Sometimes I struggle more with my late husband’s life more than I do his death.

It’s not as if he lived a bad life, (well, he actually was an angry alcoholic who did, in fact, live a bad life for quite a while), but that was before I knew him. When he died he’d been sober and saved for two months short of 27 years and we’d been married 8 ½.

My struggle was, and is, how to live up to his legacy. He was never afraid to talk to anyone and everyone about Jesus. And he did it in such a way that sounded corny or ridiculous to me, but resonated with others.

One time we were in a grocery store and Ken asked an employee how he was. The young man said, “I’m okay.” Ken responded, “Just okay? Not blessed?” The guy replied hesitantly that he wasn’t sure he believed in God.

I took a deep breath. Ken witnessed anywhere, anytime, anyplace. It often embarrassed me. But never Ken. I knew Ken couldn’t ignore such a proclamation.

I don’t remember what happened next or exactly what Ken said, but somehow, within two or three minutes, the young man, Ken and I were all standing near the packaged cheese, holding hands and the young man was repeating after Ken, “God, if you are there, and I’m not really even sure you exist, but in case you do, I’m a real person, and I need a real God, if there is even one. So, I need you to show me in a way that will leave no doubt in my mind that you are real.”

That was it, we were done and on our way. I worried. What if God didn’t show up? What if God didn’t prove He was God? Ken never worried about it. He KNEW without a doubt that God would show up for that young man.

There were numerous similar stories at Ken’s funeral. Even for months or years after, people shared things with me. One man from an engineering company placing property markers on my land asked, “Are you Mrs. Farris?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he started. “The last time I worked a project for your husband, after we were done, we just sat on the tailgate of my truck and talked about Jesus.” He paused and then added, “I have no idea how we even got on that topic.”

I laughed, “More than one person has said that Ken could turn any conversation into something leading to Jesus.” Car engines and parking lot spaces were just two of many examples I’d heard.

The man looked a little lost and then said, “I was always hoping to run into him again. I had some things I wanted to ask him.”

Unlike Ken, I didn’t ask him what he wanted to know. I wasn’t sure that I’d have the answers. Oh how I wish I could be like Ken and trust that I don’t need the answers, God has them and He is willing to share them with me if I will only ask.

Prayer: Father God, help me open my mouth, trusting that you will give me the confidence and courage to help others who need to know You are real and available to them.

2 Timothy 4:2 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction.

Romans 1:16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes; first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.

Acts 13:47 For this is what the Lord commanded us: “I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.”

“Donate something that is important to you,” challenged our Pastor. He was setting the stage for our church’s annual crawfish boil and auction. The proceeds were distributed to missionaries throughout the world.

In the early days, the auction was a bit of a dumping ground. People cleaned out their garage and closets, donating what they didn’t want. Pastor started asking, “If you don’t want it, why would anybody else?”

The auction grew to include a tag sale (buy it right then for the marked price), a silent auction, and for the higher dollar items, a live auction. The latter included designer purses, autographed sports memorabilia, exercise equipment, guns (we’re in Texas), and jewelry. Even a few cars, boats, motorcycles, and four-wheelers have been donated. Each year the bidding gets frenzied, and often exceeds $1,000, for a multilayer cake topped with chocolate-covered strawberries. The money does after all, go to missions.

Pastor’s challenge replayed again and again in my mind. What would I not want to part with? A clear image came to me: my glass cuff bracelet that looked like an underwater scene. I wasn’t really sure it was the type of item that would do well at the auction. My tastes were more to the unusual and eclectic, not the designer. In the past I’d been hesitant to donate anything that was of personal value to me for fear that it wouldn’t bring as much as I thought it should. Once I give something, I don’t always let it go. I have expectations for how much it should bring or how it should be used.

To get a value for auction purposes, I found the artist’s web site. At a few hundred dollars, it was less than I remembered paying at the boutique where I’d discovered it.

‘I can buy myself another one,’ I thought. But that didn’t feel right. Wasn’t that defeating the purpose? I needed to really let it go, to quit valuing a possession, to not worry about how much money it raised. So I did.

I was not able to attend the auction that year and I didn’t even bother to ask how much the bracelet had raised. It didn’t matter.

Several months later, a friend from church said, “I have a surprise for you.” She wasn’t just excited, she was giddy.

I looked at her as she held out a gift bag. We were friends, but not really gift-giving friends. Under the tissue paper I saw the bracelet. She exclaimed, “The person who bid on it gifted it to me and I knew as soon as I got it that I was returning it to you!”

It was amazing that I received it back. But even more amazing to me is that she actually received more joy in giving it than I did in receiving it. Because this time, when I gave the bracelet, I had truly let it go.

Prayer:

Father God, help me experience the freedom found from letting go of possessions that
have a hold over me.

Scriptures:

Matthew 6:20-21 – Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:24 – No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

For more than twenty years my husband, Ken, would go to the local jail and preach God’s word. I always supported him (albeit snuggled under the covers and sleeping in an extra hour while Ken was at jail), but I never really “got it.”

The local jail held mostly people that were incarcerated simply because they couldn’t afford to pay traffic tickets or other fines. They weren’t hardened criminals. Those would be moved to a jail in nearby Houston.

Ken would share some of the stories about how he shared God’s word in a way that was relatable to the men. After all, Ken could be a bit rough around the edges too. And he had lived a hard, angry life until he got sober and saved in his early 40s.

One day, when he was having a very frustrating day at work, restoring a house that we had purchased with the intent to resell. To avoid yelling at the workers, he took a break and went to get a drink at the corner store. Ken was hot and tired. He did not feel like going to the back of the store if they didn’t have Coke Zero, which was new to the market, at the time.

So he yelled out, “Do you have Coke Zero?”

A customer heard him and asked, “Hey, don’t you preach at the Baytown jail?”

When Ken said that he did, the customer said, “I will never forget something you said once, ‘don’t let the devil get your goat.’”

Ken had never said those exact words. His phrase was more likely, “Don’t let the devil steal your joy,” but in God’s wisdom, the man heard something he could relate better to, and then, years later, when Ken needed to be reminded of that, God placed that man in the place Ken was so that he could hear the message when he needed to be reminded of it.

Prayer:

Thank you God for your impeccable timing! Help me not get discouraged when I do not see the fruit of my labor but give me strength to continue to plant the seeds.

Scriptures:

Matthew 9:37-38  – Then Jesus said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

Matthew 13: 3-8 – Then He told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop – a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.