Be Warmed and Filled, with 4 Boxes Mac and Cheese, etc

I have recently made contact with a dear old friend of many years that I’d lost track of since I moved to a different state. She and her adult son had just moved into a Mobile Home and park, pooling their limited money to make the first payment and utility deposit. This was the first real home they’ve had in many years due to a series of serious illness, misadventures, trials, and tribulations.

I found out that they had absolutely no food in the kitchen, nothing in the pantry. or fridge. Since they had been living with a relative there was no condiments; things like flour, sugar, tea, spices, etc. I knew poverty had been  like a black cloud hovering over both their lives for years. There had been many times when they’d both moved in with me, like the time Karen first left her husband due to his adultery and physical abuse. This time, their need and their hunger was immediate and urgent.

I have come to accept Karen’s personality and what the “church” would call her short comings, (spiritual failures) but have come to realize she has more humility, forgiveness and love for the Lord Jesus…….. and everyone else, than the legalistic, self righteous, judgmental leadership of the old church we both started in and later came out of.

However, I emailed an SOS to a sister in that church and asked if they could help Karen and her son have some food. I heard later that the main female pillar in the church came by with some items in the churches “food pantry”. She kind of lamely apologized and said the church has declined, (that was true) and “didn’t have much”. She gave Karen and her diabetic son 4 boxes of mac cheese, 1 can of Carnation milk, box of oatmeal, 1 small sack of dried beans, and a few cans of vegetables. But nothing they could put together a meal with. No bread, fresh milk, bread, butter, vegetables, or meat, etc. However, their “tithes” still go to keep that old falling apart bird cage going with only 9 adults and 3 kids attending.

I received an email the next day from the church sister, saying “they were glad they could help Karen with the food, And that Jesus would provide for them”. And yes of course he does. But not through that bunch of churchy folks. I was even more disappointed in that place than I had been when I left. In any case, the next day an itinerant preacher came by and furnished a Mexican restaurant meal for Joshua and some take out for Karen. Joshua got a decent paying job a few blocks away. And Karen may get a few hours a day at the same place that will allow for her disabilities.

 

The Lord Jesus gave me this scripture explaining what had happened:

 

“ What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself”.James 2 14-16

More on this particular church later. It was my education in the Lord how Nicolaitanism works against Christians.

 

Counseling Christian Women on How to Deal With Domestic Violence

More in our series Christian Women and Domestic Violence

 

This book takes a very real look into the lives of Christian women who cope with domestic abuse on a daily basis. It explores their experiences of physical,verbal,emotional,sexual, financial, and spiritual abuse at the hands of their perpetrator husbands who claim themselves to be good Christians. Through extensive interviews combined with academic research, the reader comes faces to face with the complexity of issues surrounding such domestic abuse and how counseling can be effective through the encouragement of a variety of religious and non-religious coping strategies.

Of interest to victims of domestic abuse, as well as to the members of the clergy, psychologists, and counsellors, Counseling Christian Women on How to Deal With Domestic Violence shows there is a place in the Christian church for women to separate and to be divorced without losing their faith.