Angels All Around

Angels All Around Us

God is everywhere, even at the DMV.

Jackie and I met in a Bible study class at the Alexander YMCA on Hillsborough Street. We got to be friends, and I had served as her champion with Jobs For Life, a program to help people find stable, long-term employment. Jackie is a single mom on disability who battles sickle cell disease. She has been homeless in the past and cares for her 9-year-old granddaughter and her 21-year-old- son. She is a survivor. I really love Jackie.

After she graduated from Jobs for Life, she worked and saved for a year to get her driver’s license. I took her to the Division of Motor Vehicles office on Avent Ferry Road three times before she was finally able to pass both the written and driving test. The lady at the DMV was so generous and recognized us each day as we tried and tried again. (The second time she was unable to drive my car for the test because the registration was

expired — oops.) After the third try, the DMV worker said she could see something special between us and that she saw angels all around us.

Not the typical conversation you expect while obtaining a license, but God shows his glory in extraordinary ways, even through ordinary people like Jackie and me. Unlike Paul’s transformation, though, my awakening to what God wants me to do has been somewhat slow.

In his book Everybody, Always, Bob Goff writes: “Do you want to do something amazing for God? Trade the appearance of being close to God for the power of actually being close to God. Quit talking a big game and go live a big faith. We need to live a life worthy of the calling we’ve received. The call is to love God and the people around us while we live into the most authentic version of ourselves!”

This spoke to me because my awakening came about as I got to know myself better. I stopped pretending to be the things

I thought I should be growing up — or what people expected or wanted me to be — and I started trying to be who God made me to be. I started paying attention to what delighted me, what filled me with purpose, what fired my imagination, what drew me closer to God. And then I up and quit my job and started doing those things.

I had worked as an interior designer and built up my own business over a 15-year span. I loved my job, thought I was pretty good at it and was thankful I could use my creativity and strengths in my day-today work.

But I started to feel restless and unfulfilled. I looked around and realized almost everyone in all of my circles was just like me — the same color skin as me, the same background as mine. I felt Jesus working to pry open my neat little life in what felt like calling me out of my tomb like Lazarus.

Angels

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at the YMCA, and met Jackie. At Manna, black and white women come together across racial and socioeconomic lines for study and fellowship. Jackie and I bonded talking about our daughters, and when Jackie called me saying she was in Jobs for Life and needed a champion, who works with the candidate to help ensure their success. business to devote my time to these women. I see Jesus in them, and who wouldn’t want more of that? I try to make myself more available to be there, and they call me and Katie and Betty and Sally. It’s humbling. Two friends, a mother and a daughter named Carol and Sierra, have called me every week to keep me up to date on their new apartment.

Jackie and I met twice a week in class and outside of class, where we started getting to know each other over shared meals. Jackie lived off Poole Road, and she introduced me to a part of Raleigh I had never experienced, even though I grew up here.

She showed me a different way of life than what I had known growing up white and privileged. I learned about another side of myself, too, one that wasn’t defined by my accomplishments or pedigree, education or upbringing, but by grace that illuminated my intrinsic God-given worth.

As I grew spiritually, I wanted more. I began volunteering at the Wake County Women’s Center, on Cox Avenue behind Pullen Memorial Baptist Church. Here I found Jesus in the flesh.

The Women’s Center is the only shelter for women in Wake County that is open during the day, when overnight shelters are closed. It’s a refuge where homeless women come to rest, to find clothing, food and shelter, and to form community. My dear friend Katie Koon gathered a group to have Thursday morning “coffee talk” at the center. Katie, Betty, Sally, Marcie and I bring in coffee and breakfast, and we sit and get to know these women, as we’d do with our friends at Starbucks. We bring Starbucks to them, right down to the cups. If we can carry a Starbucks cup why shouldn’t they as well?

Many of these women suffer from mental health issues and addiction, or they have dealt with extreme trauma. We sit and hear their stories, their dreams, their childhood memories, sometimes even about their favorite desserts. They encourage me with their resilience and teach me every day about hope. At times, I feel more comfortable with Rebecca, Carol, Sierra, Victoria, Brenda and Melinda than I do with my own friends. Feeling that I am connecting with the most rejected, vulnerable women in our community gives me life.

God opened my heart, and I realized I could be friends with women very different from me, so I closed my design “Only one more week,” Carol said expectantly into the phone. She had been so patient waiting to get out of shelters and off the street with her daughter. They finally moved in a few months ago. They didn’t have a pot or a pan to their name, a mattress or even a sheet to put over the window for privacy, but they had a roof over their heads and a place to call their own.

Some of the women at the WC have jobs but can’t afford housing. Most have children living with other family members so they don’t have to be on the streets — separation seems a better alternative. They talk about their kids just as we do, swapping stories about teenage daughters’ eye rolling, football games, dance recitals — except they don’t get to see them every day like I see my three daughters.

