A Generous House Guest

Have you ever had someone invite themselves to visit your home and you panicked?  Is my house clean enough? Do I have enough food? Did I hide my mess good enough under the couch?

What does that have to do with prom dresses? I feel as if the prom closet is an extension of my home. I spend most of free time there and I am always surrounded by family.

I’ve have been asked a lot how many dresses we picked up last Saturday in Charlotte.  But before I answer that...

Zacchaeus comes to my mind. He was a tax collector; a little man that climbed a tree to see Jesus.  Jesus tells him “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I most stay at your house today.” Luke 19:5b
Jesus invites himself to Zacchaeus house. I wonder if he panicked, too?  JESUS is coming to your house!! What do you do!?

Last Saturday, Jesus invited himself into the prom closet and all we could do was clean and yes… hide dresses under the dresses!

First, we had an amazing group of women from my mom’s Bible study class come to the Prom Closet and fill a huge need we had for more Bibles!  We had given away every Bible we had in two weeks!  So, what happen when Jesus invites himself in?  Seventy Bibles were donated for our “Bible lady” to cover.
As you know Tammy and I had a plan... (you know when you start a sentence with those two names trouble must follow.)   Our plan was to have our “war room” clean to make room for 500 dresses. My mom and her friends and all available hands were put to work! The room was cleaned and four racks were empty and ready for dresses in no time.

Second, that afternoon we all left for uptown Charlotte. We had two cars and five people.   After we arrived, they kept bringing bag after bag of dresses.  When then they ran out of bags and started rolling rack after rack full of them!  We had to be quick on our feet and think… Where are we going to put all of them? We have no room!

After mom and I gave up our seats, all 891 dresses as well as boxes and bags of shoes made it into two cars.  With the exception of two people who had to be left behind until Mis  Gail came to pick us up, we managed to get the whole load back to the Prom Closet.

But Jesus wasn’t done with His visit yet:

While waiting for Miss Gail a lady came to pick up dresses. All the dresses they had were gone. Without hesitation we told her about the Prom Closet in Huntersville.  She said, “I work with mental health patients and I want to have a prom for them.”  As we talked one thing she said stuck out to me “I was driving from Raleigh, I live here in Charlotte and I knew I was going to be late, but something would not let me just go home. I drove here knowing I was late. But now I know the reason I am here.  It’s not for the dresses but God wanted me to here to meet you.”

As we talked it calmed me to realize what a blessing it is to have Jesus in your home! 

Like Zacchaeus, how high do we have to climb to see Jesus?  How would Jesus invite himself in?
After we collected the 891 dresses Saturday even more dresses came in to Lydia’s Loft so we now have well over 900 dresses.

What a generous house guest Jesus is!

Blessings,

Aileen