When God Remembers Series

God had given her rest. And that’s what happens when God remembers you. First, the storm stops. Second, you find rest.

And third, God makes everything new. God makes a new creation, and you walk into a new world. That’s what happened to Noah.

Genesis 8:13-14 In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out (ESV).

One year and ten days after it started to rain, the water was all gone.

Genesis 8:15-19 Then God said to Noah, “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark (ESV).

They came out into a new world, and that’s what happens when God remembers you. You come out into a new world. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

Several years ago (2014), Mary Nelson began working at Seed, which is a restaurant that the Bluewater Mission church started in Honolulu to give people a second chance at work and at life. It was only the second job the 53-year-old had ever had. At the age of 14, Mary’s mother committed suicide and Mary started working on the streets of New York City as a prostitute. At the age of 18 she tried to start a new life in Hawaii, but she kept working as a prostitute.

Then when she was in her early 50’s, some Christians at Bluewater Mission persuaded her to leave the streets and try working at Seed. She spent the first six months washing dishes because she wanted to be far away from what she called, the “good people.” But after a lot of hard work and love from the people at church Mary says, “I get to be the person I was never able to be. I get to help people without someone trying to take advantage of me.”

Mary noted that what she makes in a month at Seed, she used to make in one night on the streets. She had it all: new cars, jewelry, travel, nice condos—though, sometimes, beatings, rape and “so much horror” came with the price. “You can't buy what I'm going through right now,” she says. “I never thought that I'd be this person I am now.”

A year later, Mary went with her church on a trip to the Philippines to reach out to prostitutes. She said, “I want those women to know there's hope. You can change. There are people out there that really want to help, and you've got to… believe. Just like you went out there and took a chance on the streets, you've got to take a chance on this as well” (Carla Herreria, “Restaurant In Hawaii Offers Fresh Start For Former Prostitutes, Convicts, Others Who Need A Hand,” The Huffington Post, 2-28-15; www.PreachingToday.com).