Yes, Single Parents Are Worthy to Serve
It was late, and I was driving back to my home in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, after being in meetings all day in Oklahoma City. I served on the Child Care Advisory Committee and was chairing the committee to rewrite the licensing regulations. That in itself was a pretty stressful situation; add in the two-hour drive back to Broken Arrow, and you can understand how tired I was. As my mind switched from child care licensing issues, it went to thinking about my friend Mandie.
Mandie was a single mom who had cancer. Her prognosis wasn’t good. She had recently come to know Christ as her personal Savior and was enthusiastically soaking up God’s Word. She was in treatment and, as far as I knew, had not been diagnosed as terminal.
For some reason, I felt a pressing urge to go by her house. Keep in mind that it was late, I was exhausted, and I hadn’t seen my kids all day. But this urge was so great that I knew I had to run by her house. I knocked on the door, and her brother answered. He said, “Thank goodness you got the message. We’ve been trying to reach you all day. Mandie needs to talk to you right now. She wants you to plan her funeral.”
What? Plan her funeral?
My first comment was, “I really think that is something the family will want to do,” but the brother assured me they didn’t even want to think about her dying, let alone plan her funeral. As Mandie entered the living room, her brother and sister excused themselves, not only walking out of the room, but out of the house. So there I was, alone with my friend who wanted to plan her funeral.
Mandie explained, “My family are not Christians, and I want a Christian funeral. I know I’m dying. I don’t have much time left. I want you to help me pick out some Scriptures and some songs, and I want you to play the piano.” Well, that was a tall order! I didn’t think I was up to this assignment, but I quickly said a prayer and asked God to guide me in this huge request. Now here is the really cool part of the evening. The first thing she wanted to do was look at the Twenty-third Psalm.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want;
he makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil;
for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff,
they comfort me.
Psalm 23:1–4 RSV
As we read through this psalm, the Lord allowed me to explain what it meant for her as she was dying. God was waiting for her. In heaven He was going to refresh her soul, and there would be nothing to fear.
I also told her that it was a privilege to walk partway through the “valley of the shadow of death” with her, but at some point, she would have to leave me and continue with the Lord and maybe even an angel holding her hand, guiding her. A big smile crept across her face.
Her husband had left her when he found out she had cancer. She discovered later that he had been having an affair before the diagnosis. He was fighting her for custody of their four-year-old son. Her life had been so full of stress and fear, but now as she was dying and preparing to enter heaven, she could be assured that the Lord would take care of the things on earth, including her precious little boy.
When I got home late that night, I realized it was the Lord who gave me that urging to go by Mandie’s house. I know God was in the planning of her Christian funeral. My teenage kids were already asleep, and after I checked on them, I stumbled into my room and fell into bed, full of joy on the inside that I was able to serve my friend and serve my God.
Worthy Enough to Serve
When I first became a single parent, I didn’t feel worthy enough to serve. Oh, I knew God had my back, and I knew He was providing for me. But serve? That was a far-fetched idea. Then slowly, I began to notice how God was using me in various situations. Sometimes it was just as a listening ear. Other times it was helping a distraught single parent deal with an out-of-control kid. Then, in our Bible study class, people started asking me questions about my devotion time and my relationship with the Lord.
Little by little, I realized I was serving our God. It wasn’t anything grandiose like teaching a Bible study class, but it was what I could do at the time. Just like in the story above with Mandie, it was a matter of paying attention to the pull on my heartstrings and being aware of someone else’s situation.
In this chapter we are going to look at three different stories in Luke 21:1–4, 2 Kings 7:3–9, and Genesis 16:1–13. These are stories about people who were worthy enough to serve, but none would have been counted worthy enough to serve by the people of their day.
I want this chapter to be an encouragement to you to serve the Lord in whatever way you deem He is calling you. Let’s explore how God can use every circumstance for His glory and how you are worthy enough to experience God’s mercy and in turn give back to Him.
Keep in mind that God doesn’t look at what the people around us think. God looks at our hearts because He is a merciful God, and God looks at the potential we have to serve Him.
The Widow’s Offering
The widow in Luke 21:1–4 probably didn’t feel like she was worthy enough to serve.
As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”
Luke 21:1–4 NIV
Many of us have read this story before. You might have heard ministers preach on it and workshop leaders quote it, but have you ever really sat down and contemplated how this story can affect your life as a single mom or dad?
What do we know about the widow?
Are there any parts of this story that sound like your own? Do you sometimes feel like you don’t fit in someplace, like at church? I know I felt that way for many years. Because of my divorce and feelings of not being good enough, I could not take part in Communion; I didn’t feel worthy to partake of this holy replication of the Lord’s Last Supper. It was so emotional to me and real that Christ gave His life for my wretched and now divorced life. Because I would play the piano softly throughout Communion, no one noticed that I wasn’t taking part. To this day, years later, taking part in Communion is very emotional for me.
