Author: Mari Walker

Faith Stories: God Works in Mysterious Ways

My second faith story related to my prayer shawl ministry reveals to me that many times God works in mysterious ways. (Read Saroj’s first Faith Story here.) He puts us in the paths of strangers and uses us to witness in His service.

One day our daughter Yasmin, who lives in Lafayette, happened to tell her co-worker, Karen, about the prayer shawls I knit and what they mean to the people who receive them. Karen asked if I would sell her a prayer shawl so that she could give it to Lisa, a friend who had just lost a son in a car accident, killed by a drunken driver. Yasmin told Karen that I don’t sell them but may give her one, which I did.

The same week Yasmin sent me the obituary which appeared in the Lafayette paper. The funeral service was announced to take place at Asbury United Methodist Church where I was scheduled to speak in two weeks to a U.M.W. group and introduce them to prayer shawl ministry. I contacted the U.M.W. president immediately, and asked her if she could arrange for me to meet Lisa before our meeting, which she did.

Two weeks later, when we got to Asbury UMC, Lisa was waiting for us at the door. She hugged me, held me tight, put her head on my shoulder and cried. When she stopped sobbing, she wiped her tears, held my hand and said, “Thank you so much for the prayer shawl. As I wrap it around me to grieve for my son, I pray and immediately the Holy Spirit surrounds me with love, joy, hope, peace and comfort. I experience the healing power of God and His Son Jesus Christ. When I am finished, I am able to remember my son with joy and thanksgiving. The shawl is a great blessing to me and I know for sure, God hears our prayers. I thank God for my son who made a difference in the world when he lived and still continues to make a difference after his death as five of his organs were donated so people could live a healthy life.”

Along with Lisa’s, my faith is strengthened in my loving and comforting God. In a roundabout way, I was able to give a prayer shawl to Lisa who was a stranger to me. From Baton Rouge to Lafayette, from Yasmin to Karen to Lisa. Yes, God works in mysterious ways and provides us opportunity to witness for Him, strengthening our faith every day.

If you want to have similar experiences, come and learn to knit prayer shawls. You will never regret it.

Saroj Welch

Faith Stories: A College Decision

Hearing these faith stories always puts a smile to my morning, and I thought now was the perfect time to tell you how God has steered me in the right path and guided my faith and decisions. It is always a blessing to read these and know that God is working in the lives of others.

Some time ago, I was faced with a very difficult decision. This decision is one that some tend to face around this time of year. It was my decision on where to go to college.

After realizing that Dartmouth was out of the question (I just wanted to see my name in a letter from an Ivy League school LOL), I had only two schools that I wanted to attend. I had to make a decision whether to attend University of Texas at Austin or make the long, stressful 57-mile journey to LSU — it was long because I didn’t get a car until I graduated college.

There were certain things I tried to use to influence my decision such as TOPS and friends; however, none of these were convincing enough. This decision also came at a time when my spiritual life was at a standstill. Things were not going in the right direction, and I was living one day at a time. Well, that and my soccer team just lost a very controversial game. With everything around me moving at 80 mph I decided to sit and talk to God. We had agreed to talk from time to time, but I felt as though there was no one who could help me more than Him. I put everything out in front of Him. My UT hat and shirt that I wore every chance I got and the 3-month baby picture of me dressed head to toe in LSU gear.

College night at high school was the next day, and schools from all over the country were coming. So I asked Him to lead me to the right table first. LSU had a line out the door, but there was no one at UT’s table. When I say no one, that included the recruiter. So I didn’t get to talk to either school.

A year later, after another controversial soccer championship loss, I’m faced with the decision again but more pressing because it is my senior year. Applications were sent, but I still needed to make a decision. This is when I felt my faith changed drastically.

I got down and prayed to God to guide me to the correct decision. I figured it would put Him to the test. (I do not recommend it; He always wins.) I asked for a clear decisive sign, and two weeks later, he literally rose to the occasion.

While walking with some friends one Friday a gentleman who was selling roses dropped one. I picked it up to hand it back and he told me to keep it. Now this rose was orange the color of UT. I had asked God to give me a sign — a gift of the school color of where I shouldn’t go, which is funny since we live in a purple and gold state. Once I received that rose I immediately knew God told me that LSU was where I was to be. So that day I got a new favorite color and a stronger sense of faith to trust in God and He will reveal His plans for you.

Faith Stories: Go and Tell Your Brothers and Sisters

Many of you read my Faith Story two weeks ago. You might want to read it first as this is a “postscript” to that story.

