The Things That Make Your Heart Break

[Meg]

I originally wrote this in 2008, at the prompting of the Holy Spirit to post in a forum that has since been closed -- due to religious infighting... It just occurred to me that satan tried hard to destroy me and destroy my faith just before I met the woman in this story. My testimony to her wasn't enough at the time, but I dearly hope what I did give her was enough for Jesus Christ to build on someday...

I had been a Christian for about two years when this happened. I wasn’t going to church, and I was still learning to live by Scripture -- its harder than it looks. I very nearly lost my house in the winter of 2004-2005; it was a last ditch effort, a job at McDonalds that kept me safe from that eventuality. It was at McDonalds that I met Cheryl. She was in her early 50’s. She’d had a very hard, very unstable life. Her first husband nearly killed her, so she married a man who worked as an iron-worker. They had to travel constantly for him to stay working, since he built things like large buildings and bridges.

Cheryl was a combination of solid dedication and little strength. I think what messed her up was the shock of being brutally beaten by her first husband when she was a young woman; there was certainly a strong root of trauma there… She seemed to have been raised to be a Christian, but her faith had taken such a hard blow that Jesus Name was her favorite swear word. My prayer journal gained a few pages from the months I worked with her.

In spite of, her flaws, I liked her. Because of her strengths, I respected her. We both worked very hard, we worked the same station, which included baking breakfast items. That meant using steel baking sheets in a 375 degree oven, and Cheryl’s arms were covered with burns -- Cheryl, who had only one child because she couldn’t face the pain of another childbirth. The poor woman was extremely nervous all the time, yet the life she spoke of seemed to be nice enough. She had been married to her second husband for something like 30 years, and they had enough. Her daughter lived nearby, Yet something seemed really wrong. it’s the things they don’t say…

When I left McDonalds for another job, everything was as it had always been. I was working two jobs for a while, cleaning at night and working at another McDonalds doing breakfast in the morning. One morning, a young lady from Cherly’s store found me at my morning job. She told me that Cheryl’s Dad had been killed in Hurricane Katrina and that something had happened to her daughter, and could I help. I always did like Cheryl. I went down to her store and found her. We went outside to talk.

She told me about her Dad first. He had lived in New Orleans all his life, and was in his 80’s or 90’s or something, he was old and stubborn. No one could persuade him to leave… He had a heart attack in during the storm. That was bad enough, but what happened about six weeks later is why I am telling this woman’s story.

Cheryl’s daughter had moved to Florida with a boyfriend, so she talked to her Mom on her birthday, and everything seemed normal enough. Until the following night. Cheryl’s cell phone rang. It was the boyfriend. A moment later, Cheryl’s husband answered their land line (telephone). It was a detective in Florida. Cheryl’s only daughter, her precious daughter was dead from a drug overdose. Cheryl had a nervous breakdown. She spent some time in a hospital…

Remember those burns on her arms. All down her wrists, fresh burns and scars from healed burns. She never mentioned the detail that her daughter was on drugs. Now I had been witnessing to her, so had another woman at work. I was a new Christian, but the other woman had been a Christian for decades, but the other woman had never overcome her deep bitterness. A third Christian, a pastor’s daughter (Cheryl herself had to clue me in on her, you never would have guessed she was even a Christian at all) was the reason I quit that job. She was one of the most abusive bosses I have ever had the misery to work for. She did wonders for my prayer life…

I had tried everything I could think of to testify to Cheryl. I had even given her a copy of The Cross And The Switchblade, the story of how Teen Challenge got started, Teen Challenge has an 85% success rate with healing drug addicts. What I had to give wasn’t enough. What Jesus Christ had to give was just out of reach. Why? I can only guess; there’s a lot Cheryl told me; there’s a lot more she didn’t. Who’s to bless and who’s to blame? The answers may look more obvious than they really are, but one thing is clear in my mind. You can talk about Jesus Christ all day, but people are going to believe what you’re doing. So maybe you want to think for a while about what your faith means to you, because what your faith means to you is going to be very clear to people who know you.

