What What You Pray
Once when I was part of a small church group, we had gotten to know one another, so we prayed to expand our group. Our prayer was answered when we received a call from our pastor who asked if I could pick up a single mom and her three children and bring them to church.
That is when *Loretta, a single mother who had fled to a women’s shelter from the father of her children who was a crack king pin, ended up in our lap! In the next couple of years we would take her and her children to the doctors, to welfare, and to church. We baby-sat her children as she went to a community college and earned a degree as a medical assistant, getting her off of welfare and on her own two feet. We had to support her when the father of her children came to “kidnap” his children at Christmas, only to visit then leave. When the court granted him summer visitation right, we helped her take the children to meet him at Altlantic City in June and pick them up in late August.
I remember right after she accepted the Lord, she began sharing her faith with the people of the street that she knew. Her enthusiasm was right on, although her theology was quite distorted. We had to take this new babe in Jesus, and help nurture her through her daily life, but her faith walk.
Coming from a background that I could not personally identify with, she stretched me far beyond where I had ever been, but one of the most fulfilling blessings came when the other male who lead our group and myself got to lead her down the aisle to give her away in marriage to a neat Christian husband.
Bottom Line: Years later, Loretta had a successful career as a medical assistant, happily married, following the Lord, and is still one of our closest friends. Looking back, I think she did more for me, making me go out of my comfort zone, than I did for her. Shepherding has it challenges, but also has its rewards.
*Not Real Name