I imagine this poor widow didn’t feel like she fit in with the wealthy people at the temple treasury. She was different because she was poor. She probably dressed differently and even looked different—I imagine her clothes were tattered and her sandals worn. We don’t know what the widow was thinking; we just know she went to the temple. We also know she had a relationship with God because she didn’t give of her surplus; she gave her everything to Him.
God used a poor widow to be an example to the disciples. Jesus talked about this woman to others. Whoa! Can you imagine Jesus talking about you?
I have seen many single parents give of their talents, time, and resources to serve Him. These are people who make a difference in the kingdom. Like this widow, most are not aware of how their lives are impacting other people.
Today, ministers and church leaders use the story of the poor widow to teach others that this widow was worthy enough to serve.
Not only are single parents worthy enough to serve, but children raised in single-parent homes can also serve. I have a friend who had quite the childhood. By all accounts she should not want to serve our Lord, but Kay Farmer is serving in a mighty way. Like the widow in Luke, Kay is giving her all. She is a missionary overseas. She had to leave her invalid father here in the States and depend upon others to care for him.
Kay’s Story
Everything I have ever done in my life, including as a child, has prepared me for what God called me to do. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was in vain. The good, the bad, and the ugly. All was to prepare me.
My parents divorced when I was five years old. We (my sister and I) lived with my dad, and he was a single parent. He did his best, but when I was ten, false accusations were made and we were removed from our home. My church leadership walked with us through this situation, and my Daddy fought hard and did whatever was required to get us back.
Before my dad got us back, we lived in two foster homes and then in a children’s home for one year. Church leadership made sure we stayed in the same church through living in foster care and the children’s home.
Because of our church family, JESUS was our constant in the middle of the chaos. It is for that reason I am where I am today. I understand that kids will face things out of their control, but as long as they know who to run to in the chaos, they can be saved from what statistics says is their reality. It’s the reason why this Saturday I will be visiting a children’s home here in Budapest, and I will be able to relate to every child there.
God uses it all for His glory!
Kay serves as the children’s ministry leader where she is overseas this year. She has spent much of her own income to decorate and prepare a space for children. She reads Bible stories to children in local libraries. She is worthy enough to serve.
An Unlikely Group of People to Serve
An unlikely group of people who served in the Bible were four men with leprosy. Lepers were outcasts. They were literally made to live outside the city. Because leprosy was so contagious, other people didn’t want them living within the walls of the city, and so these were people who did not fit in. And yet we read in 2 Kings how these people served others in their city.
Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, “Why stay here until we die? If we say, ‘We’ll go into the city’—the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.”
At dusk they got up and went to the camp of the Arameans. When they reached the edge of the camp, no one was there, for the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us!” So they got up and fled in the dusk and abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys. They left the camp as it was and ran for their lives.
The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp, entered one of the tents and ate and drank. Then they took silver, gold and clothes, and went off and hid them. They returned and entered another tent and took some things from it and hid them also.
Then they said to each other, “What we’re doing is not right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace.”
2 Kings 7:3–9 NIV
Visualize how destitute the lepers must have felt. There was a famine in their city, and the people were all hungry and waiting to die. There wasn’t much hope for the people in the city or for the lepers, so we can imagine them saying, “Well, we can go where people won’t accept us and wait to die, we can stay here by ourselves and wait to die, or we can go over to the enemy camp and hope for the best.”
When they went into the vacant camp, the outcasts found a virtual paradise. They could eat all they wanted. They could take things, and no one would be the wiser. They could have hidden the plunder to keep for themselves.
What did the lepers do when they found the food and bounty?
They went at once to report to the royal palace what they had found. The outcasts didn’t even wait until the next day. They opted to share this good news with others who hadn’t treated them very well.
Have you ever felt you weren’t treated well? Were you as forgiving as the lepers? Have you given back to those who didn’t treat you well like the lepers did, and will you serve those people?
The Lord dispersed the Arameans, and then the Lord used the lepers to save everyone in their city. The lepers, even though they were outcasts, were worthy enough to serve.
Called to Serve Despite a Traumatic Early Life
If any of my friends and associates ever had an opportunity to consider herself an outcast and not worthy enough to serve, I think it would be Jennifer Maggio. Jennifer’s story is amazing, and you can read about it in her book, Overwhelmed: The Life of a Single Mom. Her story starts when she was just a toddler and her mother was killed in a car accident. Her dad turned to alcohol and ended up marrying repeatedly during Jennifer’s childhood and teen years. Jennifer was physically abused by stepmoms. She was sexually assaulted as a child by a stepfamily member. As a teen she fell in love with a boy who was abusive. Eventually, through a tumultuous relationship, she had two children with the abusive boyfriend. She raised those children alone and on public assistance.1
Jennifer was smart and knew the Lord Jesus Christ as her Savior. All through her childhood and teen years she had attended church faithfully while being physically abused at home, molested, dealing with a dad who was drunk most of the time, and stepmoms coming and going. She wanted more for herself and for her children. Her story is hers to tell, and I won’t attempt to go into all the details. If you want to know more, read her compelling book.
