“If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.” John 12:26………………
“Lady on the floor! Lady on the floor!” the man shouted out as he strode down the aisle of the floor. “I don’t have my radio with me,” he explained. In other words, he had to raise his voice to be heard. If he had had his radio, technology would have given him the volume he needed to make sure he was heard.
Not too long afterward, someone stepped forward with the radio. With the technology. This time it was another man’s voice. Broadcast loud enough for all to hear. Same message. But more words added to it.
“Lady on the floor. Dress and act accordingly,” the man’s voice boomed through the place.
It was hard to believe I was the “lady on the floor”, considering my decades of brokenness, broken by the sins of others, and broken from my own plethora of sins. I had been nothing more than a broken mess, unfixable, too broken to be fixed, to be healed, to be forgiven, to be saved, too broken to matter, too broken to have a purpose, a significance, a reason for being, for existing, too broken to have a value, too much of a mess, too broken, to be a lady let alone anyone or anything at all. But the Lord had saved me, forgiven me, redeemed me, taken me into His arms and His fold, filled me with His Spirit, begun the long journey of conforming me to Himself by His Spirit through His Word, given me a value, a purpose, a significance, a life’s calling, and made a woman of God of me, a lady of the Lord. And there I was that day, at an enormous homeless shelter in downtown Washington, DC, touring the shelter as the kind man beside me distributed the Gospel tracts and devotionals I write around the building to help the homeless find and follow the Lord Jesus Christ.
The big booming “lady on the floor” was simply an instruction on the men’s floors for the men to know a woman was on the floor, and that they should dress and behave accordingly.
I have never felt a stronger sense of purpose in my life, nor felt more privileged since the day I was born, nor been more whole. But just because I come from a background of childhood sex abuse, alcoholism, post-traumatic stress disorder, decades of suicidal thoughts, self-mutilation, an eating disorder, being kicked out of my family for talking about being abused, abandonment by two husbands, the loss of my closest friend to a gunshot wound to her chest, the tragic loss of my beloved pastor, the devastating loss of numerous dogs I loved, and so much more does NOT make me unique, and does NOT make me special, and does NOT make me an exception. Nor I am unique, special, and an exception because I’m called by God as an evangelist and author on the road full-time to do streets ministry and write, publish, and distribute tracts, devotionals, with a little crew of special needs and senior rescued dogs as my little companions. Just because God took me from a broken mess to the “lady on the floor” I am today, loving and serving Christ with all my heart and proclaiming Him to the world does not make me unique and special or an exception in the least.
How so? We are ALL called to love and serve the Lord with all our hearts, we are ALL broken messes no matter the details of our stories because we are ALL sinners against God who will end up in eternal torment in hell and the lake of fire forever separated from God because NONE of us can be in God’s presence and have a relationship with Him now or in heaven because He is perfectly righteous and holy UNLESS an atonement is made for our sin and the ONLY perfect atonement for our sins is THE LORD JESUS CHRIST who died in our place on the cross to take God’s wrath at us and our sin penalty on Himself so ALL who repent and believe in Christ as Lord who died on the cross for us and genuinely turn their lives over to Him will be forgiven and given eternal life with God and ALL of us are called to love and worship and serve God forever and God has a beautiful purpose for ALL of us always with first and foremost being that ALL that we do be done in His love with the ultimate goal of BRINGING GOD GLORY.
I could never describe in words how exceedingly humbled I am to be God’s daughter and Christ’s servant and to be blessed with the privilege of proclaiming Him to the world and with writing and speaking for Him and getting the opportunity to go wherever He sends me to talk to whomever He sends me to from the rich to the poor, from the homeless to the prisoners, to the locals to foreigners, to the young to the old, to the sick, disabled, and dying, to the hurting, broken, hopeless, addicted, suicidal, forgotten, lost, rejected, and on and on and on.
“Lady on the floor. Dress and act accordingly.” For so very long I wasn’t a lady in the least. Just a broken hopeless mess. Today I am Christ’s, living and breathing to love and serve almighty God in Christ’s name for Christ’s sake.
How about you?