Patricia

“Please… come back in 20 minutes…” the dark haired little woman choked while a baby squirmed in her arms and a rangy mutt circled her shoeless feet. We’d walked to her neighborhood from an old rusty overpass just on the outskirts of Harlan. This was hour number three marching through trailer parks; knocking on doors, praying, talking to people, and listening to their stories.

“I live just across the street… I’m watching the baby for her mamma while she’s at the store. Please, I need to talk to you. Give me a half hour?” We smiled and nodded, taking a step back off the broken porch. I glanced over my shoulder to see the house we’d be returning to in a matter of minutes. The dirt yard had covered itself around the bottom of the house courtesy of the thunderstorms that week. Behind the brown, little shades of orange peeked out, though actually, it was more peach as the years had worn the brightness of the palate to nothing more than a dull reminder of its glory days.

Plastic bags and duct tape filled the bottom left corner of the front window where glass had once been. This was it. This was Patricia’s home. There were hundreds more just like it on the streets around us.

As the three of us left to investigate the surrounding streets, we encountered all kinds of people. The bent grey haired man taking out his garbage who wanted to debate the exclusivity of Christ, the mother with seven children who asked us to come in and gathered all her children around to hold hands so they could listen to us talk and pray, even the three old maids smoking on the front porch with their cynical looks, “Hell girl, you go ahead and pray, things can’t get any worse.”

We eventually headed back to that faded peach house with the broken window. I knocked on the door - silence. I knocked gently again – still no answer. A little confused, we turned to head back down the streets when Patricia came rushing from the neighbor’s. “Please come in, come in…”

We stepped into the old house, and immediately upon entrance, it struck me; this woman had nothing. An old shredded couch, a few trinkets, that was all. Glancing back into the kitchen, shards of glass lay spewed about the floor.

She asked us to sit down. As we started to talk, tears came to Patricia’s eyes. She started telling us about her family. Dropping out of school in jr high, she’d come from a rough background. She’d raised two kids alone, only her daughter was still alive. This daughter was also raising a daughter as a single parent… This little girl, Patricia’s granddaughter, had a terminal illness.

Particia’s daughter was going through suicidal depression because of her granddaughter’s illness. They couldn’t afford the hospital bills, and were left without money for groceries, electricity, or a telephone. She wept as she told us of her anger toward God, pointing back to the kitchen full of broken glass.
“I couldn’t take it anymore last night… I broke everything. Everything… why is this happening? Where is God? Where is he?”

My heart broke. We sat for over an hour, I held this hurting woman in my arms and we prayed and talked. I cried with this complete stranger for the pain of this world as we listened to her story. Patricia at one point got up and picked up a little worn Bible off a shelf. She was a Christian, and told us about when she put her faith in the forgiveness and grace of Christ. We were able to get her information about a local church that could help her, and went on to contact the pastor. As the time came for us to go, Patricia held my hand and looked as us.

“I sat in my kitchen last night after breaking everything, and just screamed out to God that if my life mattered at all to him, to show that to me. He sent you to me to show me. He knew I needed you today. He sent you to me.”

As we left, I couldn’t help but stand humbled and awestruck at how God uses people to accomplish his perfect plans, and to encourage his hurting children. It’s been six months since that day, and I haven’t heard from Patricia since then. I pray that her faith is strong, and that God will continue to reveal himself to her.

This isn’t the way life was meant to be. Death, pain, sorrow, guilt; it’s all a result of sin. It’s all a result of the curse that we all must suffer under. The rich and poor, the young and old, the wise and foolish, each life will pass like a vapor. Where our human depravity leaves gaping holes though, the person and work of Jesus Christ offers a redemptive solution. He overcame death. He healed the sick and the hurting.

This life will soon be over… Praise the Lord! Why you ask? Because my friend, there’s another life still yet to come. I’ll cling to the promises of God until then, and enjoy this life he’s so generously given me.

Someday though, I’m ready for heaven.