Eleven
The grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life.
1 TIMOTHY 1:14-16
The highest honor conferred on any person serving in the defensive forces of the United States of America is the Medal of Honor. This medal has been given to only 3571 individuals since its inception in 1862, and it’s awarded only to those who have shown “conspicuous and intrepidity in battle.” The actual medal is made of inexpensive materials, but the honor it confers on an individual is priceless. It’s a federal offense to manufacture any facsimile of the Medal of Honor or sell it.
The Medal of Honor is a trophy of honor. It signifies a victory won at a cost. Most of the Medals of Honor are presented posthumously by congress because most of the recipients lost their lives in battle. Their families are given the medal to remember the great courage of their relative. These medals are displayed by and priceless to those who have them in their possession. Every medal has a story of some valiant act, courageous deed, life saved, and victory won.
In the same manner, our Lord Jesus, as the great Champion of Grace, has won many medals of honor. These were won as He battled the forces of evil to rescue one victim after another from the prisons of darkness. Jesus said he, like a stronger man would, goes into a weaker enemy’s fortress, overcomes him, spoils his armory, and plunders his goods (Luke 11:21-22). He literally ransoms the prisoners from the Enemy’s grasp. Then He displays these acquired individuals as trophies to His grace!
No second-class believers are in the economy of God’s grace. Every believer is a testimony to the power of the Champion of Grace. In Mark 5 we’re told when the disciples’ boat docked where the Gadarenes lived, they were met by a fearsome sight. Charging full force toward Jesus was a naked, crazed, screaming, aggressive, and demon-possessed man. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced anything like this, but I have on more than one occasion. It’s terrifying!
Jesus immediately took command of the situation. He ordered the legion of demons to vacate the man’s body, and they literally begged him for mercy and to be allowed to possess a nearby herd of pigs. The Lord consented, and the demons departed from the man. The pigs were immediately possessed and driven madly into the sea.
In the meantime, Jesus restored the man completely. When the villagers came out to see what the commotion had been about, they found the man sitting at the feet of Jesus—clean, dressed, and in his right mind. This great display of power frightened the Gaderenes, and they asked Jesus to leave their vicinity.
The man who’d been set free requested to go with Jesus and follow Him, but Jesus had a different commission for this man. The Lord told him to “ ‘go home to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He has had compassion on you’ ” (Mark 5:19).
The man obeyed Jesus, “and he departed and began to proclaim in Decapolis all that Jesus had done for him; and all marveled” (verse 20). Jesus displayed His great workmanship through this man’s life. His former condition was well known to the inhabitants of Galilee and Decapolis. He had fiercely ruled the area of the tombs. No one could go near that place. His shrill screams during the night echoed in the Hula Valley. He was vicious and self-destructive. He cut himself with stones and knives. He had been chained many times, but he proved to be too strong for any restraints. The transformation of this madman into an evangelist was astounding! His very life showcased the great power and compassion of Jesus! He was a trophy of grace!
In the discourse that has come to be known as the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus exhorts the crowd gathered to Him to let their good works be seen by men:
You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven (Matthew 5:14-16).
It is God’s good pleasure to display His workmanship. He sets His light on lampstands to give light to everyone. This light showcases the greatness of God’s artistry, restoration, and power. He uses lampstands—our very lives as testimonies of His work—to draw those in need of transformation, change, and light to Himself.
This reality hit home to me when I was asked to pray with women who would be sharing at a conference for women at our church. It was an evangelistic conference, and women from various shelters and rehabilitation facilities, as well as young impressionable women, were invited to come hear the testimony of women who had been saved and transformed by God’s grace.
The women who were asked to share were scared. Most of them had never spoken publicly about the past conditions of their lives. Many of them were afraid of being labeled less desirable Christians because of the nature of their situations before meeting Jesus. Yet when I walked into the room, I was overcome by the beauty, serenity, and grace I saw and felt. I heard the Lord speak to my heart, These are My trophies of grace.
Each of those women and each of those stories was a testimony to the God of All Grace who was able to not only save to the uttermost, but to cleanse completely, restore beautifully, and remove any past stain entirely. No shame was in that room—only a glorious testimony to the great power of God’s grace.
I remember talking with a young woman who had rebelled against her godly upbringing during her high school years. Plunging deep into the darkness of the world, she drank to excess, became involved with drugs, hung out with Satanists, stole, and cursed her Christian background. It all came to a halt one night when she found herself completely without funds and abandoned by her friends and family. In desperation and with no place to go, she cried out to God, and He met her. She returned home and confessed everything to her family. They forgave her and helped her get the help she desperately needed.
