The other day I received a call from a close friend telling me she had lost everything. An early morning fire had consumed her home and everything but the front porch was gone.
I was in disbelief and the, “I’m so sorry.” I uttered just didn’t seem to be enough. Silence pounded through the phone, then I finally mustered, “I’m on my way.”
I paced the floor trying to get my thoughts together, what will I tell her, what could I tell her? The divorce just a few months ago left her tattered, not to mention the spiritual necroses of her soul after the miscarriage of her son having carried him in her womb for six months. Now this, bless your heart, is not what I’ll say for I’m sure her heart feels anemic by now.
As I dress to go be with my friend, I repeat the Lord’s Prayer for strength and guidance on how God wanted me to aid his lamb who probably feels lost and alone.
When I open the door of my home I am greeted by a beautiful day, the sun is gleaming and a gentle breeze says God is here. My selfish anxiety for my friend is dissipating and I start to have my usual morning conversation with Jesus, which consists of praise, thanksgiving, petitions for me ,my family, friends and enemies and then the what I plan to do today and so on.
At the corner of my friends house I see the remnants of her home, charred and a mere pile of black mass. The fire truck is gone and people are walking away shaking their heads hung low. Behind the exodus of people I see my friend sitting on the steps of the lone surviving cement porch. She is rocking and cradling something in her arms. I park, take a deep breath and call on my Father, I open the car door and that gentle breeze, tells me He’s there. My friend never looks up, yet I sense she knows I’m here. A woman is leaving, my friend has just shook her head motioning no to the lady, the lady gently touches her shoulder and seems to say goodbye. As we pass one another the lady looks at me and shakes her head as if to say “she’s beyond help and wants no help.” Before I can breath, that gentle breeze embraces and I remain calm. I sit next to my friend and wrap my arm around her shoulder and she seems to melt into my arms. Warm tears run down my face and I take deep breaths to release the sorrow she is transferring to me. I rock her in silence and in the gentle breeze I am moved to sing to her the simple song I sing to myself when I am alone with God and his son, “Thank you God, Thank you Lord, Thank you God, Thank you Lord. Thank you God, and your son, Thank you Lord, and your son, Thank you God, and you son, Thank you Lord and you son…”
After a while my friend looks up at me with a comforting smile and says;
“Take me to the King, I don’t have much to bring, my heart torn in pieces is my offering.”
In that moment I realized that my friend had been asked by many how they could help and she told them there was nothing they could do, but she waited for me. My friend was asking me to take her to the King, which meant she trusted that I knew the King and the way to his throne. Like the lady in the bible who gave her last cent, all that she had to Jesus, she knew God’s love and grace didn’t require a lot, only her willingness to accept him and his son who would later die on the cross for our sins. My friend had faith like the lady with the issue of blood, just the touch of the hem of Jesus’ garment would heal her and make her whole, and that God would take her offering of a tattered heart, heal it, restore it and make it better than before.
I looked back at my friend and told her, the King knew the journey would be hard for you today so he’s come to you. She lifted her face to the sun and I saw the breeze touch her hair. She smiled with her eyes closed and said, “Aw yes, I feel him, He’s here.” She relaxed her arms and opened the seared cedar box she had been embracing which she saved from the fire that held cherished remnants of her past that had touched her heart.
