Totally Transformed

A week or two ago I found a caterpillar on our new front porch while the kids were at school. Knowing Brennan would be so sad to have missed it, I scooped it up and brought him inside for the day. Later that same day Brennan found two more in the yard. While I'd intended to only keep them for the afternoon and then release them, I gave in and let him keep them overnight since we already had a caterpillar/butterfly habitat. The next morning we woke up and were amazed to find them already hanging upside down preparing for their transformations into butterflies.

We've been checking every once in awhile to see if they are ready to emerge, this morning when I walked past, all three were still tightly in their cocoons. Then less than an hour later I walked by and noticed one of the three had emerged. I quickly called the kids to check it out. They watched him for awhile and then went on playing.

If you know Brennan you'll know he doesn't miss much. He notices everything, takes it in and studies it. A short while later he says "Mom! Look, that cocoon looks like it has a crack in it!" Indeed it did. He'd just happened to walk past right as the butterfly was just beginning to emerge. They sat watching while I tried to get my camera ready to capture the moment. I was a bit too slow to video the whole thing, but the kids had a front row seat, something they may never see live again. It only takes a minute or two and had he not noticed the crack in the cocoon we would have completely missed it!

 

So we sat and watched that little butterfly!  He emerged with his wings held tight, looking quite crumpled and nothing like his buddy who'd already had the time to stretch out his wings...such an amazing thing for the kids to see. To be able to compare the two side by side. We watched and watched as he slowly began to unfurl his wings until his transformation was complete. And then they wanted to see it again!! We still had one tiny cocoon and we sat and we sat and we sat, hoping for a glimpse of the crack that would signify he was ready. After waiting quite some time mommy had to make the decision to head to school rather than sit and watch the cocoon all day. I knew we could have been waiting all day, I used to do this with my first graders every year, they don't normally enter their cocoons at the same time nor do they all emerge on the same time schedule. So we reluctantly headed to school.

As I was heading home today I saw a familiar truck, one I haven't seen in over a year and one I look for regularly. It's tattered and the paint is rusted off, it has a makeshift roof made of cardboard to keep the rain out and the truck bed is full of black trash bags. And it's the HOME of my friends Dallas, her adult daughter Sherie and Sherie's son Tommy who is in his mid twenties. They LIVE in their truck. It's all they've got.

We first met year's ago when they used to park their truck in the Pavilion's parking lot where I did my grocery shopping. If you live in Monrovia, you may have noticed them too. They were nearly always there, parked in the very same spot and very clearly homeless.

I wish I could say I befriended them immediately upon noticing their presence in my community, but I didn't. It was months before God got ahold of my heart and made sure I stepped out in faith and WAY out of my comfort zone and approached their truck! For far too long I'd let the enemy prevent me from helping, perhaps they'd use the money for drugs, perhaps they didn't WANT the help, perhaps they were "bad" people and the recording in my head would go on and on each time I'd see them. There was very clearly a NEED but I let my own fears prevent me from acting on their need. One day I was driving by, with absolutely NO intention of going to the grocery store when I glanced over and saw their truck and felt God very clearly telling me to turn into the parking lot and go introduce myself. So I turned in and approached their truck and said hello! That was one of the best things I ever did. Dallas, Sherie and Tommy are some of the nicest people you'll ever meet!!  The type of people who despite their very REAL NEED will ask sincerely how you are doing and how they can pray for YOU! It was evident immediately that they knew the Lord, they just exude HIS love.

Thus began our friendship. I'd visit with them when I went to do my shopping, and ask how I could help them that day, what were their needs? Sherie would occasionally accompany me inside the store and buy some food. Sometimes I'd throw some things inside my cart while I was shopping for our family and drop them by their truck on my way out. When winter hit and they needed warmer clothes I headed to Walmart  and outfitted them the best I could. But what always touched me the most about them was their desire to know me, they weren't looking for a handout, they were looking for a relationship. For someone to notice them! To enter into their world and care! They'd even met my kids more than once, they knew my kids by name and my kids knew theirs and would ask about them frequently. They knew their likes their dislikes and Brennan's love for garbage trucks:) We never spent any great length of time together, never more than 15 or 20 minutes here and there, but somehow a very real relationship was formed. And when their truck suddenly no longer inhabited "their" spot in the parking lot I missed them! I wondered about them and prayed for them and for months would peer into the parking lot EVERY time I drove past hoping to glimpse their truck in the lot. Many months went by and I searched for them less frequently but never forgot about them.

