The Turtle "Surfaced"

She 'surfaced' in our lives Labor Day weekend 2009 in the parking lot of Lowe's in Jackson, MS. She seemed to appear out of nowhere. She shuffled up to the driver door window wringing her hands, slightly looking down to the ground as she mumbled clearly enough to make out, "excuse me, I'm homeless and I'm looking for something to eat, could you help me?" Initially, my first thought, which I verbalized quietly, was "oh Lord, have mercy." You might think this was a moment of humble, selfless request, but it was more honestly spoken out of frustration and inconvenience for being "bothered" on a simple outing to the store. You see, we were going to buy paint in order to pretty up the hallway of our house. This was no time to be confronted with the harsh realities of neediness, want and desperation. Though, after the initial shock wore off, and my assessment was made that Mary was hardly a threat to me, my wife, Rachel, or my two little daughters, I asked Rachel to move to the back and Mary to hop in. She stepped in with her tattered, men's blue jeans, moving slowly, long braided brown hair and her white, faded T-shirt. She looked embarrassed as she barely made eye contact and repeatedly said, "thank yuh" in her country like twang. Torn with the thoughts of knowing that quite possibly what she was looking for (e.g. food) was not what she was really looking for (e.g. God) in her journey, I attempted to share the good news of Christ as we made our way to the local Popeyes chicken.

We bought her a meal and invited her to meet us at church the following Wednesday for another meal. We prayed together, and after she stepped back onto the street, our family continued to pray that she would take us up on our offer. At that time, fresh on my mind was the book, "God in the Alley" by Greg Paul. I remember feeling excited about the potential adventure, and glory, of taking someone in that in the world's eyes had very little value, and loving on them and aiding them in the transformation of self-pity and hopelessness to feeling valued and confident. After all, maybe no one had ever given Mary a real chance, no one had shown her the dignity and respect that is inherent in her DNA. Maybe it was that simple, and with these opportunities she would blossom into a beautiful flower. I immediately felt guilty after dropping her off that we did not offer to take her with us for the rest of the afternoon, or bring her to our house with us. However, in hindsight, I believe that at that time, what happened was exactly what we were prepared for.
We continued to pray in our nightly family prayer time for Mary that she would show up that Wednesday at church. Much to our delight, Mary was there waiting for us that Wednesday. We sat and ate and then introduced Mary to whoever was interested in meeting her, in which there were many. It was like in a way sitting with a celebrity (not that I really know what that feels like), having so many people come up and introduce themselves. Mary had caught the bus to make it there, but had no way of making it back to the hotel that she had collected enough money to stay in that night. We happily told her that we would drop her off afterwards, which we did.

This was the start of our relationship with Mary. Little did we know that a simple meal would lead to several months later where God has and continues to use Mary to confront our desires for comfort, lack of faith, stereotypes and partiality towards others, while also teaching us lessons about His unrelenting love, great faithfulness and all satisfying joy. We hope this blog reflects these lessons in order to bring you along with us and Mary.