I didn’t think a lot about “the rest of the story” pertaining to my Washington, DC, car repair episode until Easter Sunday. In Pastor Jay’s Easter sermon, he asked us when the last time was that we had shared our faith with someone. I took him to mean not the “easy, sitting in the pew next to you kind of someone” but someone “out there” (although that former thing is great – we want your Faith Story!). Then he threw a challenge out to all of us to “go and tell,” referencing Mark 16:7.

As I heard that first question, my mind immediately went back to Washington, DC. That was the last time! So here’s the part of the story I want to add today. Just as soon as I finished writing the first Faith Story in the Washington, DC library, I got the phone call from the car repair shop telling me my son’s car was ready. I walked back to the repair shop office. The owner told me the car should make it back to Baton Rouge but repairs were needed as soon as possible. (As it turned out, my son kept the car in DC.)

We chatted briefly about my son’s lack of interest in cars and about kids in general. Before I knew it, my mouth started speaking. It was like an out of body experience where you see yourself doing something, wondering why, but it is impossible to stop it. By the time my mouth stopped speaking, I had told the shop owner about my “spiritual experience” at the library. I’d told him that I had turned the questions back on myself and pondered my relationship with my heavenly Father and my own “growing up.” What was I doing telling all this to a complete stranger?

But his response surprised me and warmed my heart. There was a visible change in his face. Not that it had been gruff or unpleasant, but I actually saw his demeanor change before my eyes. His face softened. He was listening and appreciating. Then he started to tell me that he had a 9-year-old daughter (he was my age – yikes!). He said his ex-wife had kept God out of their family life. He said he’d been raised Catholic and was now so happy that he could raise his daughter in the faith and that she had been saying grace at meals. He talked about his parents participating in training his daughter in the faith too.

After Easter Sunday, I reflected more on this event. The shop owner’s reaction really impacted me. It reminded me that we don’t need to be afraid to talk about our faith with others. That day, I didn’t think about it. I think the Holy Spirit just took over. I am afraid to say that if I’d thought about it, I probably wouldn’t have spilled my guts to this “stranger.” As I reflected, I thought about the fact that the people we encounter really aren’t strangers. The exchange with this man felt closer to a conversation between a brother and sister in Christ. In fact, isn’t that who we really are?

Kathy King

Faith Stories: Growing Up

I am sitting here at a public library somewhere in Washington, D.C. I dropped off my son’s car for servicing a few blocks away and was directed to a coffee shop where I could hang out for a few hours while they worked on the car. The coffee shop was “closed for personal reasons” through March, so here I am, referred by a friendly library employee also looking for coffee. But let me back up a little bit.

I am helping my 25-year-old son wade through the decision of keeping his car in car-unfriendly D.C. or giving it back to me, which would require me to drive it home rather than take that Southwest flight in a couple of days. It has been 14,000 miles since the last oil change. I know the tires are worn. Is it road worthy? I don’t know, but I better find out before I travel 18 hours to get home in it.

My son has work commitments this week. So I clean out his disgustingly dirty car, use GPS navigation to find a full-service automotive shop I’d hunted down online, get there (a miracle in itself), then realize they only take appointments. After hearing my situation, I get an appointment the next day. I leave early the next morning, stop along the way to vacuum out the crushed, molding ramen noodles in the car trunk, then again navigate back to the car shop. After finding the coffee shop closed and then finding my way to the library, I have 35 minutes to wait for the library to open. 

It is wet and drizzling, and I have no umbrella; it is 45 degrees outside. I am standing, somewhat uncomfortably, in a covered entrance way of the library waiting for it to open. And the thoughts and questions begin. What lengths I am going through to help my son! Will my son ever grow up? It seems he should be grown already. Is it me? Am I not ready to stop being “momma,” and with Bryan gone, “daddy” too? I would do anything for my son.

And then these thoughts…how much more than this will my heavenly Father do for me? How much more than this has my heavenly Father already done for me? Will I ever grow up? Will I ever start giving enough? Will I ever start listening to Him enough? Will I ever start doing what he asks enough? Will I ever start spending enough time with Him? I sense His frustration with me, even as I feel the frustration of a momma with a not-yet-grown-up son. 

But I know how much I love my son. It helps me know how much my heavenly Father loves me. It encourages me to continue growing up. My faith tells me I will never be totally grown up, but I can be moving toward it; the fancy word is sanctification. 

I think I will try to capture the lesson of this experience in my heart and remember it. Never stop growing up. Always know that God loves me. 

