God cares about vacuum cleaners!
Friday, 27 August 2010
Writing this while snatching a moments rest at Soul Survivor, where I am cooking and caring for our own TLC young ones. They say New York is the city that never sleeps… this must be the campsite that never sleeps. Great fun!
There are so many things I can write about today, but I think I will tell you a little story and leave it at that… it’s a true story, but I have changed the name of the main character.
To give you the context, the story takes place one Tuesday morning in our Open Hands Unit session for women only, a few weeks ago.
Once upon a time there lived a beautiful young African princess, Bernadette. She had a lovely little daughter, just old enough to crawl and pick up bits off the floor and eat them. This was a concern to Bernadette, who mentioned this to the project worker talking to her in the Open Hands Unit on this particular morning, asking if there were any vacuum cleaners available. They prayed together. Bernadette enjoyed choosing some items from the store and the worker enjoyed holding her baby girl. After loading her new clothes and items on her buggy and strapping in the baby, Bernadette was about to leave.
And then it happened, a sign of God’s care for one African lady seeking asylum in a new land… a newly married couple came in, with items to give away, including a unit for it… an almost brand new vacuum cleaner (being newly married, they now had two of these).
They were introduced to Bernadette whose eyes by now were shining with tears of amazement and gratitude. What a joy for the givers and the receivers to be able to talk for a few moments before Bernadette and her baby set off, the vacuum cleaner strapped to the top of the buggy.
And the moral of the story? God cares about vacuum cleaners! Yes, and more than that, he cares deeply for the vulnerable, for the displaced, for the orphans and the widows. And again, more than that, He loves this particular princess and her daughter, He knows them by name, and He wants to meet their needs and show them that He wants to do so much more than give them a vacuum cleaner… and He is sending me (+ you) to be part of it…
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, and you… Read Isaiah 61 to find out why!