She turned completely away from her former course of life and pursued the Lord passionately. When her beloved uncle died, however, she suddenly felt totally condemned by the choices she’d made as a young woman. She confessed to me, “I feel like I really let him down. He always loved me so much and believed in me. I think I must have been such a disappointment to him.”
Knowing this young woman and her uncle as I did, I was able to explain the reality of the situation to her. “No way!” I said. “I talked to your uncle about you many times. He considered you a personal victory! He saw you as a trophy of God’s grace. He used to say Jesus had wrested you from the very grasp of Satan and taken you for His prized possession. He was so proud of you!”
This is the reality of God’s great work of grace. He ransoms and rescues the undeserving, the lost, the helpless, and the hopeless, and then He transforms them into His trophies of grace. God sets their lives on lampstands to give light to all those who are undeserving, lost, helpless, and hopeless. He uses their lives to draw others to the redemptive work of His grace!
I Married a Trophy of Grace!
Growing up during the “Jesus People Movement,” it wasn’t uncommon for me to hear testimonies of the transforming work of grace at every church service. Often my dad would have some mild-mannered or even saintly person stand and share how they met Christ. I found these times riveting. I couldn’t believe the person speaking had once been held by such strong chains of darkness or lived such a degraded life. These individuals had been freed from drugs, Satanism, occult practices, profound atheism, gangs, and other venues of darkness. Their lives showed no indication of their former lifestyles. My own testimony seemed banal compared to the stories I heard. I longed for an exciting testimony, but I never wanted to leave the comforts of Jesus to gain one. Instead I married a trophy of grace!
I first met the man who was to become my husband at a home Bible study. He introduced himself and said he’d noticed me the week before. We immediately struck up a conversation about the Lord. I was impressed by his passion for Jesus and his knowledge of God’s Word. I assumed he had grown up as a Christian, just like me.
Leaving the home group with friends, I commented that he was exactly the type of guy I wanted to marry. He had all the qualities I had ever wanted. I laughed out loud as I said this, feeling completely secure in my single status. At the time I met him, he was holding the hand of another young woman!
We ran into each other again the next week at church. He went out of his way to explain that the girl whose hand he’d been holding wasn’t his girlfriend. He had invited her to the Bible study, and she had assumed it was a date. After his explanation, he asked me if I would like to go out. Of course I did! We did go out, and the rest, so to speak, is history.
Brian was reserved when it came to his past. The longer we dated, the more I realized there had to be something there. I met his mom, Carol, over lunch a few weeks into our relationship. I was surprised by how young she was, and she told me about her conversion to Christ.
Carol married Brian’s dad when they were both teenagers, and pain and tragedy seemed to accompany the young couple. She had a precarious pregnancy with Brian and almost miscarried several times before going into early labor. Two years later, after the birth of her second child, a little girl, her mother died of cancer. She had converted to Catholicism to save her marriage and because of a deep hunger for God, but her marriage dissolved after the birth of two more little girls. Carol was forced to work to support herself and her children.
Times were tumultuous. Carol’s father remarried a woman who was abusive. Then he suffered a massive heart attack and stroke and was committed to a convalescent home while still in his fifties. Carol also remarried, but the marriage was difficult, and her husband was unaccustomed to the demands of four young children. Carol continued to attend the Catholic church, her hunger for God only increasing amid the rejection of being a divorced woman.
Sometime after Brian and his sisters had grown up and moved out, Carol was talking to Brian on the telephone. During the conversation she mentioned how hard it was not being able to take communion at church because of her divorce. She felt unloved, unwanted, and rejected. Brian suggested she try going to a different church. Most recently, he had been going to Bible studies at my father’s church and had noticed how they accepted everybody (grace). He knew an affiliate church was near her and told her she should go.
She did! There Carol heard the gospel as she had never heard it before—Jesus, God’s Son, loved her deeply and wanted to be her personal king. If she would invite Him into her heart, He promised to come in and take residency. One Sunday Carol received Jesus into her heart and life, and she called Brian to tell him about what she had heard, seen, and done. Brian was always recommending Jesus for all his friends and family, she said. He was even attending my dad’s church to hear the Bible taught. At that time, however, he felt no inclination to be born again himself.
