Tuesday, December 16, 2008

still small voice


I honestly don't even know where to begin or how to attempt to share this message. But I do know that I just have to share it. Last night in class, the leader guy stood up in his above garage room where we meet twice a week, in his sock feet and jeans, and simply shared what was on his heart. Toward the end he pointed to a lady in the back of the room and asked her to share what she had shared with him earlier. Someone handed a mic to Rita. Rita and her daughter drive all the way from Alabama to come to class. She runs a Christian school and they come all that long way in a white church van. I am not sure how old Rita is, but her daughter is about my age. Rita just has this way about her. You are drawn to her because she is real. She has a smile on her face and a look about her, you know she can be trusted, you know she is strong, you know she is honest and genuine, you know she's a good cook. She has long hair and bangs. She has a sweet face and an Alabama accent and a big mother heart. She takes the mic and says, "You know how God just tells you to do something? Well, I just knew God was telling me to go somewhere. I didn't actually hear His voice or anything, but I just knew that he had me get up in the middle of the night because he wanted me to go somewhere". She begins to describe a road near her house and how she was awakened about 1:00am, with thoughts about this place, this dead end road near her house, and how she just knew that God wanted her to go there...right then. She woke up her husband and told him, "God wants me to go somewhere". He woke up and said, "That's good" and rolled back over. She told him, "No, he wants me to go to that dead end dirt road and you're going with me". So they get up. At 1:00 in the morning, and get in the truck and drive to this dead end dirt road because Rita heard a still small voice. She says they were in the car for about 20 minutes. To me, that is a long time to sit in the truck, at a dead end, in the middle of the night, with a grumpy husband. She said she just kept thinking, "My husband's gonna think I'm crazy". As she was telling her story I started to feel her pain. You know that still small voice. I've heard it before. Sometimes I have acted on it, other times, I have rolled back over and forced myself back to sleep. I suddenly became nervous for her, knowing what it is like to put yourself out there and knowing what the grunts from her husband must have done to her racing heart and butterflies in her stomach. I have wrestled with those thoughts in my head and convinced myself that I am not crazy and other times I just let go and realize that maybe I am nuts and my cornbread ain't cooked. After about 20 minutes in the truck, Rita said they saw headlights and a car came flying down the dirt road, coming to a halt at the dead end. She said a woman got out and asked, in an angry tone, "What are you doing here?". Rita simply said, "God told me to come here." She said the lady started weeping. She said she had seen the woman before but didn't know her at all. Rita said she then got out of her truck, and got into the passenger seat of the car with the lady. There she found a gun and a suicide note. The lady had come there to take her life. To take her life! To take her life! The lady had come out of desperation, because she felt alone and unloved. And God in Heaven, Creator of the Universe woke up a little woman in Alabama and told her to go somewhere, because His beloved daughter was about to take her own life. Rita simply went when she heard the word, "Go!" and a she saved a woman's life and brought her hope and a revelation of just how precious she is. I'm undone.

1 comment:

  1. wow. what else can i say? that is just awesome.

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