What broke my heart was the fact that there was a church just out of reach that could have helped Cheryl’s daughter. The Minister Of Outreach was a biker who had himself been delivered from drug addiction. The woman who was drowning in her own bitterness was actually going to that church at the time. I went for a few months myself, the following year (after the tragedy). Jesus Christ was right there, just out of reach. Just out of reach…

[mattfivefour]

Sis, that is a very touching story. I must say, though, that I do not believe that Jesus is ever out of reach. The problem is that too few of those who profess Him actually live for Him. Or, rather, they live for Him through their own efforts with the flesh still controlling them. They are not willing to die to self. They are not willing to abandon themselves to Him. They are not willing to live the words, "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." (Galatians 2:20a) Who lives now? No longer I. But Christ in me. Yet too, too many still live themselves. Christ is on the lips ... but self still controls the life. They are more concerned with themselves, their needs, their likes, their rights than they are with the needs, the likes, the rights of others. Christ tells us to "prefer others above ourselves" (Romans 12:10). He tells us that true love—HIS love, the love that comes from Him—does not seek its own. (1 Corinthians 13:5) And Christ lived that by giving His ALL for us who did not deserve one fraction of it. Yet are we willing to live self-sacrificially for others? Paul did. He said, "Whatever you have seen in me, do." (Philippians 4:9) Yet how many of us do that? All we have to do is read posts on Christian sites and see the majority are concerned with their own rights and stand up for themselves. AS one poster said here recently: "I am not one of those crap all over me and I'll forgive you Christians".

If we who name the name of Christ were to truly die to self—(something that is only able to be accomplished through the Holy Spirit, but something we have to want daily, to set our mind to daily)—then there would be far fewer Cheryls ... and more of us would be able to stand without shame in the day we stand before His throne.

Good post, sis!

[Meg]

Oh Matt, that was so much more than just a story. There was a lot more to Cheryl's testimony than what I was able to even write at the time. The day I went to see her, we talked for over 2 hours, the Lord stood with her through the whole ordeal, and the things she spoke of, how they actually got into New Orleans, I think it was 3 weeks after the storm, a young National Guardsman let them in. How she didn't even recognize the house she grew up in... How the urn with her daughter's ashes was shipped up overnight, arriving in time to take to her Father's funeral, and how a Christian woman tucked the urn into her Father's casket at the last minute (Cheryl just didn't know what to do at that point).

I never got over that one. There was a time when her daughter was still in this town, before it was too late... The church I spoke of split a little over a year after that all happened... The politics of that episode were in action while the lost just died on the edges...

People got mad at me for being so hard on the church at one point, but all I can calmly say is that I was just a baby Christian at the time, and everybody who knew me and Cheryl both deemed ME her best hope. I don't really have words for what that felt like at the time... Cheryl had questions i just couldn't answer, and I couldn't find anyone who could! I begged a pastor I knew for help, and he just turned away... I still; shake and I still cry, five years later I still feel helpless and the grief is just unspeakable.

For all that, I am glad I did the best I could. I listened to her, cried with her and gave her a good idea or two. She moved out of state shortly after the last time I saw her, she had good reasons for that.

You are really right, Matt, there's a lot of self indulgence in the church at large. All I have to say is thats not fair.

[myinnuendo999]

Dear sister, Jesus is not out of reach--- I know Adrian already pointed this out but it really bothered me when you kept saying that and this verse came up

Rom 10:6 But the righteousness that is by faith says: "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?' " (that is, to bring Christ down)

Rom 10:7 "or 'Who will descend into the deep?' [fn]" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).

Rom 10:8 But what does it say? "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," [fn] that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming:

[Robert]

Oh Adrian, that was so much more than just a story. There was a lot more to Cheryl's testimony than what I was able to even write at the time. The day I went to see her, we talked for over 2 hours, the Lord stood with her through the whole ordeal, and the things she spoke of, how they actually got into New Orleans, I think it was 3 weeks after the storm, a young National Guardsman let them in. How she didn't even recognize the house she grew up in... How the urn with her daughter's ashes was shipped up overnight, arriving in time to take to her Father's funeral, and how a Christian woman tucked the urn into her Father's casket at the last minute (Cheryl just didn't know what to do at that point).