Leaving lunch that day, I had a myriad of questions for Brian. I was getting pretty serious about this handsome man, and I thought I needed to do some probing before I was in too deep! Besides, every now and again, one of Brian’s friends would mention something about Brian’s former lifestyle and laugh, and Brian would look disturbed. I wanted to know why. Testimonies had always seemed so exciting to me. I had never considered the pain involved in the darkness.
“So what about these stories I hear. Are they true?” I asked him. Brian was driving, and he gripped the steering wheel a bit tighter. He was afraid what I was going to hear might jeopardize the relationship being established between us. However, after much coaxing and reassurance from me, he opened up.
During Brian’s high school years, he moved to Huntington Beach to live with his dad, and his passion for surfing led him into the surfing community. What followed was a life of drugs, parties, and general debauchery. At the same time, Brian had a penchant for fighting. He was involved in more than one brawl and arrested seven times in one year. His dad capitalized on this penchant and introduced Brian to a professional boxing trainer. The trainer immediately noted the potential in Brian and began training him to be a main-event fighter. He was nicknamed the Baby-Face Assassin.
Though he was the Baby-Face Assassin in the boxing club, to his friends he was known as the “philosopher.” Brian was always looking for the deeper meaning to life. Though he had moderate success in many of his endeavors—being in a band, surfing, and boxing—a profound sense of emptiness engulfed him. Nothing satisfied the deep hunger in Brian’s heart. He tried relationships and found them wanting. He tried religion and found it empty. He tried drugs and alcohol and found them a destructive waste of money and brain cells. He tried the music world and found it vain. His involvement with boxing, unfulfilling. Surfing, his great passion, was only a temporary distraction from the gnawing emptiness he felt.
At the same time Brian’s sense of emptiness was growing, a friend of his experienced a dynamic change. Mark and Brian had gone to high school together, and they shared the same surf community. Mark, though, had at one point traded his surfboard for a guitar and found success as a singer in a teeny-bop band. He was on the cover of teen magazines, featured in trendy L.A. venues, and hounded by scores of young female fans.
In the midst of cutting his first album, however, Mark was suicidal. All the success he’d garnered had left him with a sense of despair. Brian knew Mark’s parents had become charismatic Catholics, and he encouraged him to take a break from his career and go talk with his parents in Arizona. Mark did, and he found Jesus in the process.
On the phone, Mark said to Brian, “Hey, have you ever been born again?” Brian responded that he didn’t know what people meant by that phrase. Mark explained it meant talking to God in prayer and asking Him to forgive your sins through the work of Jesus Christ, His Son, and take residency in your heart. Brian made up some excuse to take a quick break in the conversation and cradled the phone against his chest. Lord, he prayed, I want to be born again. I believe Jesus Christ died for my sins. I know I’m a sinner and I need Your forgiveness. I want You to live in my heart. I give You my life.
Brian got back on the phone. “Yeah, I did that,” he reported to Mark.
The transformation in Brian’s life was immediate and apparent to all his friends and associates. When Brian returned to the club to box, the hatred he’d harnessed to defeat his opponents in the ring was gone. He left the boxing world, never to return.
Brian and Mark began to share Jesus with their friends and peers. Mark’s entire band got saved and changed the name and purpose of their band. Mark and Brian became roommates and hosted Bible studies and prayer meetings at their house. It was only about a year after these events that I met Brian.
The Prodigal Trophy
Heath was unpredictable. The youngest of three boys, he grew up with his fists always poised for a fight. For some unknown reason he had the proverbial chip on his shoulder. There was darkness over his countenance and it enshrouded him. He was drawn to trouble and trouble was drawn to Heath. Though he garnered some success during his time in the military, he was also dismissed for his unruly behavior.
He came from a godly home. Both his parents loved Jesus, and they also loved their son. They did everything in their power to bring him into the light, but discipline and other efforts seemed to have no effect. His situation seemed hopeless. He was on a destructive course, and the great concern was that he would take others with him. Yet his mother never gave up. She prayed fervently, and she searched the Bible for promises from God and claimed them over Heath. Rather than condemning her son, or throwing up her hands in hopelessness, she invited people to pray with her for him.
As I was walking in the foyer of a business building one day, I saw a handsome young man whose countenance was bright. It took a moment for it to register that it was Heath. “What happened to you?” I practically shouted with joy. “Heath, you’re glowing! You even look different!”
Heath smiled, and the room radiated with light. “I gave my life completely to Jesus,” he responded.
Honestly, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen such an outward indication of the inward work of God as I did that day with Heath. I couldn’t wait to find his mother and hear her version of the story!