What I do want you to know is that today Jennifer is CEO of the Life of a Single Mom. She is married and the mother of three children. She is serving the Lord and ministering to thousands of single moms. And that is not an exaggeration. I know because in 2015 she invited me to speak at her yearly single-mom conference. At that event there were one thousand moms in attendance. They came from all over the country just to spend the weekend with other single moms and to be fed the Word of God. Jennifer also helps churches set up single-mom groups.
Jennifer overcame all of the obstacles that Satan put in her way. She could have gone a different direction, but she held on to her faith. With the childhood she had, she has every right to be angry and bitter, but she isn’t. Joy radiates from her, and God is using her vastly in His kingdom.
Perhaps you are saying, “Well, that’s great for Jennifer. But I don’t have the income to branch out like that.” Or “I don’t have the energy.” Or “I have too many children.” Or, or, or—you can have a dozen excuses, but God can overcome any excuse if you allow Him. Imagine being a slave and being told you have to have a baby, then imagine being cast out and sent on your way to fend for yourself and your child. This is what happened to one single mom in the Bible.
A Slave Serves Also
In chapter 4, “Supporting Your Children When You Have Them Part Time,” we read about a woman named Hagar, but we concentrated on Abram’s role. In this chapter Hagar’s story is important.
Like many single parents today, Hagar lived through quite a struggle. Her life was all about serving her mistress, and through no fault of her own she was cast out of the home where she had lived for many years. She and her son must have felt like exiles as they were sent away. Let’s read about this first single parent in the Bible. I’d venture to say few of us have had as tough a journey as this single mom.
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.”
Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.”
“Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.
The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”
“I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.
Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”
The angel of the Lord also said to her:
“You are now pregnant
and you will give birth to a son.
You shall name him Ishmael,
for the Lord has heard of your misery.
He will be a wild donkey of a man;
his hand will be against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
toward all his brothers.”
She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”
Genesis 16:1–13 NIV
What do we know about Hagar?
What Hagar realized was the truth. “You are the God who sees me” (v. 13). Do you realize that it is God who sees you, and it is God you must see? And God you must serve?
God’s love for us is what makes us worthy enough to serve in His kingdom. Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is what makes us worthy enough to serve in the family of God.
Like He has used the story of the widow and the story of the lepers, God has used the story of Hagar and Ishmael to further His kingdom. After realizing Hagar was loved and used by God, I connected with her story. We were both single parents, albeit her journey was much tougher than mine.
Hagar, the slave, was worthy enough to serve. Are you worthy enough to serve?
Single Parents Who Serve
The following are some stories of people who were worthy enough to serve even if they didn’t always feel like they could.
David was a single dad whose teenage kids only visited every so often. He loved to fix things around the house, so he became the handyman for many single moms in his church.
Kelly was a single mom for years and now lived alone. She was also an older lady who didn’t have a lot of money because an injury left her unable to work. Kelly had a servant’s heart. A single mom in her group had made the comment that she wished she had more time to make a homemade meal for her son. Kelly, who was in severe pain most of the time, took her limited resources, her talent for cooking, and her time to prepare a homemade meal for this single mom who served in the military.
When Jack went through a divorce he allowed God to heal him, and then he became a divorce recovery expert, and he has helped hundreds of people in his area through his encouraging words and through single-parent and children’s picnics. He knows how to advertise, and he uses this talent to promote single-parent family events in his church. His life has impacted hundreds of people in his community.
One older gentleman loved to work in his garage fixing things. He took this interest and started looking for old bicycles to rebuild. He now furnishes needy families with bicycles at Christmas. Through his talent and his time, he is meeting a need for parents who can’t afford to purchase bikes for their children.
Ann always lacked self-confidence, but she was a good cook. She always had the ingredients in her home to make a fantastic meal. She made meals for shut-ins and for single-parent families who needed to know they mattered to someone at church.
Stacey’s ex-husband is in jail and has been for several years. She went back to school and is now a registered nurse, and she ministers to the teens at church. They love her, and she mentors them through many trials.
How can you take your talents, hobbies, interests, and things you like to do, pair them up with your experiences, and use them for service to God?
God never wastes any experiences of those who love Him. He can use your story and your troubles to further His kingdom.