I never got over that one. There was a time when her daughter was still in this town, before it was too late... The church I spoke of split a little over a year after that all happened... The politics of that episode were in action while the lost just died on the edges...

People got mad at me for being so hard on the church at one point, but all I can calmly say is that I was just a baby Christian at the time, and everybody who knew me and Cheryl both deemed ME her best hope. I don't really have words for what that felt like at the time... Cheryl had questions i just couldn't answer, and I couldn't find anyone who could! I begged a pastor I knew for help, and he just turned away... I still; shake and I still cry, five years later I still feel helpless and the grief is just unspeakable.

For all that, I am glad I did the best I could. I listened to her, cried with her and gave her a good idea or two. She moved out of state shortly after the last time I saw her, she had good reasons for that.

You are really right, Adrian, there's a lot of self indulgence in the church at large. All I have to say is thats not fair.

It's as I once said in a topic a while back: they do the equivalent of throwing the spiritually wounded a suture kit and telling them to fix themselves, never getting shoulder to shoulder with them. Its' sad to say that many out there don't seem to want to be bothered, and when they do, rather than help they seek only to criticize and condemn.


How many churches today, were Christ to speak to them directly, would hear an almost carbon-copy of his message to the church at Laodicea?

[Meg]

It's as I once said in a topic a while back: they do the equivalent of throwing the spiritually wounded a suture kit and telling them to fix themselves, never getting shoulder to shoulder with them. Its' sad to say that many out there don't seem to want to be bothered, and when they do, rather than help they seek only to criticize and condemn.


How many churches today, were Christ to speak to them directly, would hear an almost carbon-copy of his message to the church at Laodicea?

This was very much the case for Cheryl, Robert, very much so...

To Myinnuendo, what I meant when I wrote that (I was a LOT less mature in Christ than I am now), was that the only One who might have helped, actually could have helped, Jesus Christ, was obscured by the attitudes of the Christians Cheryl was surrounded by daily at work. It was just devastating at the time, because I was so new at Christianity myself, and the bitter woman... She boasted that she'd been a Christian for 17 years, but her knowledge of Scripture was more what she wished it said than what it does say. I really don't have the skill, experience or insight to this day to say whose to bless or whose to blame. I know too much about having my own faith challenged at the foundational level to judge the faith of those i didn't know much about (my Christian coworkers). They had their own reasons for their own failures, particularly the failure of those appointed to lead churches. I say and stand on it, being a leader isn't an entitlement, its a responsibility. What they teach or don't at church hits the streets and stands of fails on the merit of the quality.

I also don't know a thing about what wrecked Cheryl's faith, let alone what witness she and her 35 year old daughter may or may not have been exposed to in the course of their lifetimes. What I do know is that there is desperate need out there that isn't being met. There are people dying on the sidelines because the majestic, profound, powerful gracious, merciful Truth about Jesus Christ is being buried under a stinking morass of false testimony, prosperity preaching and some seeming feeling of helplessness or SOMETHING...

I don't know, I never resolved this one. I had half forgotten until talk about Katrina in New Orleans brought this back to mind. It haunted me for several years... I just wanted to tell Cheryl's story... It mattered, she mattered... I could never get it out of my head, how close she was to answers that could have saved her daughter's life, and how far...

[Robert]

This was very much the case for Cheryl, Robert, very much so...

To Myinnuendo, what I meant when I wrote that (I was a LOT less mature in Christ than I am now), was that the only One who might have helped, actually could have helped, Jesus Christ, was obscured by the attitudes of the Christians Cheryl was surrounded by daily at work. It was just devastating at the time, because I was so new at Christianity myself, and the bitter woman... She boasted that she'd been a Christian for 17 years, but her knowledge of Scripture was more what she wished it said than what it does say. I really don't have the skill, experience or insight to this day to say whose to bless or whose to blame. I know too much about having my own faith challenged at the foundational level to judge the faith of those i didn't know much about (my Christian coworkers). They had their own reasons for their own failures, particularly the failure of those appointed to lead churches. I say and stand on it, being a leader isn't an entitlement, its a responsibility. What they teach or don't at church hits the streets and stands of fails on the merit of the quality.

