Full of Faith

And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. Hebrews 11:6

It was a cool breezy evening, the fresh kind of breeze that comes after a good soaking rain in the tropics. Sok and I were standing on the front porch of the building that we rent for our weekly Sunday services. She was beaming.

When I had first met Sok eight years earlier, she had just become a Christian. Her husband, the second one, was a drunkard and beat her and her two children regularly. Her relatives had given up on her and she lived on the money she made selling jackfruit. She was faithful to the church we had planted in her village and was ready listener to the preaching and active in fellowship. Though she (and us also) regularly prayed for her husband, it seemed like things were getting worse. Finally, her relatives threw her off the land that she was renting and she had no where to go. My husband, our then co-worker, and the deacon of our Phnom Penh church got her and the kids into a shelter. They were allowed to stay for only three months. What would she do?

I can't say that I know exactly what was going through her mind, but I did notice a change in her countenance during those months. It seemed that she was resting. Most people in that position would be constantly thinking ahead about the next step, worrying about the future. Sok wasn't like that. Her confidence was clearly in the Lord and that He answers prayer. Her faith in the Lord was obviouse. In fact, rather miraculously she was offered a job in the kitchen. After a year, she had saved enough money to buy a little plot of land. Each year her contract was re-evaluated, but the Lord has kept her there. Finally, she told me that she had prayed the Lord would allow her to work with the women at the shelter. She was given that position.

As we stood there on that porch, she was telling me with tears in her eyes that she could never forget how good the Lord has been to her and has taken care of her. It was quite apparent that the object of her focus was not on the job itself, or the things the job had allowed her to get, but the simple fact that He had taken one messed up life and turned it around to be something beautiful and full of purpose.

God has counted her a faithful steward of the "true riches". She is now nurturing several young ladies who had broken lives and have turned to Jesus for cleansing and healing. They had all taken the step of obedience in Believer's Baptism that rainy night. What a blessing to be a part of her journey (and now theirs, too)! Please pray for her to continue to be a beaming testimony of the Lord Jesus.