The Best Things Grow Slowly and in the Dark
A wise woman once told me, “God works in decades,” and over time I’ve found this to be true. Of course, we see God working in big and small ways each-and-every day, but hindsight truly is 20/20, and I can look back now and see how He began slowly tending the soil of my heart for beautiful gardens he’d bring forth years later.
In 2010, I was a newly married, twenty-something woman with a lifetime of “church-going” under my belt. However, that year my husband and I were introduced to a couple who’d be the catalyst God used to produce major change in our lives.
What grew slowly started like this
It started with an invitation to attend “house church” in their home. “House church” was basically dinner and a discussion over the sermon preached at their church Sunday morning.
I remember feeling both floored and lost as I listened to the conversations happening between this group of people. Floored because I’d never seen a group of people so passionate about loving and serving those around them. Lost because after listening to the content and depth of their discussions, I realized there was so much more to learn about why I believed what I believed than I’d ever previously been taught.
It was clear the well they drew water from was much deeper than any well I’d drawn from in times past.
This experience ignited an unquenchable thirst deep inside to seek truth.
To seek depth.
To see what it was that compelled them to stand at gas pumps, paying for the gas of others.
To help neighbors with huge projects when most would turn a blind eye.
To invite random people (like me) into their home for dinner and discussion.
I’d never seen a church be so intentional about truly being the hands and feet of Jesus like these people were.
As the days and weeks marched on, the Spirit began to birth inside me a desire to love and serve others in a way I’d never experienced. Simultaneously my husband and I had just moved into a neighborhood. This was my first experience living in close physical proximity to others.
As we planted roots there, I was blown away by the number of people around me with so many needs. I cannot explain it other than to say the Holy Spirit was actively growing within me a desire to serve, while also highlighting many opportunities to do so.
A plot-twist
As I began to press in, praying that God would teach me to love and serve them the way He did, something else happened.
My husband began experiencing motor deficits for which we had no answers. We’d welcomed our third child during this time and six months later, he’d lost his job. Two months after that, he was diagnosed with a terminal illness known as ALS.
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Two-five-year life expectancy. Chad made it a little past three.
ALS is an “all hands-on deck” kind of disease. Not only does it strip the afflicted from every physical ability they possess, it also requires every physical and mental ability from the care-giver.
Your hands become their hands. Your feet become their feet.
Your everything is maxed, stretched, consumed, exhausted!
I remember lying on the floor utterly broken and confused. I’d just begun deeply desiring to help others and now I was the one begging God for help because I had no idea what we were going to do. Three kids. No jobs and now a terminal, neurodegenerative disease.
A return blessing
In no time, God began to send the very people we’d been led into community with to our aide.
He sent help in the way of childcare, groceries and dinners. He sent people to mow our yard, clean our home, and perform household maintenance. When Chad became completely quadriplegic, he sent men five days a week to assist me in getting him out of the bed, showered, dressed, and into his wheelchair. There were fundraisers held in our honor, donations made to our family, and so much more.
I had no idea when I’d previously begun asking God to teach me how to love and serve others the monstrous ways in which he would do just that.
I had no idea He’d use our new community and the people near us to answer my prayer and change my heart.
I had no idea he’d teach me to be His hands and feet by allowing me to become the hands of feet of someone else.
Experiencing selfless love poured over us again and again changed me forever. It was an experience I would have never chosen, yet one I would never trade.
I am forever grateful for the way God’s love compelled others to embrace us by tirelessly loving and serving our family for three solid years. As a result, I will never be the same.
Now I know how to embrace and respond to others with the same tender love and service with which I’ve received.
The fruit of what was slowly growing
Turns out, the wise woman was right; God does work in decades and thankfully, this decade looks much different than my last. Those seeds, once planted in the dark, have now sprouted into glorious displays of their Creator.
To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.
Ecclesiastes 3:1
The storms we endured through that season were hard, but it was all for a purpose, ultimately for my good, and I am undeniably grateful.
Meet Lori Jude
Lori Jude is thirty-something, single mother of three, who is learning to trust God with the broken pieces of her life. In 2017, Lori’s husband Chad went to be with Jesus after a three-year battle with ALS. Since then, Lori spends her time reading, writing and soaking in every moment with her children. Lori is a textbook-enneagram-four, whose creative juices keep her looking for the beauty that’s easily missed when our lives have been turned upside down. She’s a firm believer that seeing our suffering through a divine lens makes all the difference. You can connect with her at www.themessybeautiful.org or @lmjude on Instagram.
Where to find her . . .
Begin Within is a series to inspire a year-round lifestyle of gratitude that will impact not only your own life, but the lives of your neighbors as well. Gratitude is a theme we talk about often around here because it ties so closely into other missional living rhythms. Practicing gratitude reminds to keep our hearts soft and expectant and our eyes open. Therefore, the more we embrace gratitude, the easier it becomes to truly see our neighbors and where we can join what God is already doing in our neighborhoods.
If you would like to contribute to Begin Within, you can find the submission guidelines here.
Creating Ripples
If you would like to cultivate rhythms in addition to gratitude that will empower you live on mission in your neighborhood, check out Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. This small book will help you make a big impact in your neighborhood as you learn to let missional living flow from the inside out. Get the 30-day missional living challenge free when you purchase the book.
