Everything seems so crystal clear right now. Seems as though everything has meaning. Holy ground....the sacred in the ordinary. I open the door after the usual hiccups getting all the garbage bags down the elevator. Rolly cart doing three summer saults down the stairs in front of Alvis. Big scene, everyone looking around, rolled eyes, rolly cart upside down, wheels still spinning....the blessings are here! I load way too many garbage bags onto the rolly cart and attempt to navigate it back up the ramp unable to see. You know, the usual. Make it to the elevator throw everything inside and then hit the down arrow. Sigh...success. Easy peasy. Down to lower level , take a few bags off the top, throw them off the elevator, peel myself out of the elevator trying to balance on garbage bags and for some unknown reason turn around and hit the up arrow sending an elevator full of blessed garbage bags back up to the main level. Perfect.
After a while, they make it back down and I roll the cart down the hall wondering if this will be my last time to be able to carry the blessings to "Hope's Closet". Such a fitting name for such a beautiful place. I put the key in the door on this quiet Thursday afternoon, I open the door on this day all alone in a barely lit room where everything seems to stand out like I am seeing it for the very first time. Not for the first time, but certainly with new eyes and new vision. The purpose of what that room actually symbolizes to the hurting and broken women who enter there day after day. The transformation that takes place as the women from one side of town donate their extra clothing to help the women from another side of town feel beautiful again or maybe for the very first time.
Hope's Closet allows them to shop for clothing that will externally symbolize the transformation that had already began internally. The room is beautiful, it is arranged like Sak's thanks to the A & F sorter Jedi who donates her time to make it an experience for them.
Everywhere I look I am struck by the excellence of it all. The beauty of how the clothing is arranged. Straightened out, carefully displayed, not at all how it looked when it was dragged in here! It is brought into Hope's Closet in garbage bags. Most of the time the garbage bags are ripped because I have had at least one or more mishap trying to get them in the door and they may or may not have been sent to different floors without me. Who knows what happened to them without my supervision. The get mixed-up, wadded-up, wrinkled, thrown out, dropped on the floor. Oftentimes, put in the places where they do not belong. Heavens, they are even called names, tags cut out and mislabeled. They are given names that don't represent them at all. I sat there staring at the box of belts labeled "Shoes". The irony God, I so see the irony. If only they could see who they really are, or better yet "WHOSE" they really are.
What names are they still identifying with that are poisoining their dreams, their callings , relationships and destinies? Who is still accusing them from the recesses of their minds with names that they should have never been called. You call them "Beloved". You call them "Daughters of the Most High". You call them "the delight of your heart". You call the "chosen, "redeemed" and "precious baby girl". Why is that so hard for them to believe?
I am walking around the room thinking about that and a picture I drew a few weeks ago regarding the fracture of women with regard to love. I was writing about why it is so hard for them to accept the unconditional, gracious, ridiculous and miraculous love of God. So few are truly able to accept the message of grace and are never able to accept themselves just as they are. They are certainly not able to love anyone else with a healing, unconditional love. You cannot give what you don't have. Self-hate amd self-loathing cannot birth unconditional love for another. Everything halts right there. Anger and selfishness takes over. Not in a prideful way but in a self-loathing way....still self-worship, but its ugly step sister. I have been thinking about this for several week and this is the conclusion I have come to regarding the quandary. We are God's hands and feet on this Earth. Those fractures deep in the heart and soul can only start to heal when genuine love is extended to another....expecting nothing in return. Just love in whatever currency that needs to be. It may be a meal, a listening ear, babysitting for a mom who is worn completely out, a bed for someone's babies, a hug, smile or a note. Without meeting these needs and extending a hand in genuine friendship and love, no one is going to want anything that we are selling. END OF STORY. Love does. It does not talk about it and then go sit down. It goes, it feeds, it clothes, it hugs, it sits with, it fights for....it DOES!!! Talking about it is why everyone thinks we are a bunch of holy hypocrites. I get it. We have to do the thing, Stop yah-yahing and DO THE THING. Geez Louise. It is not that hard. Ok rant over. Almost, we have to work together. Collaboration is the key. There is more than enough resources in this world to take care of God's kids. I know the GUY who runs this place and He told me so. So stop fighting over a dollar. Hold hands and lets do this and not care about who gets credit. Rant over really.
Ok, lastly, I want to show you what the blessings look like when I bring them in. More often times than not, they are a train wreck. It is what it is. I never said I was gifted in all areas blessing related. When we we start our journey to God, we are bedraggled ragamuffins. Hot messes....Jesus basically asks us to come dirty. It is his specialty to clean us up. Willpower is a joke. In our weakness, he is strong. This entire ministry happened because some really great sorter, organizer, business, spreadsheet person with mad skills decided to say no to the call of God and my hand went up. So this scrub and my crew that very closely resembles the team from the movie "The Replacements" got to go on the journey of a lifetime that is still going on to this minute with a new coach. Who has been called to lead then into the next phase of the journey.
He is still parting our Red Seas. It has been nothing short of miraculous and hilarious. God loves giving us good stories to tell of His wonder working power. I'm so grateful that person didn't say yes because I have got to witness God's strength in my weakness and His miracles in ways I never could have imagined. Now I am off to the next journey, "put me in coach", let do this! I'll bring my ripped up garbage bags and you bring the miracles, like always! As for the blessings, be sure to look closely, you never know what or who you are looking at. Many of the deepest thinkers with the biggest hearts don't always come wrapped up in the prettiest of packages. You can almost be certain that if the bag is torn and stuff is hanging out, they will be much better friends. They don't have to work so hard to keep all that crazy tucked in...keeping crazy tucked in is exhausting. Get real and let's get busy. We got Daddy's business to do and He has just called for an expansion. Giddyup! Here we come....MO Blessings and FLO Blessings! Love and Peace! H
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