It's been more than a year since I last saw them, until today...

This was a divine encounter. One ordained by God. If any part of our morning had gone differently, if one traffic light had been red instead of green or vice versa, we wouldn't have been traveling through the same intersection at the exact same moment. If Brennan hadn't noticed the caterpillar about to emerge and if we hadn't spent quite a bit of time observing them I would have taken them to school long before that moment and our paths wouldn't have crossed.

This was an answer to prayer.

So despite the fact that I had someone at home waiting for me to return I turned the car around and headed the direction I'd just seen them go until I caught up to my dear friends. 

Dallas greeted me with a big hug and they immediately started asking how I was doing, how my kids were and even how our dog was! Tommy, who is so much like my Brennan with his amazing ability to remember conversations in great detail, asked about my little "garbage man" and what his current interests were! They shared how they'd been praying for us and I shared how I'd been praying (and searching) for them!

When I asked Dallas if there was anything they needed today she shared that they could really use some money for gas. DONE! Though I am a debit card queen and very rarely have cash on hand, I just "happened" to have some in my wallet today, just when they NEEDED it (greatly) and we just "happened" to be driving on the same street at the same time so that our paths would cross.

It was a divine encounter, completely orchestrated by God and God alone and one I won't soon forget.

In his book "Outlive Your Life", Max Lucado talks about how we tend to walk around and hide within "clamshells" designed to shut the pain of the world out. We don't intend to hide, but the problems of the world feel go great and we feel too small to make a difference so instead we close our "clamshells" and pretend there isn't a need at all.

May I show you my new clamshell? It just arrived. My old one was thinning out.  You know how worn they can get. Sheer as the wall of a cheap motel.

 Don't know what I'd do without mine. When news reports describe Afghan refugees, into the shell I go. When a homeless person appears with a cardboard sign, I just close the lid. When missionaries describe multitudes of lost, lonely souls, I climb in. Why, just last week someone told me about regions of the world that have no clean water. Without my clamshell to protect me, who knows what I would have done. I might have written a check!

This is quite a shield. You probably have your own. Most of us have learned to insulate ourselves against the hurt of the hurting. Haven't we? Mustn't we? After all, what can we do about the famine in Sudan, the plight of the unemployed, or a  pandemic of malaria?

Clamshells. We come by them honestly. We don't intend to retreat from the world or stick our heads in a hole.  We want to help. But the problems are immense (Did you say one billion are poor?), complex (When is helping actually hurting?), and intense (I have enough problems of my own.).

Retreat! This is exactly what I was doing each and every time I headed to the grocery store and walked right past that beat up truck and the three people clearly living inside it. I didn't feel that I was enough, that my small contribution would even make a dent in their need, so why bother at all. Why extend a hand if I couldn't "fix" their situation? And this is exactly what the enemy wanted me to think! I'm so glad the Lord was patient enough with me and kept laying them on my heart and continued slowly nudging me (an introvert by nature) to reach out and truly SEE them!

Max goes on to say...

 Let God unshell you. And when he does, "make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that" (Galatians6:4) Don't miss the opportunity to discover your language.

With who do you feel most fluent? Teenagers? Drug addicts? The elderly? You may be tongue-tied around children but eloquent with executives. This is how God designed you.

For whom do you feel the most compassion? God doesn't burden us all equally. When does your heart break and pulse and race? When you spot the homeless? When you travel to the inner city? Or when you see the victims of sex trade in Cambodia?

Today I realized that my heart has been totally transformed (or unshelled if you will), not unlike those caterpillars we captured a few short weeks ago!