Kathy King

Faith Stories: I’m a little catholic

There are some days that just call for forgiveness. My work in The Shepherd’s Market is usually very rewarding and joy filled. The clients, for the most part, are so very grateful for the groceries that they receive, and there are usually enough volunteers to share the work of trying to process everyone through the pantry. But there are also days that I am tired and feel overwhelmed with the needs of so many. There are days that not enough volunteers come to help, and the few that do are left running, without so much as time for a bathroom break. It was a day like this that I had heard just about enough complaining and lack of gratitude that I was ready to pop my cork!

Bobbi Marino was around and in frustration I said to her, “I wish we had a confessional so that I could ask God to forgive me for all the horrible things that are going through my head right now.” Perhaps I said, “I should become Catholic.” Bobbi reminded me that we do indeed have a liturgy of community confession in our service. “But I need to confess now,” I responded, “I just can’t wait until Sunday.” And so my dear friend responded with these words, “In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven.” It was, for a very cranky and tired girl, just a sip of the cool water of forgiveness, but I needed more. And then Bobbi said this, “Now how do you respond?” I wanted to be forgiven, but was I willing also to forgive? Was I willing to look at others who were hard and impatient, tired and ungrateful, to look at people just like me and say “In the name of Jesus Christ you too are forgiven?” And so with a lump in my throat, I repeated to her those words.

I learned a few lessons that day. We live our faith best in community. God provides our needs in abundant ways, and I am very catholic with the small “c.” For that is perhaps what it means when we say the Apostles creed, “I believe in the holy catholic church.” It means that we cannot live our faith alone, that it takes the witness and stories and yes, even that failing of others, so that we can more clearly come to see and know God and his forgiveness and reconciliation in our lives.

Deirdre’ Halliburton

Faith Stories: With God, Little is Much

Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed. Proverbs 19:17

When I was a young social worker, one of my responsibilities was to investigate reports of abuse and neglect in Avoidable Parish. In those days, the judge called our office and told us to make an investigation. It was also common for the judge to accept our recommendations without a hearing for the parents to challenge our recommendations.

I got a call from the judge to investigate a family in the parish that incidentally lived on the property of the judge’s mother. When I investigated, I found a poor mother living in a small “shot gun” house with her children. She seemed very caring for the children but was limited in her knowledge of some important child care matters. In particular, the children had not had their immunizations and needed increased community support.

I did not live in the parish but had worked closely with the local public health nurse. I knew that this nurse would see that the mother got the needed support. You could call her my “special angel” because she really cared for those she served.

After making the referral of the family to the health unit, I still had to report to the judge to prevent him from removing the children from the parents. Fortunately, either he lost interest or his mother no longer complained because he dismissed the case.

This service required very little on my part except to know of available resources and connect the parents up with these services. I had no other contact with the family until several years later when I was approached by a man who introduced himself as the father of the family. He wanted to thank me for the help I provided. My job was to help families. I had no idea that the small amount of help I provided to this poor family would be so important to them. I was the one who felt rewarded when the father met me that day.

Don Fuller

Faith Stories: A Christmas Blessing

In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ Acts 20:35

Every year at Christmas, the dormitory students at the Louisiana School for the Deaf look forward to receiving gifts from the school’s Foundation. The gifts are usually fun items that the students enjoy using in their free time after school. In the past, gifts have included items such as basketballs, bicycles, magazine subscriptions, glamour items for the older girls and video gaming equipment.

The students, who live too far away from school to come in daily on a bus, reside in dormitories according to their age and gender. In November of each year, the students turn in a “wish list” to the Foundation, and six of the board members take the lists and purchase the items for the student dormitories. On the first Monday of December, the Foundation Board members deliver the gifts to excited children who wait anxiously to see what new items will be in the packages.

This year I volunteered to purchase items for the High School Boys’ Dorm. I was prepared to receive this year’s Christmas wish list; instead, I received a nice surprise. I learned that the boys wanted to make a donation this year to those in need rather than be on the receiving end of this tradition. They were open to ideas for recipients of their gift. I explained what The Shepherd’s Market is doing and offered that suggestion. A few of the high school boys have volunteered in previous years through an off-campus career education work program. Additionally, I shared that there are some deaf clients who visit the Shepherd’s Market monthly. Everyone at the meeting agreed it would be a wonderful place to share the high school boys’ gift.

On the December evening that the Foundation Board delivered gifts to the students in the various dormitories, a large card was presented to the high school boys with pictures from the Shepherd’s Market and a picture of the deaf clients signing “thank you” to the boys for their gift.

It was a heartwarming experience for all who attended that evening because we saw these young men, who generally are on the receiving end, learn the life lesson that there is more blessing in giving than in receiving.

