Ernest and Sharon: Ready for God's exciting plan!

When you walk down the street with eyes peeled for someone who is hurting and in need of God’s loving touch, it is amazing how clearly they stand out. This morning, as I was waiting for the "walk" light at the intersection (I’m getting better about that), I spotted a young man walking up the adjacent street. My attention was so strongly drawn to him that I waited for him to reach the corner on the other side. I approached him, introduced myself to him, and asked how his day was going. I got the standard "pretty good" but I knew better. I said, "No, you can tell me. How’s it going?"

Then I got a more honest, "Not worth a ****."

"That’s more like it," I said. "Do you have a minute to talk."

Ernest said, "Of course I do." and we took our seat on a nearby bench as he began to lay out the story of his life. He is from Lumberton, NC, where he grew in a less-than-perfect home. He injured his back in a basketball mishap when he was a teenager and has lived with chronic pain since that day. Ernest became addicted to alcohol and various other substances years ago and found himself wandering across the country looking for–he doesn’t know what.

I asked Ernest if he had ever called upon the Lord for help. He assured me that he had, but it didn’t seem that God had done much to turn the tide in his life. "I guess this is just my life," Ernest told me, "maybe things are just the way they’re supposed to be." I asked where he lived and he told me he and his wife are living in "tent city" which is a place in the woods near "the Bridge" a few blocks away. His wife, Sharon, is an alcoholic as well, Ernest told me, and just can’t seem to go a day without drinking.

"God can help you, Ernest!" I assured him. "Your problems–the whole pile of them–is no problem to God. He made the universe and everything in it. He made you. He made Sharon. And he made you both for an incredibly wonderful purpose."

"That’s what the preacher-man in Texas told us," Earnest said, "but I don’t have any idea what that might be. What could I ever do that would make any difference?"

"Would you like to live a life that counts? Would you like to know that your being on this earth is having a good impact day after day?"

"Well, of course I would!" Ernest said this as though it had never dawned upon him that there was great value and great potentiality in his life. "Of course I would. I would love to be able to help somebody. If I could just help my wife overcome her alcohol addiction, I would be a happy man. We have our problems, but I love that woman," Ernest continued. "I don’t believe in divorce. I don’t care how bad things get, I would never leave her. My mother was married three times and my fathert two times. It had an awful effect on all us kids and I’m never going to give up on this marriage."

I said, "Earnest, you have to fall in love with Jesus so strongly that you would feel the same way about him–that no matter what happens, you are going to walk with Jesus for the rest of our life. And, if you’ll do that, there is nothing you can go through that he will not help you with." Then I asked him, "Are you willing to do that?"

And he answered, "Absolutely!" I knew the Holy Spirit was at work and right there on the bench on the sidewalk of Main Street, Ernest asked Jesus to take charge of his life.

He had told me earlier that the reason he was walking the street was to try and find something for his wife to eat. He was going to a soup kitchen and try to talk them into allowing him to take a plate to his wife. He said if he had to, he would get the plate as though it was for himself, then he would slip out and take it to her.
I said, "Ernest, would you like for me to go home with you. I’ll buy lunch."

He said, "Would you do that?"

"I would be honored to do that," I assured him. So we walked a few blocks to my car, drove to McDonald’s for a bag of burgers and headed for tent city. I have been wanting to visit this place, but never had an entree before. Now, Ernest was ushering me into a veritable jungle. It reminded me of places I have visited in Africa or India.

I asked Ernest to go ahead of me and announce that I was coming so I didn’t startle anybody. "Honey, we’re got company," he called out, and I followed him to their little hideaway. There I met Sharon, a gentle, soft-spoken woman, who immediately began to apologize for her appearance, her condition, and the surroundings.

"I’m happy to be here, Sharon. Not to worry, you look fine and besides that I’m here because God sent me here with good news for you." She told me of her life–much of which I had already heard from Ernest–and added that she had been beaten, robbed, and even raped in these woods. "It’s a tough world out here," she said, "so what’s the good news?"

I opened by cell phone Bible to Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope."

"How could any of that ever happen in my life," Sharon asked.

"It’s in the very next verse and the following verses–"In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you seek for me with all your heart, you will find me. I will be found by you," says the Lord. "I will end your captivity and restore what you have lost." By this time, Sharon is beginning to cry. Earnest reached over and put his arm around her and I began to pray for both of them. I asked God to heal and restore them. I prayed that he would guide them and show them his wonderful plan for their lives. I prayed for the day that they would find themselves in His perfect will–being richly blessed and blessing everyone who came into their lives. What a meeting with God right there in "tent city" in the middle of the woods.

Sharon asked to borrow my cell phone to call her daughter and tell here what was happening. She called–no answer–so she left a voice mail. Half-hour later, her daughter called me to ask, "Is this for real?" I assured it that it was.

I believe God has begun a work today in Earnest and Sharon’s life. I promised them that many of my friends would be praying daily for them. Please don’t forget.