Better than a hallelujah

There's a woman in my life who I call my "better than a hallelujah friend," after the Amy Grant song. Her mom and stepdad used to live across the street and up a few doors from us. They had lived, let's say, a colorful life, definitely not prim and proper and according to the law--in fact, her mom was infamous...a neighborhood legend. I loved her mom. She always used to come to our door at Christmastime and offer to help pay for the electricity to run the cross my husband set up on our roof; she would be near tears and would tell me how much it meant to her to see it light up the sky at night. She also used to love Noah, who would draw her pictures that always had a God theme or Scripture on them. Well, she died the night of the Easter earthquake a few years ago (husband had passed a year or so previously) and at that time, my soon-to-be-friend was living there with her boyfriend, both of them trying to get back on their feet after a season of their own colorful stuff.

I went to the memorial service, which was held at the house. It was filled with colorful people whose lives this woman had touched through her work with a job assistance program. They reminded me of the years I had spent working with the homeless and recovering. I asked God to please let me be a part of this woman's daughter's life, b/c I could see the young woman was absolutely broken by her mom's death at such a vulnerable time in her own life. And God grew a friendship. And she loved the cross. And she loved Noah, who would draw her the same kinds of pictures he drew for her mom.

I took her to a womens' outreach one night, yes even though she "had" to drink a few to have the courage to go. The testimony was by a woman with almost a carbon copy life. My friend cried and hugged all over me, kissing me over and over, saved before the altar call was given. Yet she went home to an abusive boyfriend and a house full of colorful people, drugs and drama.

People lived transiently in the house with them. The cops were there frequently, marshals or narcotics officers even raiding it a few times. There were loud violent fights. She would come to my door for talk and prayer with alcohol on her breath. She would confess her sins and I would tell her Jesus already paid for them. I gave her a Bible and she lost it. I took her to church and she smoked on the way. My favorite, favorite memory is when we were talking on the porch one day and her boyfriend called from jail; he asked her how to spell "felony" or some such word that indicated he was in big trouble. She spelled it for him and then said, honey, you're embarrassing me, I'm talking to the church lady.

The house went into foreclosure and she and boyfriend had to move. I lost track of her.

She showed up at my door a week ago. She told me she just broke up with another boyfriend, but that while she had lived with him she'd been going to a well-known, healthy church in North County. She'd been going every week. She was now living in another temporary arrangement and couldn't go anymore. I fed her. We loved on her. I told her you are always welcome here. She said I love you, so much. And off she went again.

Maybe some readers here will say, well if she was genuinely saved she would quit all that. Perhaps that is true, and I certainly have sat in that seat of judgment myself where others are concerned. Lord forgive us. I look at the tidal wave of life events that continually overwhelm her. I look at her heart that wants to seek Him when she can, that wants to do the right thing even though she is drowning in chaotic circumstances. I listen to her laugh at her failures and say things like, "I blew it, but Jesus still loves me, right?" I see her reach for grace over and over...and see Him keep a flame alive in her with its fuel.

I hope someday she will "quit all that." Maybe God hopes someday I will "quit all that"...my own recurring struggles. Maybe God hopes the same for you. Maybe you've already done so. But for now, I simply believe that her faith, clouded by colorful people and drama and shady living arrangements and failures, is better than a hallelujah to the One who loved her and washed her in His own blood.