Windows, Not Mirrors

I’ve been looking in a mirror for a long time.

Let me clarify. I’ve been looking in a symbolic mirror for a long time. When I think about my teaching ministry and look around at who I’ve been serving, they look a lot like me.

We all love capri pants, blouses that cover our fluffy parts, have way too many shoes, and a t-shirt from every women’s conference we have ever attended since 1989. We have been raised up on Beth Moore and Kay Arthur Bible studies and we are a generation who learned to study and love God’s Word together. And I love these women dearly!

That is the symbolic mirror I have been looking into for a long time. But God challenged my heart at a small group training a few months ago to start looking out the window. This challenge, along with a non-profit project my husband and I are leading, has me getting the Windex out so I can get a clear vision of what is outside the window.

The non-profit project is Sleep in Heavenly Peace. In short, we build beds for kids who do not have their own, which is a much bigger issue than you could ever imagine. I first learned about SHP through a Connecting Ministries conference held in Birmingham last year. When I heard about their mission of “no kid sleeps on the floor in our town”, God immediately stirred my heart.

As we build and deliver beds to kids 3-17 years old, we get to interact with the most amazing people “outside of the window”.

I see beautiful people outside the window, people who have fallen on hard times and need help from a fellow human being. It would be easy to judge how they got into the hard situation, but that is not what Jesus called us to do. He called us to serve.

Honestly, I have lived in The Shoals for 28 years, and there are parts of our city I have always heard of, but have never stepped foot into until a few months ago when we started delivering these beds.

Because I am choosing to look out the window, and Sleep in Heavenly Peace is also meeting a very real need for children’s beds, it opens up doors of relationships. And that is where true ministry begins.

In 1 Corinthians 16:9, Paul says “a huge door of opportunity for good work has opened up here”. I feel the same way about SHP. My prayer is that I don’t get caught up in just the building and delivering of the beds, but that God would open my eyes to the huge door of opportunity He has swung open wide for us to connect with people outside the window.

Think of the examples Jesus gave us. Before He ministered to spiritual needs, He often met physical needs first. For example, the feeding of the 5000 and healing all manner of illness. He knew meeting these needs first was necessary to get to their hearts.

Even though SHP is not affiliated with any church or religious organization, we clearly see this as a huge door of opportunity to serve people “outside the window” and show the love of Jesus in a very tangible way.