Soup and Bread

I had intended to write this story about the Thanksgiving meal we served at the Baton Rouge Dream Center, but there’s another story that I can’t get out of my head.

On Wednesday morning we were downtown getting ready for the big meal. There were tables to set up, decorations to prepare and flyers to hand out. Lots of people, lots of activity, lots of prayer.

After blitzing the neighborhood with reminder notices about the dinner that evening, we were almost ready for a break. Our final stop was The Alamo; a by-the-hour motel with lots of activities not fit to mention in a Christian story. We visit the Alamo fairly frequently, doing grocery giveaways and Midnight Outreach. We pulled into the parking lot and started handing out flyers. The first guy I talked to was sitting in his car smoking a joint. I handed him the paper, answered his questions and moved on before I had to inhale. I talked to a couple of random uninterested people and then I saw a woman pushing a cleaning cart from room to room. I walked over to her, told her I was from Healing Place Church and invited her to dinner as I handed her a flyer. She thanked me for the invitation but said she had no way to get there. I explained that we were located just up the block and around the corner. She asked if it was free and I said yes. She asked if she could bring her two boys and I said yes. Her face lit up. She looked at the paper, smiled at me and folded it into her shirt pocket. She said, “God bless you” and turned back to her cleaning cart. I moved on to the next person, without really thinking much about it.

I was out of flyers so I was standing in the middle of the lot just kind of watching the other team members. The cleaning lady walked up to me again and smiled. I introduced myself, shook her hand and asked her name. She said it was Beverly and looked at her shoes. I smiled at her and asked how she was doing. She looked up at me and said, “Y’all are the people that brought that good soup to us right?” I nodded and said, “Yeah, that was probably us. We’ve handed out a lot of soup lately.” She looked at her shoes again and said, “Do you know when you’re bring some more of that soup out? It surely was a blessing to me and my boys. It’s real good. I buy bread for my boys, I don’t eat the bread myself, but I buys it for them and they dip it in that good soup and it’s a lovely meal. A real blessing. And you know what else?” She looked at me in the eyes when I smiled and said, “What else?” She smiled back and continued, “My neighbor threw their soup out in the trash so I got blessed with that too. Yes Ma’am, a real blessing, my soup and theirs too. What a blessing. Do you know if you’re gonna bring any more of that soup around?”

It took everything in me not to start crying right there in front of her. I told her I wasn’t sure when we were doing that again but that I’d be sure to find her when we did. I asked which unit she lived in and prayed I wouldn’t forget before I wrote it down. I showed her the number on the flyer she could call if she needed help and asked if I could pray with her. (A part of me secretly thought that maybe she should pray for me, as she certainly had a better grasp of God’s blessings than I did.) She nodded and told me she never turns down pray. I called Miss Margaret over and we prayed blessing, provision and breakthrough over she and her family. When I said amen she grabbed me by the neck and hugged me. I hugged her back and didn’t want to let her go. I told her that I would see her again soon. She thanked us again before walking away. I walked back to the truck, trying hard not to cry.

Most of the people who end up at the Alamo have made some bad choices. A lot of them are tangled up in addiction, abuse and all manner of sin. You know what? So was I. God found me and loved me right where I was at; surrounded by dysfunction, perversion and brokenness. God didn’t wait until I had my act together; He came into my life and got my act together for me. So many times we look at people and wonder why they live like that (whatever ‘that’ is). Miss Beverly is very likely caught up in some unhealthy, unholy activities…just like I was. But God loves her right where she’s at…and He loves her too much to leave her there.

Oh God, give us eyes to see your people as You see them. Let us see Your precious creations, not through our eyes of judgment and condemnation, but through Your eyes of compassion and completion.

I am so grateful that Jesus was willing to come into the miry clay, into the deep pit, to pull me out. I pray that He would create in me a willingness to enter the pit in search of others. If I’m going to be ankle-deep in the miry clay, I pray that I dive in headfirst.

All glory to God!