Often times I find myself having "aha" moments over and over again. I'm not sure if it's because my brain seems to be partial to exclamation marks or because I'm easily distracted and need to be reminded. In either case I had another "aha" moment last week over a topic I've been wrestling with for quite some time.
It began two weeks ago when I joined three other ladies from my church at a woman's apartment. We had been called by the CAC (Community Action Council). Yvonne had called needing assistance moving. Her husband had died three years ago and she had been on the waiting list for Section 8 housing for just as many years. Finally Yvonne's number was called and she needed help packing and moving her two bedroom apartment. She had surgery a few years back and couldn't pack herself and didn't have access to any help for lifting and moving items.
Yvonne is a larger than life character. She has two cats, one of which bites...hard. She is an adept chit chatter and can derail any small attempt at progress swiftly and with Bond-like precision. You need a designated out when you start talking with her or else your goodbye may last 45 minutes.She has amassed a colorful assortment of useless, indecipherable, and unmentionable trinkets over her life and they all sat proudly displayed in every available nook and cranny in the two bedroom apartment. It's an intimate thing to pack people's belongings. You see and touch their prized possessions. Sometimes I blushed at the items and other times I sighed with a heavy heart. Her husband's closet hadn't even been looked at since he passed away and I had the task of packing it up. I couldn't help but breathe a little deeper as I opened the doors. It felt like sacred space in a way.
When we got the call to go back a few days later and actually move her stuff I couldn't help but feel a little hesitation. Her apartment is thick with lung burning smoke, her cats are just plain scary and she's got soooooo much junk. I really wasn't looking forward to it, but we didn't have that many volunteers so the part of me missing the guilt trip immunity agreed to help, but I was grimacing on the inside. Upon my arrival I was surprised to see the amount of volunteers expected had more than tripled. "Great." I thought, "It'll be done quicker". I was wrong. 4 hours later I loaded my sweaty, smelly body back into my car, but I was smiling and my mindset transformed.
During the course of the night, I got to know Yvonne. I listened to her story. I found out that her husband had been diagnosed with cancer 2 months before he passed and that her daughter had been murdered 5 weeks within her husband's passing. She was the first African American woman to ever be employed by WCCO Television and she loves her mother. There's power in human connection when we allow a voice to be given to people's stories. It should be a human right to be heard; your story ascribed worth and value simply because it's yours, no one else can claim it and no one can take it from you.
Yvonne knew we were from a church, but we didn't tell her which one. We weren't advertising a worship service or even Christianity, but something amazing happened. She asked us. She wanted to know what kind of faith community would gather and help someone out who had nowhere else to turn. She wanted to be a part of that community.
I used to think relational evangelism was about listening to people so that you would "earn" the right to be heard. I realize now that that philosophy is manipulative and shallow and deduces the value of a person's story to some sort of a commodity or currency to exchange. You tell me your story and I'll tell you mine...about Jesus.
I became genuinely interested in this eclectic lady named Yvonne and in turn she asked about faith and our church service. It surprised me. I'm starting to see how powerful stories are especially when you listen without pre-selecting the words you are going to say next. Learning to listen is like learning to truly love.
