Does It Matter?

There are hundreds (if not thousands) of women in this city in need.  Real need.  Need for housing, clothing, food.  Need for medical attention, need for safe shelter, need for spiritual and emotional nurturing.  Hundreds (if not thousands) of women with deep and profound needs.

I've spent the last two weeks of my life pouring all that I've got to give into six of them.  Just six.

On Day One, I read Ephesians 2:10 to them, "For you are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works with He prepared in advance that you would walk in them."  I told them that they have worth and value.  I wanted them to view themselves that way, and I wanted them to know that I view them that way, having worth and value.

Every day I've learned a little more about them.  None of them has lived a life untouched by tragedy or failure.  Three of them are homeless.  Two of them have been incarcerated.  One of them has been arrested more than 60 times.  All of them have been married and divorced multiple times, one of them to the same man four times!  Three of them have children with felony records. One of them had her first child at 14 years of age -- she's five years older than me, has 7 children, and 6 grandchildren!  One of them is a breast cancer survivor. Most of them are survivors of sexual abuse that began in their earliest years.  I could go on and on and on.

I've been involved with classes like this one for most of the last six years.  The reality is, these lives are messy and tangled and the majority of them won't look any different a year from now once the high of the last 10 days wears off.  Lasting life change isn't easy.  Old habits die hard.  Peer pressure is powerful.

Conversations with others, attempting to explain myself, this ministry, these women often leave me wondering if I'm not wasting my time, wasting my life giving so much of myself to "hopeless" causes.

My alarm went off this morning, and I sat up feeling like I hadn't slept at all.  Tired, spent, wondering where the mental and emotional resources were going to come from to pull off another day of class.  I had a list of errands that had to be run before I even got to the office/classroom.  As has become my habit, I began mentally calling their six names before the Lord, handing each of them over to Him and asking Him to do all that I couldn't do for them, asking Him to bring them here and make this day count.

"God, will it all matter?  Is it worthwhile?"

For she is My workmanship created in My Son to do good works that only she can do which I planned long ago for her to accomplish.