When I found her, there was, as I suspected, a grace story. She and her husband had been praying for years. Never once giving up on their son, they continued to reach out, accept him, and remind him of God’s love. Then suddenly one day Heath’s senses were enlightened. He felt the downward spiral of the drugs, alcohol, and violence. He wanted out, and he called out to God! He volunteered in prayer to give God everything if God would forgive him, deliver him, and save him from the mess he’d made with his life. The change was immediate. Though temptation did not abate for a time, God’s gracious power was resident in Heath to resist the temptation.
Heath has continued to be established in his faith in God. His life is not easy; he still has struggles. But he’s learning to apply the grace of God to every area of his life.
A Trophy of God’s Power
Linda was raised in a morally upright family. She was the middle of three sisters growing up in Whittier, California. Her father was a great provider and devoted to his family. Her parents had a happy marriage, and Linda’s greatest fear as a child was losing either her mother or father. The spiritual life of the family consisted of going to church once every five years on either Christmas or Easter and keeping a Bible displayed in the house. Though Linda believed in God’s existence, He seemed remote and impersonal. For the most part she simply didn’t think about God.
By the time Linda was in junior high, peer pressure became the greatest factor in her life. Her parents saw dangerous habits developing in their oldest daughters’ lives and decided to make a move to Orange County, California. Linda and her sister began attending a new high school. Within weeks they’d found the party crowd. Linda dabbled with alcohol and pot, thinking she could maintain some sort of balance in her life since she wasn’t part of the drug crowd that hung out at her school. Those people were into harder drugs and drug dealing. However, Linda’s quest to have fun meant ditching school, plummeting grades, and bad associations.
Three years out of high school, Linda hooked up with one of “those boys” from her past, although she had never envisioned herself with him. For one thing, he was a drug dealer. After dating for a short time, they moved in together, and Linda partied with him and his drug-dealing friends. Now the drugs got stronger and more frequent. She began to use cocaine and deal drugs herself to support her habit.
After eight years, the relationship crumbled, and Linda entered the L.A. party scene. A string of other relationships came and went.
At thirtysomething, Linda moved back in with her parents. She knew she needed drastic changes in her life, but she felt powerless to enact them. Linda would summon up all her resolve and determination to quit abusing the substances that were controlling her life, but each attempt failed after two weeks.
Then tragedy began to strike Linda’s family. In 1989, her beloved father suffered a massive heart attack and died. Then her oldest sister—divorced with three children—was diagnosed with a viral infection around her heart. Linda thought this was caused by her sister’s longtime drug addiction. She warned her to stop the drinking and drugs immediately, but she refused.
Observing her sister’s life and reeling from her dad’s death, Linda wanted to go to rehab, but her mom insisted Linda could rehabilitate herself. Sitting in her room one night, staring out the window, Linda cried out to God. She asked for the power she couldn’t summon in herself to be free from the drugs and alcohol. She asked for the power to change her life.
Two weeks passed, and Linda was still sober. Then three, four, five weeks passed, and Linda knew God had heard her prayer and responded to her with His grace and power. Linda knew she also needed to change her social life. She recognized she needed new friends. Passing my dad’s church one day, she resolved to go there.
Her oldest sister called around New Year’s Day to say she thought she had the flu. Within hours she was on life support, and the next day she died. Her children came to live with Linda and her mom. Just a few weeks later, Linda made good on her resolve and went to church. A few months passed before she realized she needed to give her life to Jesus. Then when the invitation was extended to receive Jesus one Sunday, Linda responded. Knowing she needed to deepen her faith, she signed up for the new believers’ group and quickly became a fixture in the fellowship. She made lots of new friends and felt totally at home.
At first, Linda’s mother was uneasy about the drastic changes she saw in her daughter’s life. When Linda explained her commitment to Christ and lived it out, however, her mother also surrendered her life to Jesus. Together with Linda’s twin nieces, they attended church as a family.
That was over 20 years ago. Linda now serves at the church she once vowed to attend. Her life bears no semblance to the former lifestyle she felt trapped by. Most people simply assume Linda has always been a Christian. Her radiant smile, love for Jesus, passion for missionaries, and desire to travel and encourage Christian ministries around the world testify to the awesome grace of God.
A Trophy of Glory
I’ll never forget the day my eldest daughter called me to tell me about Tony. She almost couldn’t contain her joy, and I was trying to catch, over the telephone, every word she was saying.
