I exited the room unnoticed and let the door close slowly behind me. The speaker continued her presentation as the baby sprawled across my bladder convinced me another trip to the restroom was overdue.
I flew across the country to attend a writing conference,
fully expecting God to speak to me through some carefully crafted message or in
a dialogue with a new acquaintance. But
Jesus has a habit of moving in unexpected ways and speaking in unexpected
places. He spoke loud and clear, but it wasn’t through a course on writing or a
list of tips to go home and practice.
God spoke to me in the bathroom.
It wasn’t the first time God had
used a public restroom to deliver a powerful message. My name was found
on a bathroom wall by my grandma who worked as a custodian at a community
college. That was the story I've known since I was little. I’ve spent most of my
life thinking I was just meaningless, insignificant graffiti.
Three decades later, my
grandma shared the true version of the story I thought I knew so well.
She spoke of walls covered with
inspirational quotes in students’ handwriting and my name written underneath
the words of a beautiful poem. God used this story to give me eyes to see
myself the way He sees me. My name wasn't written in a dirty place, hidden and
unapproved; it had purpose and was carefully chosen by Jesus
Himself.
As I recalled the way He had
used the words of a stranger in my own life, Jesus gently whispered to me in
the middle of a restroom five states away from home:
Are you willing to write your
words in the place I’ve chosen… even if it’s on a bathroom wall… for the
purpose of changing one life?
I’ve been through so much with
Jesus. One thing I’ve learned (perhaps the hard way) is that I can trust
Him… even when it doesn’t make sense… especially when it doesn’t make
sense. So my prayer back to Him became one I've never prayed before.
Show me my bathroom wall.
I’ve read a story in John chapter 8 at least fifty times this week. It’s dawn and Jesus is teaching in front of a crowd in the temple when the religious leaders drag in a woman they’ve caught in the act of adultery.
These men have one thing on their agenda: trap Jesus and
find a way to accuse Him. I’ve wondered
why only one party is brought before Jesus. I want to know why the guilty man
isn’t present. Or maybe he is.
It’s very possible that this woman, though clearly she had
sinned, was used as a pawn in the carefully thought-out scheme of these men who
hated Jesus. So add to the condemnation
and judgment and pure embarrassment of the whole ordeal a heap of betrayal,
worthlessness and shame. This kind of brokenness I can’t imagine.
In this raw and tension-filled moment, Jesus does something
so unexpected. Rather than use His
authority to address the crowd, He writes on the ground with His finger. It’s the only place in scripture that records
Jesus writing.
When they continue with their accusations, Jesus invites the
one who has never sinned to throw the first stone, knowing full well that He is
the only sinless one present. Eventually
every last one of the woman’s accusers leaves the scene.
It was just a broken woman and Jesus standing in the dirt
staring at words that would change everything.
Show me my bathroom wall.
This summer Jesus asked my friend to
add something to her morning prayer walk. It was something so unexpected,
but she knew without a doubt He had called her to this. So she set out
every morning on her same prayer path armed with a box of chalk.
She didn’t realize that this path was holy ground.
She didn’t know that God was using
her words written in brightly colored chalk on the hot, Texas pavement to save
a life. A message written on the bridge one day told of a broken heart
and a dead end that was nothing but hopeless. Until Jesus stepped in and
took the words of a stranger and made them personal to the one who was reading
them. And He gave this girl a reason to live.
Show me my bathroom wall.
My friend will probably never meet
the girl who signed her name Anonymous on
the bridge. I’ll never know the words that were strung together on that
bathroom wall thirty five years ago or what it
was that made a fifty year old custodian stop one day to them. But I know this: Jesus knows my name. He knows my friend who walked with chalk all
summer. He knows Anonymous.
Jesus stooped down low to write in the dust and He's called us to do the same. Bending low, it becomes less about us and more about what He wants to accomplish through us.
The only name I
want people to remember when they read my words is Jesus- the name that saves.
For the rest of the conference, I took notes. I wrote down methods for building a writing and speaking platform, but I realized by the last night that I’d rather write for one than a platform of five thousand or five hundred thousand. Because the One I write for can use words scribbled on a bathroom wall or chalked along a gravel path to change lives, redeem lives, and save lives one tiny step of obedience at a time.
I invite you to make my prayer yours too. Ask God to show you your bathroom wall. Then do whatever He tells you.
