Dear Prodigals.

Well, it was another surprising night.

I love Friday nights but I was still tired, still irritable, and still hurting from my operation last week. But I had to go. I had to pick up Bridget because she was the only one for worship since Warren was ill. And Maggie wanted to go.

Bridget did her normal warm up and we all began to eat.

And then, something very interesting happened.

A woman picked up the guitar and began to sing “Your Cheatin’ Heart” just like Patsy Cline. Then “Crazy.” And then another song. And I thought, “Wow, this is enjoyable.” “Will you do another?”

“For a quarter.”

So I gave her another quarter. So she sang another song.

So Joanne came in, hearing the music and said, “Will you sing another song?”

“If you give her a quarter,” I told her.

So she gave her a quarter and she sang again.

So this bluesy, honkey-tonk country singer entertained us, but not with Amazing Grace; I’m sure everyone in the complex could hear.

I wondered what was going on.

Then it was time to start worship and Bridget began to sing this worship song and then that worship song.

I was hoping that, like last week, there wouldn’t be any kids so I could sit and listen to Pastor Steve. Instead, we had more kids and four new kids. And there were a couple of troublemakers. I had to make them sit with me.

I thought, “what’s going on here?”

And then that blues honkey-tonk singer got up and began to lead the children in songs of praise to the Lord. She sang three songs with them and the place was rocking out.

Well, Bridget didn’t get to finish her worship with “How Great is Our God;” instead, it was memory verse time.

The memory verse was to love one another (John 13:34). This woman, this honkey-tonk blues woman, said, “Do you know the verses before it?”

She said it was about how Jesus wrapped Himself in a towel and began to wash the feet of the disciples. You know, He washed Peter, and he didn’t like it. But the amazing thing is that he washed the feet of Judas, who would betray Him. He did this as a demonstration of how you love one another.

Then she said the verse after loving one another says this is how you know that you are Christians (see John 13:35).

It was one of those nights when the Holy Spirit allowed us to function in the gifts of the Spirit; this was all inspired by the Holy Spirit.

You know, her mother was a drunkard. A drug user. With boyfriends over all the time. Always a party. With no father.

She became a Christian and loved the Father; she had a Father. She loved the Lord. One day she was told that she needs to love her mother, her mother that she hated because she abused her, neglected her and her sister, and the way she would beat her, throw things at her–even knives. She hated her. When she was 18 she escaped. But now, she had to love her because the Lord said she had to love her enemies.

She told the Lord she couldn’t love her mother but remembered she could do all things through Christ who strengthened her (Philippians 4:6) and apart from me you can do nothing (John15). She began to do loving things because love is a choice–she didn’t feel like loving her–but she began to behave lovingly: forgiving and forgetting. Soon even the emotion of love came to her.

So she told the children and the adults that you can even love those that you have hated and you can truly love one another.

It was way past time to breakup. But we had really seen the functioning of the Holy Spirit among us.

Then it had been more than enough and I took the children into the other room and began to review what we had studied two weeks before. We are special and that we shouldn’t allow labels to stick to each other, from Max Lucado’s book: YOU ARE SPECIAL. The labels they know are: they are loosers, no good, and worthless. But I reminded them that in 1 John 3:1 it says “Behold, what manner of love has been poured out on us that we should be called children of God.” We are special. We are God’s kids.

Then, the blues honkey-tonk singer had listened to what I said and mentioned, “Maybe these kids aren’t all children of God.”

She began to lay out the plan of salvation to all these children, telling them how, even in the miserable situation, in 5th grade she went to church with the neighbor across the street to hear a man tell her there is a heaven and a hell and you get to choose. If you choose to go to heaven, there is only way, through Jesus Christ. His blood on the cross saves us from our sins and His resurrection three days later, the resurrection life, gives us divine life and we are born again.

She laid out that even in 7th grade she went to church with another neighbor; God’s hand was upon her. She turned to follow the lord at 19 and began to love one another.

She said, “some of you are new here. You must have been somebody’s neighbor” The Lord tells us to love our neighbors. Marc, the 6 year old, said, “I brought them and I invited them. They’re my neighbors.”

Ever since we’ve been praying for God to bring people, Marc has been bringing people.

So this blues singer continued this testimony of how she hated her mother and how horrible she was. And how she hated her father who she never met until 21. Although she lived a horrible life, Christ had brought her out.

“I lived like you, all you kids,” she said, “I didn’t have enough food. I got clothes from the Lutheran church who gave clothes away for kids and families. That’s how my sister and I lived. Without a mother. Without a father. In misery. I shouldn’t even be alive now, I was suicidal. I should have been a drug addict, an alcoholic, who finally had children without a father, and committed suicide. I hated myself as well as my mother.”

During this time, I kept saying “close the deal, close the deal.” But she continued.

“But God saved me. I graduated from college. I don’t live like that anymore. All of you can get As and Bs in school. You can go to college so you never have to live like this anymore. You don’t have to have children to live like this. You just need to be born again. You just need Christ. You can get saved. You can learn to love and not hate anymore. You learn to love one another.”

She told Maria, who is 13, “when I was your age, I did things I should never have been doing. But God can save you from all of this.”

Peanut Butter and Sandwich (Cheyenne) said “We don’t live there anymore. We have a living room… a kitchen… a bathroom… I even have my own bedroom.” A tear formed in my eye.

James is back. He stood up and said, “I don’t have a father; he’s in prison. I almost didn’t have a mother, did you know that?” And as he put his arms out and motioned, he said “she cut her wrists and tried to commit suicide.”

During this time, I kept saying “close the deal, close the deal.” But softly and tenderly with the kids, she did.

Some of the children asked, “Are you going to be here next week?”

She said, “yes, I’ll come back next week.”

I had never seen anyone present the Gospel, the Good News, in such an inspiring way to the children and be able to relate to them in all their different aspects.

I truly saw the Holy Spirit working through this honkey-tonk, blues singer.

My, it was a happening. I was truly watching the gifts of the Spirit being exhibited before my very eyes. I was so blessed.

God is so good. I needed to see and hear what it means to love one another in word and deed.

I saw it last night. I can’t wait until next Friday.

You all come now and see what God is doing.

You never know what God is going to do on Friday nights. He never lets us down.

Love,
Mercier