Tony was a friend of my son-in-law, Michael. Their friendship stretched back to when they were both young Christians living in New York City. They met after Tony moved back to New York from Miami Beach, Florida, to live with his friends and brothers in Christ—Erik and Daniel.
Together with Michael, the four Christian men formed an accountability group. Since three of the four guys were in the modeling industry, they recognized the need to be accountable to one another, as well as to encourage one another to go deeper in their Christian faith. They continued to meet until Michael moved overseas to further his modeling career and Erik moved back home to Detroit to attend Bible college, leaving Daniel and Tony in New York.
Daniel was in the music ministry at a church in Times Square, but he was struggling with same-sex attraction and refused to be accountable for his own issues. This caused a rift and conflict between Tony and Daniel. Now Tony had no one to talk to about the challenges he, too, faced with his own same-sex attractions, no one to be accountable to and to challenge him to replace those desires with Jesus. Tony felt abandoned and profoundly lonely.
He moved in with a female friend who was strong in her faith. At the same time some of Tony’s other brothers in Christ left to attend Bible college in New Mexico. Tony’s rooming situation was temporary, and he was finding all his other options for Christian roommates dwindling.
All his life, Tony had struggled with his sexual desires. He had been warned by his friends to stay in fellowship. He did, then he met someone at church who was struggling just like him, and shortly after that he met another man struggling with same-sex attraction who was attending another church Tony joined. The obvious was inevitable. Soon these men were temporarily sating Tony’s desires in a destructive way. Also, these desires and practices were dragging all of them away from godly accountability. The attraction felt irresistible. Tony had a hard time trusting people in the church he was attending. He had no one in the vicinity who would counsel him without judging and condemning him.
Tony gave in. He continued to go to church, but desperate for a relationship and a sense of belonging, he remained in a same-sex relationship for 11 years. During this time, his whole life exploded. He began to gain fortune and fame. He had contacts with Christians, but many of them became liberal in their theology and practice. They encouraged Tony to gratify his sexual desires any way he wanted.
Other Christians reached out to him, but at this juncture in his life, Tony had fully embraced his decision to identify himself as openly gay. He didn’t want to stay on the fence and play church any longer. He began his promotional career, mainly in the gay nightlife as an event coordinator. He was successful in many varied endeavors, and he supported and raised funds for many of the LGBTQ organizations.
At the height of his success, however, Tony was profoundly lonely, frustrated, and feeling empty. After many relationships, alcohol abuse, drugs, and partying nightly, Tony decided to start a body cleanse. He resolved to refrain from booze and drugs. Shortly after he decided to tap into spirituality, looking into Daoism, New Age, and popular philosophies espoused by a variety of teachers.
Finally, Tony settled into a sort of conglomeration of philosophical spiritualism. He soon asked two other gay men to join him in teaching enlightenment to fellow searchers once a month. The group began to grow and attracted the LGBTQ and heterosexual communities alike.
Tony enjoyed this new venue because it gave him the opportunity to delve into the power of the universe by studying different philosophers, philosophies, and theories about the origins and purpose of life. As Tony was meditating during one of these study sessions, God arrested his attention. Sitting on the floor of his New York apartment, Tony suddenly heard the unmistakable voice of God say to him, I am the God of the Universe. I am God! I created the universe and everything in it, and I created you to serve Me. So stop running from Me.
Tony immediately felt shattered into a million pieces. He began repenting for years and years of sin. He found a Bible, and when he opened it, between the pages he found a handwritten message from Daniel, his former roommate. Four pages later in his Bible was a postcard Michael had sent him from London. Tony prayed, Oh, God, where are my brothers?
Days turned into weeks as Tony pored over his Bible. He was excited to share his experience with the other searchers in the group he’d established, and he began by sharing his personal encounter with God and what had happened to him. He also shared the Scriptures from the Bible God led him to. The response from the group was cold and disheartening, but Tony continued to meet with the group. Three weeks later, some of those in the group responded to the message he shared.
In the meantime, Tony sought the Lord for godly men he could be accountable to. On a street in New York, he ran into Daniel. Tony immediately told Daniel he’d returned to the Lord. He then asked Daniel for his forgiveness. Daniel told Tony he had already forgiven him years ago and that he had been praying for him. He also told Tony about a men’s fellowship he was attending every Friday with Michael. Tony practically jumped out of his skin. God had answered his prayer! Both Michael and Daniel were living in New York and were eager to embrace their old friend.