My Story
After I had been divorced and had raised my kids, I remarried, and my husband died of cancer in 1997. I thought my life was over. I was just going to sit in a rocking chair and live out my final days. Oh boy, was I ever wrong. Five years later in 2002, I got a call from Steve Grissom, the developer of DivorceCare.2 He wanted to know if I’d like to write DivorceCare for Kids, DC4K.3
My life had moved on. I was busy working at my child care center, serving on some state committees, and speaking at a lot of churches about single-parent ministries. I had just remarried two weeks before Steve called me. Steve told me to think about it and said that in a couple of months he was going to call me for an answer.
I prayed and prayed.
I visited with my ailing mother. She said, “Go where the Lord leads you.”
I talked to my grown-up kids. They said, “Mom, we are grown-up now with lives of our own. Go. Write the program.”
I talked to my child care staff. One of my long-term teachers said, with tears streaming down her face, “Linda, go. Why do you think we have worked so hard all these years? It was so God would get you out in a bigger realm where more children could be impacted.”
The night before Steve was to call I told the Lord I still wasn’t sure what to do. Taking that position meant moving from Oklahoma to North Carolina. When I asked my new husband, Bruce, what to do he said, “I so much believe in what God has in store for you to do with children that I will quit my job and follow you wherever the Lord takes you. I know He will provide a job for me.”
I must be a slow learner because when I went to bed that night I was still confused. I wanted to make sure the Lord was in this, and I wanted confirmation. Finally, I dozed off to sleep. In the middle of the night I woke to loud music playing. We lived out in the country. We had a huge field behind our house. I got up and all was silent. I went downstairs and looked around. Nothing, no noise. I opened the patio door and listened outside. Nothing. So I went back to bed.
Just as I closed my eyes the music started again. This time I recognized the song. It was “Wherever He Leads I’ll Go” by Baylus Benjamin McKinney. Okay, God. I got my answer. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was in this new adventure. Going from being a broken single mom wondering if I was going to survive to being offered an opportunity that would impact thousands of little kids’ lives was indeed a God thing. God was in charge. God provided and He continues to provide.
Today DC4K is in many places around the world. There are more than 4,000 churches worldwide equipped with the DC4K program. There have been 128,000 kids whose lives have been changed, children who have been equipped with the DC4K Activity Book. Who knew this divorced lady from a little town called Broken Arrow in Oklahoma running a small child care center would be used of God for such a mighty purpose? God knew and God provided.
Remember, God never wastes any experiences for those who love Him. He can use your story and your troubles to further His kingdom.
What about Mandie?
No one in Mandie’s family realized she was dying. Just a few weeks after planning her funeral, she went to the hospital for the last time. She wanted me to be there as much as possible. Every time I went, she would ask me to sing the praise songs we sang at church.
One night I got a call from the hospital. The nurse said, “Linda, would it be possible for you to come up and sing those praise songs to Mandie? When you sing to her, her blood pressure goes down and she becomes so calm and peaceful. Some of her family are here, and even though she has lapsed into a coma, she is very agitated.”
I was tired and really in no mood to drive half an hour to the hospital, but I knew this was the Lord calling. When I walked into her room and saw what her family was doing, I turned right around and went to the nurses’ station. I said, “If you want me to help out tonight, you’ll need to ask her family to leave. Do you know that they are prying open her eyes and showing her pictures of her son and saying, ‘Look, Mandie, it’s your little boy. He needs you. You have to live to care for him’? Her sister is combing her hair and putting makeup on her.”
Her family could not accept the fact that she was dying. They couldn’t accept the fact that Mandie was ready. They couldn’t accept that Mandie was already on her way home. I believe she was seeing into heaven, and her family was irritating her by trying to force her to stay here on earth.
The nurses asked the family to leave. I climbed into bed next to Mandie, and I sang my heart out. Tears streamed down her face. Tears streamed down my face. She calmed down. I left late that night, and I knew I’d never see her again—she was on her way to heaven. That was late Saturday night, and Mandie left this earth on Monday morning.
As I stated before, God never wastes an experience. Before I helped Mandie on her journey heavenward, I helped a single dad in the last two weeks of his life. I’m the one who told him he was dying and that it was okay to leave this place. When my own husband had cancer and was dying, the chaplain at the VA hospital asked me, “Have you ever been with someone who was dying?” When I told him yes, he said, “That was your training ground. This will be harder because he is your husband.”
He was right, but because of past experiences, I was able to minister to my husband’s family while he was dying. I was able to minister to my husband as he was seeing into heaven. Serving God throughout trials creates an intimate relationship with the Father.
What will you do with the experiences, trials, tribulations, and hurt you have had brought upon you? I hope you will feel worthy enough to serve because when you serve and comfort the hurting, you are doing it for kingdom causes.
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
2 Corinthians 1:3–7 NIV
GOING DEEPER