All I Have To Offer

The story, as told to me...
A woman, broken, came to the Mercy Ships base. Seeking refuge and healing, she came not to give but to be restored. Her wanderings, her times of quiet, her forays in the silence of the forest paths and the loneliness found there gave way to seeking out fellowship, conversation, simply being with those whose lives went on around her.
In the office she discovered an ongoing project. Small booklets of white paper folded in half, covered with a simple piece of blank cardboard. Each of these books carried the name of a student-  a student now overseas on the outreach portion of their DTS. When the students returned, these booklets would be piled in their classroom. In their jet-lagged hours, the too-early mornings and can't-sleep nights, the students would come to this room, grab a handful of booklets, and begin to write. Into these booklets, memories are written. Scripture. Blessings. Things thought but never said, yet written now. At the end of the week, the booklets were handed out, and we read in our books the collected, personal writings of classmates.
It was my book she was drawn to. The mystery of this still eludes me. Why me? Yet the name "Charity", already written on the front or paper-clipped to the top- I don't know- caught her eye. As a staff drew personalized art work on the front of the other booklets, she took my book. Perhaps out of her emptiness she drew from a deep well that had never dried up. Or perhaps the healing had already begun, and the waters of grace and forgiveness were overflowing their banks, needed to be poured out.
She chose my book, and this woman that I have never met prophesied over my life. This is what she wrote.



I make you a gift.

mercy

to give, compassion

to share the

burdens of

others. I give you

hope. I give you peace.

grace, that you may

walk humbly,

and honorably.

strength for the task.

love for the least

of these.

brokenness,

that you may weep

over the children

of the earth.

holiness,

that you may walk pure.

joy, for ever and ever.

You are mine.

She came and left in the time I was overseas. I know no name or identifying mark, only that she came desiring to throw her life away, and left having poured herself into another life. When I think of the treasures I own, I think of this booklet and her gift of words to me.