As I went to the ladies meeting my heart weighed heavy with one of my child’s life choices. I had joined “Moms in Prayer” for many years to intentionally pray for our ‘prodical’ child. I had seen many prayers answered over the years that gave me hope God was still working in my son’s life. But no matter how long I prayed he still wasn’t surrendering to the Lord. My heart grieved. Even though I came with continued hope that day, that my son would find his way back to our Heavenly Father, little did I know what God would do in my heart.
Linda*, our speaker for the day, met Jesus out of the Hippy era, and had this amazing spiritual gift of evangelism. She was a beautiful, sweet spirited lady, with a spunky personality, and a tender heart toward God. Linda had us laughing and crying all at the same time, as she spoke about how God moved as she stepped out to share Christ.
God has called her to preach His love to hitchhikers. Yes! Hitchhikers! While she was on a road trip in the sixties someone presented the Gospel to her where she gave her life to Jesus. Now she wants to reach disenfranchised young men and women who find themselves on the road to nowhere.
In this assignment of picking up hitchhickers to share God’s love, she knows the potential for spiritual warfare. As she leaves meetings after speaking, she will ask if anyone wants to ride with her to be in prayer. Some accept her challenge and others smile and walk away.
On one particular day two ladies accompanied Linda, they prayed, “God show us who you would have us talk to today”. At the exact moment all three spotted a young man on the other side of the highway hitchhiking. Because they were on a big highway, they had to first pass the young man, then loop around to the other side.
As they approached the young man , they also noticed a police car had beat them to him. The two ladies with Linda immediately became disappointed. They decided to pull over anyway since they had felt so sure of God’s leading.
Linda proceeded to talk to the officer, “Officer, what are you doing with this young man”?
“I am picking him up. He isn’t fit to be on the road the way he is”.
The lady said with such boldness, “Officer you can’t do that”! The other lady’s with her were wondering if the offier was going to arrest them too.
“Oh, I can’t and why not”? said the officer.
“Well, God told us we are to pick him up and take him to lunch,” she said.
“You are, and do you know this man”? he said
“No, but we want to take him to lunch, get him cleaned up, share the love of Christ with him and help him in anyway we can. Can we do that?”
The officer hesitated not knowing what to think of these ladies. “Well, I don’t see why not.”
“Young man, do you want to go with these ladies or with me”? He said. The young man looking back and forth, decided going with the three ladies would be the better of the two choices.
The ladies took him to lunch, and showered him with God’s love as best as they knew how. Praying through the whole meal silently, the ladies told him they were only God’s messengers of His love.
They shared the **Gospel: God loved him. Jesus died for his sins,that Jesus sacrificed Himself on a cross for him, giving all of us an opportunity to be connected with God again. He was buried and in three days rose from the dead and is alive today. All one has to do is cry out and trust.**
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While in this restaurant the more this young man ate, and the ladies talked, the more he got sick. He hadn’t eaten for days and with the drugs he had been taken previously, the food didn’t sit very well. He asked to go to the bathroom.
He was gone for a long time. The ladies just figured he decided he had had enough of these older women fussing over him and telling him about God’s love, that he probably decided to escape by going out the bathroom windows. But they were wrong, he eventually did come back. Linda remarked to herself, “we of little faith”.
After lunch, they asked him if they could help him get home? They would be glad to get him a bus ticket and even willing to take him to the bus station just to make sure he got there!
He asked to have a ticket to Florida, where his parents lived. As he was leaving the lady felt lead to give him one of her business cards with her contact info on it. Often she might just give her phone number but not her address but this young man seemed different.
To her surprise, too, she said, “Son, if you ever find yourself back up this way again, I want you to know you have a home away from home, give me a call,”
She often doesn’t hear from hitchhikers. However, one day a few years later the phone rang. “Ma’am, I don’t know if you remember me, but you picked me up on the street some three years earlier and you told me about God’s love and sent me back to Florida from Pennsylvania because I asked to go back to my parents?”
I told him I remembered him, so he proceeded, “After I arrived home I found my parents, as usual on their knees praying for me. They didn’t have any idea where I was. When you found me, I had hit bottom, not knowing if there was a God out there. I cried out to Him anyway. Then you came. I knew then there was a God. I knew what I had to do. I came back home and now it is three years later. I repented, gave my life to God and now I am heading out to the mission field with a mission organization. As I was leaving I asked my mom if she still had your card with your information on it and she did. I just had to call you to tell you, THANK YOU for being obedient to God and for sharing the love of God with me. I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for you and those other ladies. Thank You!”
Linda told us over half of the encounters she has with hitchhikers are with kids from Christian families, where the child has run away and their parents are back home praying. She is able to be the mediator of God’s love back into the hearts of many kids who have lost their way. Linda and parents are in partnership, teaming up with God into the lives of their kids.
As she told the story, I started to weep. Why? My crying wasn’t just for my own child who was a prodigal and lost at the time, it was for ME.
A little surprised at my reaction, however, I realized how small I had made my God. How little my confidence with God was for my child’s life. Then I asked how much of that is imputed into the heart of my child, in my relationship with him?
Could I trust God with my child and children even it meant one might run away and I wouldn’t know where he was? Could I trust God to love my child enough to send someone into his life to tell him of HIMSELF. There is no place too far that God isn’t there, that God can’t find one’s child if He wants to. God cares more about my child(ren) than I do and I can trust him. I made a vow with the Lord in my heart that day! God was asking me to trust him and release my child to Him once again.
I repented before the Lord that day and thanked that lady for her ministry to these kids on behalf of mothers like me.
Would we be so bold to love other’s children like that, too, as if they are our own? That day my faith grew due to her obedience and testimony before the Lord and us!
UPDATE ON OUR SON:
I heard this lady speak in 2007. It has been 8 years since he has been off hard drugs and following Christ.
Christmas of 2009 our son admitted to his sin addiction of drugs, his need for God and repented! He truly made God Lord of his life. His journey has been a process.
Today 2018, he has finished college and getting his masters in Apologetics at Liberty University and is editor and writer for Proven Men. A moral integrity and purity organization for men who find themselves addicted to porn, (provenmen.org). Check out some of his writings. He is a miracle of what God can do in a person’s life.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Thanks to many of you as you’ve prayed faithfully on behalf of parent’s whose children are far from God. And we are most thankful for your prayers for our son.
Never give up praying. There is power in prayer in a relationship with Jesus. Also next time when you see a stragley hitchhiker, offer up a prayer for them and their parents.
PERSONAL REFLECTION: How did this story touch your heart? What might we learn about God in carrying the burdens of our kids? Whose children can you start praying for or reaching out to, today? Would love to hear your comments about what you thought of the article “The Hippy Lady, Hitch Hikers and Jesus”.
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-*Linda is not her her real name. Changed to protect her privancy.
**References: John 3:16; I Cor 15:1-4; Romans 3:23; 5:13; 6:23; 10:9-10.
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From One Pilgrim to another together on the journey,
”Consider how you may spur one another on towards love and good deeds….. encouraging one another–and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:24-25 (NIV)
Please Reply in a gracious manner