“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” C.S. Lewis
We all have a story. Within those stories, there are chapters that are filled with wonderful tales and adventures. These chapters are fun to tell and easy to spin. Other chapters are filled with hardship and shame. These chapters are hard to tell, and are often told with downcast eyes and tears. They are hard to walk through. It may be a time of loneliness and brokenness. Sometimes, we get stuck in our hardship and shame, and don’t know how to move through the valley of the shadow. We need help.
Love INC’s Connection Center is the place where such chapters unfold. Our Intake Specialists listen and calmly breathe hope and life into our neighbors’ stories, so that the chapter can be turned and a new ending can be written. As each neighbor shares with an intake specialist, HOPE is ignited. A relationship has begun that will transform a life.
One of our neighbors has a story that is a perfect example of a chapter turned and the hope of a new ending. This gentleman called us, brand new to Sheboygan. He is a veteran and disabled. Pain would rack his body every day. He needed furniture. We listened to his story and met his need of furniture. The Furniture Ministry Team sat with him, listened, prayed, and gave him a bible. The next week, he called us letting us know that he would be going to rehab for his pain medication addiction. The love and compassion of the volunteers he interacted with encouraged him to begin to change his story.
Our Neighbor Liaisons continued to call and check on this man weekly. He was depressed and lonely. He was off the narcotic pain killers, but still was in pain. Volunteers also sent him encouragement cards. We continued to love on him. He struggled with God. We prayed with him.
One day, we heard a plot twist. Our neighbor began to read the bible again. He watched church online. He prayed. The Holy Spirit was on the move. He began to see the goodness of God in his life. The last time we talked with him, we found out that he is engaged to a lovely women who wants to join her story with his. He feels he has a purpose, not only to follow God, but to become a good husband and serve others. He said that his life has new meaning and is grateful to Love INC for supporting him while he turned the chapter and wrote a new ending to his story.
The heart and soul of Love INC are relationships with our neighbors. What a joy to see and hear the wonderful things God does as we love our neighbors!