(written 35 years ago)
“Never, never, never, never!” This has been my (then) husband’s constant answer concerning Christ and His claims throughout our ten-year marriage.
Sitting in Mata’s Pizza Parlor that Friday night I had time to reflect on a lot of those Never’s. It had been a killer week at kindergarten where I served as an aide. Paint was still beneath my nails and I could feel paste clinging to the hem of my wrinkled skirt. It was spring and after months of childhood needs, I was spent.
Strange as it looked, I sat alone in one booth while my eight-year old, Jenny and her friend, Catherine, sat in a second booth. Elizabeth and her friend, Lyndsay, sat in a third and my totally puzzled husband in a fourth. Our one group was taking up a third of the seating capacity of the restaurant.
But I had run out of sweetness and patience from a day of twenty active four-year olds. I wanted to be alone.
The thing that annoyed me most was Elizabeth’s friend, Lyndsay. Why on earth, out of all the sweetie pies that that classroom, did my angel have to choose her to befriend? The only good that can come of it is to prepare her to work with Chuck Colson among prisoners someday!
Needless to say, this was one of those times I was not exactly dwelling in the spirit. She’s so loud, so abrasive, aggressive, so assertive – so opposite from my perfect Elizabeth!
I recalled the time I had crept quietly into Mrs. Talley’s first grade classroom to deliver a message. How carefully I’d opened the door – not one student looked up from work. Then, as I tiptoed out, that piercing voice alerted twenty-two six-year olds, “ELIZABETH! YOUR MOM’S HERE!” It did not endear my feelings toward the child.
At the next table, a couple of truckers with a sausage pizza and a pitcher of beer looked over at our four lively girls and my dismayed husband (who was running from table to table dishing out pizza and pouring Pepsi). A husky one at the end looked my way and commented, “Sure got a nice, big family.”
I’m ashamed to admit it but I couldn’t refuse saying, “And the twins are due in the fall.” I saw my husband blush but I didn’t care. I was tired of being Miss Goody Two Shoes Perfect Missionary to him with no progress in sight. But if that embarrassed him, I had to wonder how Lyndsay’s next question came across.
From two booths down, she yelled for all the eating public to hear in that unmistakably loud voice, “MR. ROWE. WHY AREN’T YOU A CHRISTIAN?!”
Now the truckers, as well as the other assorted pizza population stopped eating entirely and, visibly looking right to left, right to left, observed a fifteen-minute badgering from Lyndsay’s table to my husband’s.
Again and again she yelled, “MR. ROWE! JESUS IS KNOCKING AT YOUR HEART! YOU BETTER LET HIM IN SO YOU DON’T GO TO HELL, MR. ROWE. MR. ROWE, YOU HEAR ME? HE’S KNOCKING, HE WANTS IN! LET HIM IN, MR. ROWE.” I imagined it wasn’t exactly what they teach at my church’s evangelism courses but had to admire her courage.
Suddenly I felt so convicted. My haughtiness, it seemed, was looking me right in the eye as I gazed into my cup of Pepsi. God, something told me, can and will use his precious children. Don’t you judge her.
Then, just as a spanked child receives a hug and assurance from a loving parent, I heard those two words from my husband that lifted my dark spirit and renewed my hope. The words for once in ten years were not “Never, never.” They were “Maybe someday.”
Through this experience, God has impressed on my heart not to despise what you find displeasing. He has His purposes, and His ways often can reach into places we believe unreachable.
Thank you, Lyndsay, for giving me hope.