I also don't know a thing about what wrecked Cheryl's faith, let alone what witness she and her 35 year old daughter may or may not have been exposed to in the course of their lifetimes. What I do know is that there is desperate need out there that isn't being met. There are people dying on the sidelines because the majestic, profound, powerful gracious, merciful Truth about Jesus Christ is being buried under a stinking morass of false testimony, prosperity preaching and some seeming feeling of helplessness or SOMETHING...

I don't know, I never resolved this one. I had half forgotten until talk about Katrina in New Orleans brought this back to mind. It haunted me for several years... I just wanted to tell Cheryl's story... It mattered, she mattered... I could never get it out of my head, how close she was to answers that could have saved her daughter's life, and how far...

I don't know if there is any possible way for you to find Cheryl, Meg. But I do know the power of prayer.

ing for Cheryl.

[Meg]

I don't know if there is any possible way for you to find Cheryl, Meg. But I do know the power of prayer.

ing for Cheryl.

She needed to just let go, that was clear the last time I spoke with her, five years ago. I know why and I know she was right (it was a personal matter...). Because God was so clearly with her through it all, I hope to one day see her in Heaven... Let us do what we are able, and please let us spread an honest testimony and a caring witness wherever we go, whoever we meet... I had absolutely no idea her daughter was on drugs until it was too late. I could tell something was really bothering that dear woman, but in all our conversations, she never once even hinted at that... Even when they like you, people don't always open up, and it was maybe easy to badly misjudge Cheryl sometimes... You gotta be careful what you think of people saved or unsaved if there's any chance you don't have quite all the facts...

One thing that stays with me was the young lady who turned to ME of all people, and the relief in people's faces when I got there and asked for her. I had always shown kindness, fairness, I guess compassion, I really didn't think I was making quite such an impression though. I was just trying to be Christlike, as best I could, and a lot of times I thought I blew it, went home and prayed, went back and tried to be more like what the Bible said I was supposed to be. Man, it must have worked! Something must have showed after all... I was just a baby Christian, but I was really trying... *sigh*... I'm sitting here wondering if I am that different. I doubt it somehow. I doubt that woman would have sought me out had I lived those times as a sinner. I know the carnal Christians were of no real value... I fear the pastor's daughter did real harm to the witness of Christ, she was so vicious... Whose to bless and whose to blame...

How we live is what people believe about Jesus Christ, I do know that much...

[mattfivefour]

How we live is what people believe about Jesus Christ...

E X A C T L Y ! ! !

[Robert]

No wonder then so many scorn him: look at all those that claim to be his that live like they are not!!!!

[king'sbloomingrose]

I'm afraid that I turn people off to Jesus Christ. I'm too blunt with what I say, but I do want to help others and be a good testimony before them. Please pray for me that I'd be the right kind of witness to my unsaved friend.

[Meg]

I'm afraid that I turn people off to Jesus Christ. I'm too blunt with what I say, but I do want to help others and be a good testimony before them. Please pray for me that I'd be the right kind of witness to my unsaved friend.

I have made that same mistake too many times. What I would do when I caught my own mistake was to return to the Word, pray and confess my blunders, and go back aware of my faults and try to not repeat them. I think people notice that, even to this day, and that helps them see that being a Christian means enough to me that when I blow it at some point, I show that it matters to me to modify my mistakes rather than make excuses for not so excusable behavior.

Ont thing that everybody really noticed was the day I walked out on that horribly abusive manager. She was known for constantly screaming at us whether we were trying or not. That woman had made quite the name for herself... When I snapped, all I said was "I'm sick of that mouth!". It was clear I had hit the limits of my temper, and I was closer to my past than I am now, a lot closer, but even beyond the loss of temper, I didn't swear or say anything inappropriate. My "best witness" under the circumstances, , but, ummmm, maybe better than it might have been for all that... (I think maybe a few people cheered for me later...

Sometimes people judge you by what you did once, but most people look at the pattern of how we handle different issues as they come up, getting an overall impression of what it means to be a Christian...