About 2 weeks ago, I volunteered with a few of my co-workers at the local senior center serving lunch. I do this every few months and every time I go I met a new friend.
Please welcome Billie into our story. Billie just turned 95. She will be the first one to tell you that she doesn’t have all those funny diseases that take away from your “noggin”.
Billie is homeless. She lives with her 3 cats, 2 shopping carts, and an old teddy bear that she carries around and slumbers under a bypass of our local 94 FWY.
In the picture above, she’s showing me her new prized possession her new earring. Not two, just the one.
I got absorbed and fixed into Billie’s stories, my one hour of service became 3; until our coffees grew cold and she needed to get her place under the bypass before someone else did.
We talked about our faiths this day and we got on the subject of uncertainty as Billie called it. Here’s her words paraphrase.
“Sweet sugar my secret to this faith? uncertainty”
Totally couldn’t be, I stated, because uncertainty is a bad thing that eats away at truth. But Billie disagreed.
“Sweet sugar. Back in the 90’s when I lived with my son, I fought my uncertainty, My son was dying of Lymphoma. I lived with him and he was not only my son but also my security. I didn’t think I could live on. UNCERTAINITY thoughts came and I denied them and pushed them back into my brain as far enough that I wouldn’t think of them much. But they always came their way back ya know.”
“Was God really there and if He really cared and if Jesus really rose and if there was a heaven and if it all means anything anyway. Those stupid and crappy uncertainties.”
“ Because I had a choice with no recourse but to confront those uncertainties, I did just that. And more, I beat them. I took the thoughts one by one and studied them. I sought the truth hard with this little old torn bible. And then I found it. And by finding that, I found God all over again.”
“I may be homeless sweetsugar, but I love Jesus man”
“Uncertainty isn’t an enemy sweet sugar and it certainly wasn’t anything to fear. It was instead an opportunity for me to take a short trip through my crap to find a greater light.”
“God is the only reason I still have a good noggin, and can sleep comfortably in my spot and talk to wonderful people like you sweet sugar”
I thought. After I got in my car and got on the 94 fwy just how I was blown away by Billie. She loved Jesus and prayed and knew scripture, too. What’d did she have that I didn’t?
She had total faith in the uncertainty.
4 Comments
July 3, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Wow! Another great post! Love it!
July 3, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Moved to tears especially considering the certainty that I do have. I don’t have to rush to my spot tonight to make sure someone else is going to take it from me. I should get on my knees and thank God for the little “uncertainties” I do have and be grateful that He uses them to draw me closer.
July 5, 2009 at 4:02 am
Wonderful words that I can so relate to. I’m at such a point of uncertainty right now, yet such a point of calm–and this post puts into words exactly how I feel. Thank you!
July 18, 2009 at 1:43 pm
i SO need more faith in my uncertainty.