On a visit to New York City, Brian and I got to finally meet Tony. To say we were impressed is an understatement. Tony is charismatic. He never meets a stranger. He cares deeply for the welfare of all his friends, coworkers, and the citizens of New York City. He is passionate about God’s Word. He doesn’t just read it; he knows it, meditates on it, and lives it out. He rarely passes up an opportunity to share about his personal encounter with the God of All Grace—the day Jesus searched for Tony and found him looking in every direction but His.
Tony told me God never brought up his homosexuality. That was not the real issue. The real issue was God Himself on the throne of Tony’s life. Once God was enthroned in his life, and God’s Word was Tony’s sustenance, the Holy Spirit was able to do His sanctifying work in him.
A Trophy of Beauty
My sister-in-law is one of the most amazing women I’ve ever known. What is most notable about her—besides her big, beautiful, brilliant blue eyes—is her love. Michele loves Jesus. Michele loves all people. She also loves animals, especially abandoned dogs. To meet Michele, you would assume she was raised as a Christian in a Christian home, but she was raised in the same house my husband was.
One of Michele’s most vivid memories is the day her father packed his suitcase and walked out the front door. From that day forward, she found it difficult to express her heartache and feelings with words. Her young mother, saddled with the sole responsibility of four young children under the age of seven, was forced to work long hours each day. Michele rarely saw her. When she did, she often cried, but she was unable to communicate the reason for her tears.
At 13, Michele was shy and had only one close friend, Fran. Like Michele, Fran came from a broken home. Her father wasn’t a resident in her household either. Also, like Michele, she was a good girl—she also kept the rules. They hung out together at school and spent the evenings chatting on the phone. During one of those evening conversations, the wild idea of ditching school and going to the beach was suggested. Together they began to plan and plot their great adventure. Fran had a more experienced friend who was willing to accompany the two young adventurers on their first truancy. The plan was made and set.
Two weeks later, when Michele woke up on that ill-fated day, the sun was shining. She had second thoughts about the whole scheme, but she felt intimidated by the experienced young girl. So as planned, she stowed her bathing suit in her belongings and feigned going to school. The three girls met up and caught the bus heading west toward the beach.
They spent the day frolicking in the waves, looking through the shops along Main Street, and drinking in the sun. Coming up out of the surf, they felt a cold chill set in, and the sun was a bit lower in the sky than they’d anticipated. They asked someone the time, and to their dismay learned the hour was later than they’d thought.
They returned to the bus stop only to find they’d missed the last bus home. Wet, cold, and in a panic, they looked for an alternative way back. A lone surfer volunteered to take them halfway, and they accepted. The sky was darkening now, and they were sure they’d be in big trouble with their mothers. The surfer dropped them off at a closed gas station in a location unfamiliar to them. There was no phone or attendant they could ask for help, but the outside door to the women’s restroom was unlocked. They resolved to spend the night in the bathroom and decide their course in the morning.
Sometime later in the night, they were startled by the sound of a car pulling into the station. They heard male voices talking loudly. The third girl said she wanted to check it out. Fran and Michele begged her to stay quiet and continue to hide in the restroom. She refused and walked out to greet the strangers. The situation immediately turned dark. The male voices yelled at the girl and demanded if she had any friends. Michele and Fran shook as they heard their friend divulge their hideout. One of the men began to violently kick the bathroom door and shout for the girls to come out. As soon as Fran and Michele emerged from hiding, they were seized and thrown into the back of a van.
A gang of violent young men immediately and repeatedly raped each of the young virgins multiple times. The ordeal seemed to last for hours. Having had their fill for the night, the men drove to an isolated road with farms. They dumped the girls out and warned them not to call the police or they would find them and kill them.
Traumatized, ashamed, humiliated, and shaking from the cold, the girls ran into a field of cornstalks. When they reasoned they couldn’t return home, Michele said they could seek refuge at her cousin’s house. They got a ride from an old farmer who drove them all the way to her cousin’s high school. Michele went to the school office and had them page her cousin. Her cousin must have been shocked to see her 13-year-old Michele alone with her two friends so far from home. She arranged to meet the three young girls by a field near Michele’s grandpa’s old house. The girls went there and waited, and it wasn’t long before the police showed up. They questioned the girls and had them examined by a doctor, and then they put them in juvenile hall until they could be claimed by a responsible guardian.
Michele’s stepfather picked her up. Neither of them spoke a word the entire four-hour drive home. Michele’s mother was devastated. She had no way of knowing just how traumatizing had been the ordeal her beautiful daughter endured, because Michele couldn’t voice her pain, agony, or sorrow. The more she tried, the more frustrated she became.
