Finding God in the Ruins by Matt Bays

Author:Matt Bays
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Where is God;God of healing;God help me;Help me God;God loves you;Jesus help me;Why does God allow suffering;Where is God when it hurts
Publisher: David C. Cook
Published: 2016-02-08T05:04:56+00:00

PART 3

STORYTOLD

11

The Untold Story—I Used to Be Matt Petrino

The Power of Your Story

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

—Maya Angelou

I was in the market for new shoes. Shoes are everything in fourth grade; they can make or break you. In fourth grade, the right shoes just might catapult you into the future with enough torque to broaden your list of potential prom dates to include the likes of Robin Larabee.

There was a house in the “old money” portion of our subdivision and I needed some old money to buy a new pair of shoes. The house had a huge lawn that was terribly overgrown and the flower beds were in pretty bad shape. Every once in a while I would see an old lady picking around in them, so one day I stopped to see if she needed help.

“Want me to mow your lawn?” I called out to her. She was on all fours, digging through weeds and fifteen-year-old mulch. I could tell she didn’t hear me, so I cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled as loud as I could: “Hey, lady! Do you want your lawn mowed?”

She stood up and turned around. At barely five feet tall and less than a hundred pounds, she was nothing but breath and britches.

She waved me over, so I got off my bike and made my way through her long grass. The first thing I noticed was that she was wearing bowling shoes with large number sixes painted on the back of them. Part of her hair was jet black, but when she took off her sun hat, the rest was stark white with a line of demarcation four or five inches from her scalp. Some of her teeth were missing, the back ones mostly, but her smile lit up the rest of her face.

“Yes,” she said, “I would. And I’ll give you ten dollars to do it.” Her bright pink lipstick was gooped around her mouth as though she’d put it on in her sleep.

Ten dollars was big money for lawn mowing. She must not have known the going rate because I got only five for all my other lawns. What a dummy. But two days later, I was still mowing. There were hidden parts to her yard that couldn’t be seen from the street. And because it hadn’t been mowed since Jimmy Carter was inaugurated, I could barely make it through one strip without having to empty the bag. On the second day of mowing, Tim came down to help. We split the cash. Two days of mowing for five dollars. Who’s the dummy?

The word on the street was that Mrs. Poor (I kid you not) was filthy rich. So when she started calling our house to see if “the boys” could come down and give her a hand with a few odd jobs, we were all about it. And that’s how we became The Handyboys.

Before too long, I began to wonder if Mrs. Poor was mentally ill.

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