Decorated In Early Faith

I’ve been thinking about what kind of impression my home gives when someone walks in the door. Well, besides the obvious. This woman really should spend some quality time on her knees with a scrub brush and wash pail. But, does my home reflect my faith? Some years ago, our pastor gave a wonderful sermon on how our home can be a reflection of what we believe. That sermon stuck in my mind, and recently I asked my pastor if he would recount the story that he told on that Sunday morning. He e-mailed me his thoughts, and I found it to be such a powerful testimony to how God works in unexpected ways, that I wanted to bring it to you in it’s entirety. My pastor is speaking about his wife, Ann, and her sister, Linda.

”Ann has one sister named Linda. While Ann got saved in the tenth grade when a friend shared with her the Four Spiritual Laws, Linda was something of a wild child to say the least. She was artistic and went to art school for a while. But, without details– she got into virtually every possible tragic thing that a young person could get into. She ended up in Colorado with a severe alcohol problem living with different boyfriends and finally marrying a man who ended up to be a cocaine dealer. When she discovered the cocaine dealing was going on with his young son in the home– she finally fled back east. We got a call and told her to come to our house. We lived in a little parsonage provided by the church where I was Youth Pastor. We were leaving on a Youth retreat the afternoon that she was to arrive so we told her we would just leave the door unlocked (a Georgia sort of thing). Ann had fasted and prayed for Linda for 10 years and now we opened our home to her.

Linda’s later testimony was that when she arrived she could feel nothing but the love of God in the house. “God was everywhere I turned.” Every place that she turned there was another plaque or another book or magazine all of which gave encouragement, hope and love. She literally could not get away from God any more and she finally fell on her knees and accepted Christ. For a whole weekend she was in an environment that ministered God’s love and peace to her without human contact. She read and prayed and cried. This was the turnaround.

Linda lived with us for several months that year– I don’t recall how many. She attended church, went to Bible studies and got a job in graphic design at the newspaper– through the owner of the paper who went to our church. She was loved by the Body of Christ. They gave her a birthday party that just sort of blew her away with love. No one had loved her like that before.

Linda got stronger and then one day told us that she had to go back to her husband in Colorado. She went back and sought to create a Christian home for her stepson to live in. She took him to church. She made a similar atmosphere in her home. Eventually, however, her husband left her, took his son away, and then divorced her. She did not drive him out but it seemed that the presence of the Lord did.

Linda started attending a spirit-filled church down the street from where she got an apartment. Soon after, she met the associate pastor who never had been married and was just about her same age. She shared with him about her divorce and the Lord had already told him about it. Mark was very merciful and compassionate toward Linda. Several months later they were engaged and eventually married in a huge Sunday morning service. Later, when the senior pastor left that church amid a huge financial crisis– Mark and Linda became pastors of this flailing church which the Lord has since built into very magnificent ministry over the past 20 years.

Linda is now honored by so many in their church and community. To see her, you would never imagine that at one time she ate out of dumpsters on the west side of town. She carries so much of God’s grace with her. She has such great compassion for those who are struggling and I believe this comes from her difficult journey.

So. Can a home make a difference? I believe so. I believe that it is more than just the decor or the books and magazines. It probably is a matter also of the Spirit and anointing upon the place we live and breath as we dedicate it to the Lord. And also the open door. The home was modest and the furnishings were mostly old and used– but we had invited Christ to very much be a part of our home. It was a place of weekly Bible study and teens dropping by most afternoons and Sunday Evenings after church. But most of all we opened the door without reservation.”

Joshua 24:15 “….But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

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