I love this blog, honest I do

but I have let her lie dormant waiting for the right time to write what is in my heart. I have waited in a dry desert for a few years waiting for God to show me how He might use my words to glorify Him and speak life into someone who desperately needs hope. 

And today was that day. I got to church early, three of the four children in tow. I sat them down to eat their donuts and that's when I saw her. A tiny little woman all drawn up into herself. I could see the hurt. I could FEEL her pain. She just showed up at church today. Came from the Woman's Shelter. Loneliness and pain a badge on her chest. Once beautiful eyes now empty. No soul. No fight left in her. It was like looking in the mirror at my life twenty years ago. She got brave and left her abuser with only the clothes on her back. No bra. No clean undies. No memories or tokens of her life. Just her. 

I introduce myself. Get down on my knees at the foot of her chair. I touch her knee. She spills out her story as the tears spill down her face. She is so weary. I place my hand under her chin and lift up her face and tell her she is beautiful. That she is loved. And then I whisper to her that I, too, was once like her. Desperate and alone and unloved. And I couldn't stop loving the one that was hurting me and I, too, had run away, as far as I could to start over. I see it in her eyes - she sees me now, and can't imagine me being in her shoes. But I keep whispering words of life into her . Telling her that there is One who cares, who loves and does not take. And then she recognizes my story and something shifts. She trusts me. A ray of hope enters her heart. She smiles. And I take her by the hand and lead her to the One.