One of my colleagues at my summer job asked me this very question just a few nights ago? And I pretty much had to answer "Yes, I guess I have been." I'm nearly 52 years old and have spent the past 30 years raising and home schooling my daughters, going to church, spending lots of time at home, and directing a local home school group. It wasn't until I began working this job about two months ago that I quickly came to realize that I truly had been living under a rock.I cannot say that I have regrets in protecting my daughters and guiding them along in life until they were ready to step out on their own. I wouldn't trade the opportunity to homeschool and be a stay-at-home mom for anything in the world. It has been the most rewarding of experiences. And while I didn't make a paycheck with this job ~the dividends are out of this world. The Lord has blessed me with three daughters that love the Lord and are serving Him. Yep, I guess you could say I was living snug-as-a-bug-in-a-rug under that rock. But you know I'm finding out that I was a bit too snug under that rug, or rock, or whatever it was I was hiding under. The past nine weeks I have worked in a secular job and I have come face-to-face with a folk that have certainly not been living under any rocks. I have most definitely had a crash course in the life of this world and what I have seen and heard has broken my heart. So my regret is that I never stopped along the way to pay attention ~ to truly pay attention to these folk who are living each day for the moment with drugs and alcohol and sex, for a multitude of folk who don't know Christ as their Savior, for some who don't even believe there is a God.
I have never in my life worked with such a large concentration of people who are not Christians. Truly the fields are white unto the harvest (Luke 10:2). And this is a perfect example of the magnitude of the mission field right here in America ~ right here in Kentucky ~ right here in my hometown. Many nights it was truly overwhelming as I would interact with individuals who had no hope of an eternity with Christ - but rather their language was peppered with every curse word imaginable; and their accounts of their lives depicted alcohol and drug use and repeated sexual activity outside of marriage.
At first I was so taken aback I was actually disgusted. But God began to burden my heart that He had put me in this job for this very reason. I began to really pray for these people around me and asked God to give me an opportunity to share His son. Might I say that this is one of the best summers of my whole life. I had the opportunity to pray with one lady, to witness to others, and I even had the chance to defend my all mighty God and Savior to an agnostic. By the end of the evening she promised that she would accept my challenge ~ "to pray and ask God to reveal himself to her as she was reading the Bible."
How in this world could a job ridden with so much heathen conversation and behavior be such a blessing to my heart and soul? My God cares enough about me that He allowed me this blessed opportunity to see folk who are in the trenches of life ~ and I will be forever grateful. What a heart he has given me for the drug dealer and the drug taker, for those abandoned by their families, for those who have lived on the street at times, and for those who believe in and practice soothsaying (the Bible's phrase for fortune telling).
I can no longer live under a rock. God has opened my eyes to just how bad this world really is ~ for unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required (Luke 12:48b). Frankly I don't know what God wants me to do now with all of this valuable information but He wants me to do something. The job concluded this evening and I drove home in sobs as I recounted name after name to our Lord - begging Him to bring an increase to the seeds that were planted. Because I love these men and women and I want them to have the Christ in their heart that I have in mine. And maybe just maybe God's reason was simply that I get out from under the rock and have my eyes open to things going on around me. Because there is a bruised and abused and hurting people that desperately need the Lord. Thank you Lord Jesus for one of the greatest opportunities of my life.
