Two lesbians and a van

This is a post I borrowed from Ben's blog. This is what we should see in all things. This is loving people like Christ loves. Enjoy!

It was a green VW van I had bought from two lesbians in flagstaff. It had a rainbow sticker on it at the time. I didn't know the sticker meant you were a homosexual so I drove around with it on the car for the whole time I owned it. I can only wonder now how many people thought I had come out of the closet when I was driving my used but cool green lesbian ride. I had bought it for $600 and it was just a fun ride to use when I wasn't driving my Toyota Pickup truck.

For a while it housed a homeless Christian ex hippy friend of mine who lived in it while it was parked outside my garden in the home I rented during the last semester of student teaching. One morning I woke up early to go running and looked in the van and saw that his girlfriend had moved in with him. She was a Christian too, and they were bothnaked and looked kinda cute sleeping together in sin. I talked to him about it later and he said it wouldn't happen again.

To the best of my knowledge it never did happen again. He moved out of the van the day my roommate, who had a nasty penchant for violent sleep walking and fits of uncontrollable rage, went outside asleep, opened the van and started beating the crap out of him. I had forgotton to warn him about Chris and he had not locked his van like I had locked my bedroom door. Anyways, it got him out of my van.

One Sunday, a year later, in Joseph City, we drove the van to the river just south of Winslow where we were baptizing two people who had joined our little church plant. They were getting a new life, a new start, making their faith known to all twelve of us who were watching. My little green van parked on the shore needed a wash - it was dirty, old and on it's last legs. The next week after we baptized our friends their parents got offended at left the church. Sometime that year my friend's car died and I loaned the green van to him. He drove it around for a few months and then one day on the way to flagstaff from Phoenix it died. He called me and let me know it had died and that he had it towed into Flagstaff. I had to pay $150 to get it towed back to Joseph City.

I guess what I am trying to say is something like this: there are some things that are better left dead, asleep, not a part of your life. Sometimes more is not better, and being cute or hip it just not worth the pain and problems. Also, it not always rewarding when you are helping others-but so what. This is what you are here for, and nothing is yours anyway. You and I are not here for the things, we are here for the naked man and woman in the car who need a small talk, and we are here for the psycho sleep walking man who needs us to hold him down on the floor until he wakes up and the sleep walking wanes. We are here for those who will smile as we baptize them and curse us as they walk out of the church. We are here for the student who will tell us that they hate us, and then next year will walk down the hall and tell us that we were there favorite teacher. We are here for our friends who need a car even when it breaks down and they make you come get it. You may not need a green vw van for survival, but your friend will certainly need you. So take a risk and start investing in messy people. Sometimes you just have to scrap the old and stick with the new. It is what He did when the dove flew from the window and the rainbow and all the colors came out.
Friend - John 15:15