Michele was sent to a psychologist, but even he and counseling couldn’t unlock the pain locked within her soul. As a last resort, Michele was sent to live with her father. This meant she had to change schools, and she found it impossible to make friends. She also couldn’t handle the mundane routine of school when she was dying inside. She tried to escape the pain by running away so many times that she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
Eventually she was remanded again to the care of her father, but she left and hitchhiked north. She lived with a family to whom she’d lied about her age. They paid her to clean and babysit. Then the urge to run hit Michele again, and this time she fled to the mountains.
In a mountain town, Michele made the acquaintance of kids who were just a bit older than she was, swimming in a local lake and having fun. She hit it off with them, and they inducted her into their company. They lived and worked at a farm, and Michele was given the task of working in a cotton field. It was painstakingly hard work, but Michele liked the feeling of doing something so physical. One member of the group Michele felt especially attracted to was Billy. He was kind and attentive to her, and they became a couple.
At this point the only drugs Michele had ever taken were the ones prescribed by the psychiatric hospital. Alcohol had been her main means of numbing her pain. She came out of the field one day to find her peers acting strangely. She asked where Billy was, and someone pointed toward the bedroom. Michele entered to find him cooking some liquid substance. Around his arm was a tourniquet, and he was about to fill a syringe with what he was cooking.
Michele’s mind reeled as she tried to process what she was seeing. Billy apologized in one breath and in the next invited Michele to try heroin. Michele was transfixed. Her mind screamed for her to run, but her legs wouldn’t cooperate. She gave in, and heroin became her drug of choice.
From there Michele’s life spiraled out of control. She and Billy did whatever was necessary to support their heroin habit. They lied. They stole. They spent every waking hour thinking about how they would get their next fix. Sometime amid the mayhem Michele began to feel sickly. Many in the group had hepatitis, so Michele was encouraged to see a doctor. She did, and she learned she was pregnant.
Resolved to give this baby a better life, Michele and Billy took a hiatus from the heroin. Michele contacted her parents, and they signed a waiver allowing her to marry Billy. A healthy, beautiful boy was born on Christmas Day 1975. Michele was 16 years old.
A few months after the baby’s birth, Billy returned to heroin. He became violent and would beat up Michele when he couldn’t get drugs or something else set him off. Billy’s parents took Michele aside one day and warned her to take the baby and get away from him. They put Michele and her son on a bus back to her parents’ house, and then she went to live with her father again.
Michele couldn’t stop thinking about Billy. Though she was warned over and over to forget about him and move forward with her life, Michele still hoped she could save him. She worked out all sorts of scenarios in her mind. Each one ended with Billy sober and the two of them good parents to their son. One night Michele decided to enact the scenario she had played to herself over and over. She went to Tulare and found the house where Billy lived. She knocked on the door, and a woman answered. Michele asked to see Billy.
Billy came to the door disheveled—and angry. He screamed and demanded to know why she was there. Michele explained that she wanted to help him get clean so they could work on their marriage and be a family again. Billy snorted. He told her in no uncertain terms that he had moved on and wanted her to leave. He slammed the door hard in her face.
Alone in the dark, cold night, Michele cried. She tried to reason how she’d arrived at this place in her life. Having given her son into the care of family members before she left, Michele decided to run again. She found new companions. Some were good, and some were bad. Still unable to talk about the pain that gnawed within her, Michele tried anything and everything to numb it.
At 18, Michele felt utterly trapped, ashamed, frustrated, oppressed, and hopeless. She found a gun and decided to end her life. She remembers little of the incident until she woke up in a hospital room with her mother sitting beside her.
The news was grim. The bullet had passed all the way through Michele’s stomach and exited out her back. Her spine was damaged, and she was paralyzed from the waist down on her right side because the bullet had severed nerves to her right leg.
Her mother, Carol, who by this time had come to Christ, cried and prayed by Michele’s bedside. God heard. By a miracle Michele was able to dispense with the colostomy bag after a time. Within a year she was walking with a cane and then a brace she wears to this day.
Though Michele was healing physically, she continued to bear the emotional wounds of her turbulent life. Still unable to share her greatest sorrows and aches with anyone, she continued to run, hide, and seek comfort. She would call her brother, Brian, often. In every conversation he begged her to give her life to Jesus. He promised that whatever was locked up within her, Jesus could heal it.
