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TRUST JESUS TODAY

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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Good and Bad (05/07/09)
It was a cool spring day, the sun shown brightly upon the new green grass. People were filing past us along the church sidewalk after service. There in a wheelchair sat a young, old woman. Disease had torn her body apart and left in its place a spirit of gold. She told me of her trials and losses in life, and then she took me by surprise and asked in a gentle voice “tell me about yourself.”

I had no response but that I would see her next week. I would be working in the kitchen serving others that day, and I hoped to see and talk with her again. Later that day, her words came back to me “tell me about yourself. Tell me about yourself.” Tears came to my eyes as I wrote in my prayer journal.

“Well, I am someone who will initially capture your interest and attention. You will enjoy my company for awhile. I can be funny and loving, but it won’t take long once I show you the real me, for you to change your mind. You will become offended or fearful of me. You won’t want me around you. I will make you uncomfortable, and you will prefer to spend your time elsewhere. I will seem too heavy or intense for you, and you will reject me.

I work very hard to try to get it right, but somehow I end up landing in the same place over and over again. You will come to tolerate me at best, reject me at worst, and perhaps speak ill of me so others will avoid me as well. This process seems to repeat itself everywhere I go. I keep hoping for change, but change does not come. Instead, each risk I take leads me to the same end.

I keep on trying because I hope for more for my children from this life. I try to find a new path for them, but, there seems to be no other way. Some days the only peace I find is praying in our beautiful cemetery with those whose work is already done. In order to survive each day, I live more in the life that comes after death than in today, because in today I find no place for me.

As I care for others like you, I take the focus off myself so I am distracted enough to appear to function with the rest of this world. But, when I rest alone, I can not help but see the real me that seems so hopeless and alone, unable to be “fixed” by me. All I can do is wait until my work is done, and hope to hear I’ve served You well.

Thank You for Your mercy, cover me with Your grace, conform my will to Yours, and use even my weaknesses for Your glory. I ask this in the name of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. ”


“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master‘s happiness!’” Matthew 25:21 NIV
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Member Comments
Member
Date
Jan Ackerson
05/14/09
This was interesting; I really wanted to have more with the interaction between the narrator and the woman in the wheelchair. Consider expanding that!

Be careful of comma splices, and I caught a "shown" that should be "shone".

I hope to read more from you in the future!
Yvonne Blake 
05/19/09
Creatively written! Long quotes have quotation marks at the beginning of each paragraph and close it at the end. I was hoping the writer would go back and talk with the lady in the wheelchair at the end. Keep writing.