what you are asking! Are you able to drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I experience?” They said to him, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink, and you will be baptized with the baptism I experience” ( Mark 10:38-39). James and John were naive and did not understand what they were asking to be members in the kingdom of God. And when I accepted membership into the kingdom of God I was just as a naïve idiot as James and John of what I was getting into, even more because I know the whole story of the cross. And I got to sip and taste just a drop of the cup that Jesus drank, and only slightly be baptized into the rejection and suffering of Jesus. And it sucks, and hurts, and it makes me weep for those trapped in darkness. And it makes me more like Jesus. Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy. Pray for Carla. Pray for me.
My family, I real do not know how to word this prayer over you as I struggle to find words to pray it over myself, however I pray somehow iin a situation you enter into drawn by love for God and your neighbor, you get to experience a sip from the cup and a glimpse of the baptism of Jesus, and in doing so have your heart formed more into the heart of Jesus, in Jesus name. I with apprehension ask you to please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends.
Please share your reflections and prayers with us on this blog in the comment box below.
My wife Nancy and I are in a new season of our ministry of pouring completely into planting and growing simple house churches in our neighborhoods, and having “boots on the ground” serving in our community.. Please pray over this season in my life and that of my family. Please partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You Thank You!