By this time, Brian was married to me, and we invited Michele to come with us to our church’s family camp. None of our friends knew the condition of Michele’s life, nor did we fully know it. We didn’t need to. To us Michele was the lost lamb who needed her Savior to find her, place her on His shoulders, and bring her into His fold.
Michele felt ashamed and out of place among the throng of believers, but she also felt loved. After the camp, Michele’s mom continued to send her Bible messages on cassette tapes, and Michele listened. She became more aware of her sin, but at the same time a great awareness of the grace of God was beginning to dawn on her.
One day Michele finally surrendered to Jesus and accepted His offer of grace. When she did, she was surprised by what took place. Rather than feeling the condemnation she expected, she experienced a divine, cleansing flood that poured throughout her soul. All the emotions, pains, and wounds that had goaded her for years were being washed with the cleansing tide of Jesus’s love.
Michele continues to shine like the trophy of grace she is to God. Her life bears no semblance to the trauma she experienced in her youth. Whatever scars she had have been replaced with the beauty of humility, hope, and healing. She is a testimony to the beauty of God’s grace.
A Lamb, A Coin, A Son
In Luke 15, Jesus gave three illustrations to highlight His search and rescue mission of grace. In the first illustration He talked about a lost lamb. The shepherd leaves his 99 other sheep to find the one wandering sheep. He doesn’t give up in his pursuit until it’s found. When it is, it’s hoisted onto the shepherd’s shoulders and carried back to the fold. The shepherd rejoices over the lost sheep and invites his friends to rejoice with him, “for I have found my sheep which was lost!” (verse 6).
Those listening to Jesus could understand the search for a lost sheep; however, His next statement must have astounded them. He said, “ ‘I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance’ ” (verse 7).
Does this bold statement surprise you? Have you ever realized the reaction of heaven to a sinner being found and rescued by Jesus? Heaven erupts with joy over every life Christ rescues. The greater the rescue, the greater the rejoicing and glory ascribed to Jesus Christ! These individuals become living testimonials to the power of Jesus to rescue, heal, and restore.
The next illustration is about a woman with ten coins. She loses one of those coins, and she searches throughout her whole house until she finds it. Then she calls her friends and neighbors to show them the coin she found and ask them to rejoice with her.
Again, Jesus ended this story with the same disclosure concerning heaven: “ ‘Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents’ ” (verse 10).
Finally, Jesus tells one of his longest parables, concerning a father and his two sons. Since the parable of the prodigal son was discussed in a previous chapter, I won’t go into great detail other than to say this son was a lost cause. His choices had been his own and had led him to a distant land, to a lost inheritance, to lost wages, and almost to loss of life. In the meantime, his father watched the road obsessively, hoping for his lost son’s return. One day his hopes were realized when he saw a pitiful figure limping in the distance. Somehow the father recognized the son from afar and went running to him. He was ready to fully forgive every infraction and to restore him to his former position. The father threw a huge party to honor the son’s return.
Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end there. The prodigal son had an older brother who had remained in his father’s house and faithfully served him. He refused join the party for his younger brother. When his father questioned him, he was angry and resentful. His father had never given him a party. He brought up all the infractions his prodigal brother had committed. The father explained, “ ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found’ ” (verses 31-32).
It’s right to rejoice over Jesus’s trophies of grace! We rejoice because He has searched out the far reaches of the world and found them. He has hoisted them onto His broad shoulders and carried them to His flock. He has healed them. He has restored them. He calls on us to behold the glory and power of His grace in these trophies of grace. Here is what our God can do!
Lord, give me a new perspective as I look at my sisters and brothers. Give me eyes to see them as You see them, as trophies of Your grace. Let me behold through their lives Your passion to search for the lost. Let me behold Your power to rescue the lost from whatever enemy imprisons them. Let me behold Your authority and kindness to forgive their sin. Let me behold Your touch to heal and bind up all their wounds. Let me behold Your glory to bring radiance to their lives. Most of all, help me rejoice, as do Your angels in heaven, over every trophy of grace in Your display. In the name of the great rescuer, Jesus, I pray. Amen.
For consideration:
1. Briefly write the testimony of someone you know who’s a trophy of grace.
2. How does the concept of seeing others as trophies of grace affect your perspective of
• other believers?
• lost people?
• prayer?
• heaven?
3. Read Luke 15 and share your thoughts about
• the shepherd.
• the woman.
• the father.
4. How does a trophy of grace showcase God’s
• love?
• power?
• passion?
• desire?
• joy?
• grace?
5. How do you, yourself, qualify as a trophy of grace?