Some women sleep in shelters at the Helen Wright Center, the Salvation Army or Healing Transitions, but 25-30 of them sleep in the parking lot of the Women’s Center on any given night. Right off Hillsborough Street, these women sleep on concrete, night after night. The Center is a loving environment during the day inside, and they have numbers, so they feel safe at night. But it is a false sense of security. No one is there to protect them from predators on the street after dark. Some women don’t shower for days as a deterrent, but mainly they rely on each other for protection.

They are a community, and they are sleeping on the concrete right here in our back yard. This just isn’t right.

I’ve met Jesus and his name is Jackie, Gwendolyn, Beth, Cici and Cathy. I feel so grateful for the way in which these relationships have shaped and changed me. I have a real sense of purpose because they are showing me what it is like to love. We appear very different from each other, but we are actually the

same. We all experience pain and joy and just want to be loved.

At times this can be unpredictable and tough. Mary comes in on Thursday mornings angry and hoards food and Tupperware. But when I ask Mary about her children and she smiles, I have accomplished my purpose for the day.

Mary is made by God and loved by Him, no matter what she says or does. As Goff says, “God wants me to love the ones I don’t understand, to get to know their names. To invite them to do things with me. To go find the ones everyone has shunned and turned away. To see them as my neighbors even if we are in totally different places.”

I want to fill my life with these people. I want to treat them with love, respect and dignity. In doing this, I believe we can show the world what we know about Jesus by having them see the way we love the people around us, particularly the difficult ones. I hope that you will join me there. The Women’s Center is a little gem in the heart of Raleigh that has changed my life. New director Brace Boone has expanded the hours the center is open, so we need more people to bring lunches and weekend meals.

The path can be scary. I don’t know what the future looks like or what God has in store for me or my friends, but I do know that I’m living into my authentic self more than I ever have before, the one God created Molly to be. I’m not trying to fix these women or even serve them. I’m just loving them, and learning that I am loved just as I am.

I can feel Jesus in the room, and it feels free and it feels like good news. And though I am just an ordinary woman, by stepping into these new friendships, life has come to feel extraordinary.

Molly Painter is the mother of three girls and a lifelong member of St. Michael’s. She volunteers at the Women’s Center and with many other non-profits in Raleigh.

Molly quit her interior design business to spend time with homeless women served by the Women’s Center of Raleigh. She volunteered her expertise to transform the living spaces of the day shelter into a more home-like atmosphere for the more than 30 women who come there for respite. At night, many of them also sleep in the parking lot.At left, the living room, left, is warm and inviting.

Now Molly is working with others in our community to raise money for permanent, supportive housing for the chronically homeless.

If you would like to get involved at the Women’s Center, contact Molly at mwpinteriors@ mac. com. You can also follow the Wake County Women’s Center on Facebook.

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continued from page 11 The choral scholar program is a great opportunity for the scholars, but it benefits the choir too. “When our choral scholars began singing with us,” Kevin says, “we were able to achieve consistent balance between sections. Standards for music at St. Michael’s are kept high, because we believe that in worship we should offer our very best gifts to God. The choral scholars help ensure that every singer can do his or her best musical work each week. Sing

Our choir members, some of whom have been singing at St. Michael’s for decades, embraced the choral scholar program, and Cole and Johnny were welcomed enthusiastically into the choir community. ”

“The college singers provide excellent support for our volunteer singers,” says Bob Spaziano, a bass singer since 1977. “ The students get exposure to singing in a church choir and attending our church. In addition, singers who receive a financial scholarship are more accountable an dependable.”

“It is fun for the choir members to get to know our scholars and to bring them into our community,” says Frank Haynes, who has sung tenor since 2002. “It is good for the scholars to be part of a dedicated choir under such a skilled leader.”

“The choral scholars provide consistent, high-quality leadership in their sections,” says Jean Tedder, who has sung alto since 1986. “We know they will be prepared and will have practiced so they can set a great example. The choir sings better when better singers are in it — no matter where they come from!” “The decision to initiate the choral scholars program was a positive move,” adds Chip Chase, the St. Michael’s verger and a tenor singer since 1991. “We should by all means continue this practice, as it strengthens not only the sections in which the choral scholars are singing, but strengthens the choir as a whole. St. Michael’s has long been known for its music. The choral scholar program has now become a part of this tradition.”

“A strong voice helps boost the confidence of those around them and encourages them to sing out with confidence,” says Chris Laco, a soprano singer since 2005. “This is certainly true for me. The choir can learn and perform a more difficult repertoire if Kevin knows that he has enough voices in each section to carry it off. It is also good for a choir with many ‘middle aged’ singers to have younger voices added to the mix. They bring energy and a fresh perspective on the music.”

All of us in the choir are grateful to both Cole and Johnny for their leadership and beautiful voices, and we wish them success in life and in singing as they move on to what’s next after graduation. We also look forward to continuing to produce quality and inspiring music for the congregation with our next choral scholars, bridging relationships between our church and aspiring college singers. You never know what their experiences can lead to in the future!

Helen Moses, adult choir member since 1991 and former St. Michael’s Senior Warden, is a voice and messaging coach, helping her clients make a bigger impact when they speak.