Beth Forester

Faith Stories: United as One

A few weeks before Thanksgiving, a crew came from Capital One Bank to help work at The Shepherd’s Market. They came not only ready to lend a hand on a busy market day but armed with supplies to fix a wonderful breakfast of sausage and pancakes for all of us. We gathered around the tables, clients and volunteers alike, and ate and laughed and shared our stories and hopes and dreams.

United in our brokenness, and our hunger, and our desire to be reconciled, we were the church universal. Many of the clients helped to carry plates of food and cups of hot coffee, to clean up the mess after our meal, and then to stay and help in the market as our day of shopping began.

One of the young men from the bank began to tease my friend, Keith, about the poor state of his shoes — shoes that were held together with duct tape and needed to long ago be laid to rest. I wondered if I would need to break up the teasing before the young man might come to realize that these were probably Keith’s only pair of tennis shoes. But the young man left at about that time. However, not much time passed before he was back with a gift retrieved from his truck. Would Keith like this pair of Nikes that the man had just bought? They just happened to be the right size, and the banker explained that he would like Keith to have them. A perfect fit, and Keith happily tossed his old shoes away.

In the book of Acts, we find the saying that it is more blessed to give than to receive, but I’m sure that was not the only lesson I was reminded of that day. I was reminded that Holy Communion just might come in the form of pancakes and coffee. I was reminded that each day we are called to live as the church universal wherever we might happen to be. I was reminded that laying down one’s life for a friend might just look like a new pair of Nike tennis shoe given to a stranger in need. Mostly, I was reminded that in our work of feeding others, we will most likely come away as the ones being fed.

There is a benediction that we often sing called Sent Forth by God’s Blessing. In the second verse, there are these words: “With your grace you feed us, with your light you now lead. Unite us as one in this life that we share.” This is my prayer.

Deirdre’ Halliburton

Faith Stories: Prayer Shawl Ministry

“She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands.” Proverbs 31:13

As a young child in Scotland I was taught to knit and crochet. Later I would knit sweaters for our children, but after arriving in Louisiana our son Brian said, “Mom we do not need sweaters here.” So my knitting came to a halt for a while.

After joining St. John’s I went to a prayer group, and the leader brought a prayer shawl. A light bulb went off in my head, although I think it was rather a nudge from God for me to use my given talent to knit prayer shawls. I love to knit, and it has been extremely rewarding to be able to give the shawls to people in need of comfort and love.

One of my dearest friends whose husband had died wrote me saying, “I was feeling cold and desolate so I wrapped myself in the prayer shawl, baptized it with my tears, and soon felt a great comfort and love.”

A quote from Susan Izard and Susan Jorgenson: “Out of a single strand of yarn a flowing fabric emerges that will eventually wrap itself around another’s shoulders and speak love into another’s heart.”

Blessings and Love,
Kathleen Matthew

Faith Stories: Focus for the New Year

As 2015 approached, I was thinking about goals for the new year. So many of us make New Year Resolutions and then after a short time, we forget what we resolved to do. Some of us get so overwhelmed with the list of ways to improve our lives in the new year, that we don’t resolve to do anything new or different. After I made a mental list of personal goals for 2015 – eat less, exercise more, spend less and more wisely, give away more of the clutter in my house, be generous, and spend more time with my family – I decided that I really didn’t want to make any New Year Resolutions after all. It was too much! Then I read a devotional that reminded me of some advice that I received a few years ago: “Keep it simple.” That’s when I resolved to focus on ONE WORD for 2015. I thought that should be easy enough to handle, and it sounded simple. So I began to pray about my one focus word. A thought immediately popped into my head – my focus word for 2015 is “GROW.” I looked in the back of my Bible to see where I could find a verse with the word “GROW.” I was led to three passages of scripture with my focus word:

Ephesians 4:14-15 – “We are not meant to remain as children but to GROW up in every way into Christ.” Evidently God wants me to GROW UP in 2015!

1 Corinthians 3:6-7 – “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it GROW. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things GROW.” I must remember that I am a small part of the big picture and that ONLY God can help me GROW.

And finally, my most favorite scripture of all – 2 Peter 3:18 – “Continue to GROW in the grace and knowledge of our Savior, Jesus Christ.” That’s what my personal focus will be in 2015. I pray that as I GROW closer to God, my eyes will be open to see more and more of Christ’s presence around me. I have the same prayer for St. John’s in 2015 … that we all GROW in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.

I encourage you all to take a little time to pray about a focus word for 2015. You never know where God may lead you!

Happy New Year!
Theresa Sandifer