Lessons Experienced while Witnessing to Towanna
One Sunday night in February, I had an opportunity to participate in a local ministry’s vision to serve a local homeless community by handing out blankets, women’s and men’s coats, clothing, shoes, toiletries, snacks, and hot tea. We were out in the cold for more than two hours. Inwardly, I was mumbling in my heart and under my mask at how cold I was and wishing the time would speed up so we could jump in our cars and head home. I wanted to get to my warm house and my warm bed to curl up with my warm covers and watch my favorite show on the Hallmark channel.
While standing and moving side to side, trying to achieve some measure of warmth, two women caught my eye. One woman was sitting on the ground at the edge of a corner of the block and the other woman was sitting on a stool at the other end of the corner. I walked up to the first woman who was smoking a marijuana joint. I had a cup of hot tea in my hand. While she was taking a puff, I asked her, “Would you like some hot tea?” She said, “No thank you. Thanks for asking.” She continued smoking her marijuana joint.
I continued to move from side to side saying to the Lord, “What now, Lord?” My eye caught the group that I came with walking toward a woman at the other end of the corner. She was surrounded by a lot of guys and immediately, I began wondering what was going on. I followed everyone to the end of the corner. Our fearless leader began to witness to everyone generally.
I heard the Lord whisper to my heart, “Ask her for her name.” I literally heard the words in my spirit: “What is your name?” I began looking at her and before long, I saw her catch hold to my eyes. I asked her, “What is your name?”
She said, “Towanna.” Now, believe me, I’m no novice to street ministry but when she answered, it was as though I did not know what else to say. We were both captured within a God moment.
I was then gently instructed by the Holy Spirit to ask her, “What are you doing here?” The words formed in my heart, and I asked her, all while still looking at her so passionately as though she was my own daughter. I asked her, “Towanna, what are you doing here?”
She said, “I’m caught up with doing things my own way.”
I looked at her and began to smile. I said, “My mom would often say to me when I was doing things my own way, ‘A hard head makes a soft behind.’”
We both began to laugh, but then she began to cry. She said, “I just lost my mom, and I don’t know what to do. I can’t get myself together and I’m so lost without her.”
My laughter quickly turned to tears also; I was finally on the same page emotionally and spiritually with the Holy Spirit, and I began to see where He was going. I began to witness of Christ to Towanna, through the tears streaming down my face. I heard her cry out from the pain in her heart, and I began to touch her. Often people who are homeless have not been touched, hugged, or even looked at, let alone seen, and this was God’s drawing card for her. I told her that I would like to pray for her; however, the Holy Spirit interrupted me and impressed me to ask Towanna to pray out loud for herself and I would be in agreement. She prayed, I listened, and God heard – from her heart’s cry to the Father’s ears.
What was my experience, you ask? Two women, needing God at separate ends of the corner. One closed up and the other open, yet both needing Him desperately. When I was able to be distracted by the Holy Spirit from my own needs and sought to the needs of the woman who was open, the Lord guided me, almost word for word, how to approach her. He gave me what to say, even to the point of gazing upon and looking into her eyes. When addressing her life challenge, I didn’t know that she had just lost her mother to death; but the Holy Spirit was more than aware of her entire situation and her life knew her pain and the reasons for it. There was a change that took place while she was sitting on that stool at the opposite end of the corner. Although a crowd of men was surrounding her and the other team members were witnessing to anyone who would listen, the Holy Spirit had her and me within a spiritually enclosed place where she only saw me, and I only saw her.
Beloved, during this time of witnessing to Towanna, I felt no cold at all. My feet were not freezing, my nose had stopped running, and my knees had stopped knocking. In all of my years of serving in street ministry, I have never experienced this measure of Holy Spirit impartation. My heart, my feelings, and my sight were so engrossed in Towanna that previous moments of extreme cold were met with heat – my own heart on fire in a new and refreshing way.
After Towanna finished praying, I wanted to leave her with a visual of what true repentance looks like. I said to her, “Towanna, when you’re ready, Jesus will receive your repentance and it will look like this. You’re going your own way right now, but when you decide to go God’s way, you will make a turn to go the other way. When you’re ready, Towanna, Jesus will meet you in the turn and He will help you go the other way – His way.” I left her sitting on her stool and didn’t look back. When I did look back later, she and the guys who were surrounding her had left the end of the corner.
I began to marvel because I began to experience the warmth leaving my body and the coldness returning. I was so excited because for that brief moment, during the timing of His choosing, the elements of the earth had surrendered to the God of glory and therefore could not touch what heaven was doing. God used me to reach just one person of His choosing. The ministry team was put in place, all the work we had done previously, and everything we experienced was for just one person. Wow! I was re-introduced to the lengths Christ will go to reach one sheep… one person. Hallelujah!
Shortly after, the team announced that it was time to pack up and return to the church. We did, and I was so happy, but I was also changed. Friend, God has people in His heart to whom He wants to use you and me to speak His heart and share His story just to reach one sheep… one person. Will you be one He can use to reach just one? The harvest is truly plenteous, but the laborers are so few. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you be one who reaches one.
