A few weeks ago it was our honor to be surprised by some big time JOY.
To set up the scene, you need to know a few things. These amazing two homes of ours have been graciously given to us for our work, rent-free, by K. K inherited the homes and property from his Jesus-loving parents, after his father died unexpectedly of a heart attack about three years ago. The land and houses were too much work for K's mother alone, and thus, his early inheritance. K's father built these two homes, which previously were part of our next door neighbor's farm, into what they are today. Up until 1989, the small house was a pigsty, and the big house was the barn for the cows and horses.
K has a sister, who is very excited about and supportive of our work here in her parents' former home, and she came to visit us last fall with her then fourteen year old daughter, who I will call Lovely. We spent the day making jam together, and by the end of the day I had invited Lovely to come and stay with us for a week if she'd ever want to. Months later she said yes, and about a month ago in July, she came. She had just turned fifteen.
Lovely's main reason to come and stay with us was so that she could better her English.
She, and we all, were surprised
at what the Lord had in mind instead.
Funny, but weeks before Lovely's arrival, different people began to ask me the same question, at different times:
So when are you expecting your next guest?
My answer:
We have no idea. The Lord has been faithful to bring us the guests we've already had, and I know He will bring our next guest at the perfect time. I mean, we have a teenager coming at the end of July for a week to better her English, but other than that, really, we have no idea when our next guest will come...
Little did any of us know or even expect
what He had in store for her, and for us all.
Because I did not see Lovely as a guest the Lord was truly bringing to our home, but rather saw her visit through a different lens, I did not plan to talk with her purposely about Jesus, or to read the Bible daily with her, as I have done with our previous guests. I just figured we would spend a lot of time together at the local lake with the children, swimming and enjoying summer days. Which we did, by the way.
But there was more.
I think with Jesus, there is always, more.
On the third day of her visit, she came to sit with me on a bench that overlooks our garden. It was twilight, and the children were playing on the grass before us. A perfect summer day was coming to its end. Then she gave me a gift, a surprise. She said something like,
I was just up in my bedroom, and I had a special experience. I was looking out the window, and I began to pray. I was thanking God for this home, this place, this land, and this beauty. And I began to cry. And I told Jesus that I wanted to give Him my whole heart, not just part of it.
I sat there dumbstruck. That was not what I was expecting to hear, at all. She proceeded to tell me later that night, while we sat in our pajamas on her bed, about her life. She told me about how meaningful this home is to her--this home that her grandfather's hands had built. She told me of the summers she had spent here, and how it was still too painful for her older sister to return to see it, as the last time she had been here was her grandfather's funeral. Lovely told me how much she had loved her grandfather, and how she had cried for months after his (seemingly) untimely death.
Lovely told me that although she'd believed in God since she was a child, it had never been more than that. She had had no desire to know Him more. She thought the Bible was a boring book, and that praying at meals was a waste of time.
Then The God of This Place surprised her.
Seemingly out of nowhere, she met Him in her room while praying and overlooking the fields. She didn't expect this to happen--it just happened, and she welcomed it, and Him, into her whole heart. Astounding. After shedding tears while sharing about her grandfather, she said something to me like,
I wish he could be here now, to see what you are using this home for. I think he'd be so happy with what you are doing here, and I think he'd be so happy that I have given my heart to Jesus.
She ended with,
I'm just SO HAPPY.
The thought of how the angels,
and her grandfather, in heaven
must have been rejoicing at that moment
still brings me to tears.
K told us the first day that we met him and saw these homes, that it was always his father's dream to use these homes for God's work and for His people. Little did anyone ever guess that the hands that built these homes would one day be used years later to bring a certain granddaughter of his to salvation.
It was more than interesting to me that Lovely gave her heart to Jesus on that July summer night. Earlier that day, I'd had the impression that I should ask Lovely if she would be willing to begin to read the Bible with me each day, reading the Gospel of John (remember, reading the Bible with her during her stay was not in my previous plans). She answered with an enthusiastic yes. She said she'd brought her Bible with her--that she'd never read--and that she was excited to give it a try.
Prepare yourself for another surprise.
On the third day of our reading together, after reading John Chapter 3 (remember, it's where Nicodemus asks Jesus how and why a man must be born again, and Jesus replies how you must be born of water and the Spirit?), Lovely asked,
Is there any way that I can
get baptized
before I go home?
Sure enough, on her last Sunday at our home (really, it's HIS home), Lovely was baptized. Here to join in her special day were both of her parents, her sister, K, her uncle, and her grandmother.
After singing some worship, my husband asked Lovely to share with everyone why she wanted to get baptized. She simply told a dead-quiet room her story--her experience of how she gave her heart to Jesus in the room upstairs, and how for the first time in her life the Bible had come alive to her, and...
Her sharing was interrupted by K bursting into a sob, who was filled with so much emotion he could no longer contain it. All eyes went to him. He excused himself and said, "I'm sorry, I need to get a tissue." Lovely's father added, "Then bring the whole box back with you," and as we looked 'round the room, there was not a dry eye in sight.
Who would have ever thought?
That from heartbreaking death, there would one day be life.
From ashes, beauty.
That JOY would most assuredly come in the morning,
in the most surprising of ways.
