I love my job.
We meet on Wednesdays as a team and part of that is sharing stories where we have seen God. I want to share this but I know I wont be able to without blubbering so I will share it here.
I received a voicemail that was 4 minutes and 50 seconds long from a lady (I will call her Jane) seeking financial assistance to pay a utility bill. The hard part of my job is that quite often I have to tell people "No" and try to redirect them to other community resources. With a database that shows 50,000 people in the community call this church theirs, you can imagine how many requests we receive for assistance.
So I took a deep breath and dialed the phone. This call surprised me. After I told her that we could not help her and discussed her options her words to me showed that she is listening and taking in what she hears at the services. Jane stated that she understood that her free will put her in this position and she is owning that.
Jane is a recovering alcoholic who just celebrated a year being sober. Her ex husband is an alcoholic and is dying from liver disease. She is living with friends because she cannot afford to have her utilities turned on and her son has to stay with his Dad during this time because of it. it is a very emotionally difficult situation for them all.
She shared that this church is the first one that her autistic son actually enjoys and can pay attention to. His love of this church brought her to Christ. She has been attending for about 6 months.
She then started to tell me a story. One of a new friend (they just met a couple months ago) that she brought to our church who enjoyed the services because it reminded her of her own church. Their friendship progressed at mach speed and apparently this friend endures dialysis daily and needs a kidney transplant. The friend recently gave Jane her Bible and told her a bunch of scriptures that she needed to pay attention to. She recently started mentioning to Jane that she is looking forward to seeing the Kingdom of God. This is the part of the story where Jane began to cry.
Jane was flabbergasted because recently she made the decision to go and be tested to see if she were a match to be able to give her friend a kidney. She mentioned that a year ago she would not have even considered doing something like that. The friend somehow put her off. She is now in a coma. She is currently being kept alive with the help of machinery. Jane realized that the friend knew and the doctors confirmed that this late in the game the odds of her body accepting a transplanted kidney were slim, but the one thing that Jane is taking away from the experience is how much her friend was looking forward to being with God. That she is not afraid to die. I am taking away how much God is working in the heart of Jane.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
The heart of Jane
I love my job.
We meet on Wednesdays as a team and part of that is sharing stories where we have seen God. I want to share this but I know I wont be able to without blubbering so I will share it here.
I received a voicemail that was 4 minutes and 50 seconds long from a lady (I will call her Jane) seeking financial assistance to pay a utility bill. The hard part of my job is that quite often I have to tell people "No" and try to redirect them to other community resources. With a database that shows 50,000 people in the community call this church theirs, you can imagine how many requests we receive for assistance.
So I took a deep breath and dialed the phone. This call surprised me. After I told her that we could not help her and discussed her options her words to me showed that she is listening and taking in what she hears at the services. Jane stated that she understood that her free will put her in this position and she is owning that.
Jane is a recovering alcoholic who just celebrated a year being sober. Her ex husband is an alcoholic and is dying from liver disease. She is living with friends because she cannot afford to have her utilities turned on and her son has to stay with his Dad during this time because of it. it is a very emotionally difficult situation for them all.
She shared that this church is the first one that her autistic son actually enjoys and can pay attention to. His love of this church brought her to Christ. She has been attending for about 6 months.
She then started to tell me a story. One of a new friend (they just met a couple months ago) that she brought to our church who enjoyed the services because it reminded her of her own church. Their friendship progressed at mach speed and apparently this friend endures dialysis daily and needs a kidney transplant. The friend recently gave Jane her Bible and told her a bunch of scriptures that she needed to pay attention to. She recently started mentioning to Jane that she is looking forward to seeing the Kingdom of God. This is the part of the story where Jane began to cry.
Jane was flabbergasted because recently she made the decision to go and be tested to see if she were a match to be able to give her friend a kidney. She mentioned that a year ago she would not have even considered doing something like that. The friend somehow put her off. She is now in a coma. She is currently being kept alive with the help of machinery. Jane realized that the friend knew and the doctors confirmed that this late in the game the odds of her body accepting a transplanted kidney were slim, but the one thing that Jane is taking away from the experience is how much her friend was looking forward to being with God. That she is not afraid to die. I am taking away how much God is working in the heart of Jane.
We meet on Wednesdays as a team and part of that is sharing stories where we have seen God. I want to share this but I know I wont be able to without blubbering so I will share it here.
I received a voicemail that was 4 minutes and 50 seconds long from a lady (I will call her Jane) seeking financial assistance to pay a utility bill. The hard part of my job is that quite often I have to tell people "No" and try to redirect them to other community resources. With a database that shows 50,000 people in the community call this church theirs, you can imagine how many requests we receive for assistance.
So I took a deep breath and dialed the phone. This call surprised me. After I told her that we could not help her and discussed her options her words to me showed that she is listening and taking in what she hears at the services. Jane stated that she understood that her free will put her in this position and she is owning that.
Jane is a recovering alcoholic who just celebrated a year being sober. Her ex husband is an alcoholic and is dying from liver disease. She is living with friends because she cannot afford to have her utilities turned on and her son has to stay with his Dad during this time because of it. it is a very emotionally difficult situation for them all.
She shared that this church is the first one that her autistic son actually enjoys and can pay attention to. His love of this church brought her to Christ. She has been attending for about 6 months.
She then started to tell me a story. One of a new friend (they just met a couple months ago) that she brought to our church who enjoyed the services because it reminded her of her own church. Their friendship progressed at mach speed and apparently this friend endures dialysis daily and needs a kidney transplant. The friend recently gave Jane her Bible and told her a bunch of scriptures that she needed to pay attention to. She recently started mentioning to Jane that she is looking forward to seeing the Kingdom of God. This is the part of the story where Jane began to cry.
Jane was flabbergasted because recently she made the decision to go and be tested to see if she were a match to be able to give her friend a kidney. She mentioned that a year ago she would not have even considered doing something like that. The friend somehow put her off. She is now in a coma. She is currently being kept alive with the help of machinery. Jane realized that the friend knew and the doctors confirmed that this late in the game the odds of her body accepting a transplanted kidney were slim, but the one thing that Jane is taking away from the experience is how much her friend was looking forward to being with God. That she is not afraid to die. I am taking away how much God is working in the heart of Jane.
