There are times in our lives we do things for good, but the outcome isn’t what we expected. We’ve certainly had our share of these incidents, but one in particular comes to mind.
We met a woman with a young child who needed a place to live. She home-schooled her daughter, and from appearances she seemed to be on the up and up. She needed a place to live, we had room in our house, she said she was able to pay the small amount of rent we wanted, so we struck a deal. We’re off to a good start, for awhile. Then it went downhill.
Esther moved 492 boxes of her “stuff” into two bedrooms, leaving a path just big enough to crawl through, and took up half of the garage. She lost four jobs in three weeks, couldn’t pay the reduced rent, refused to clean up after herself and ate us out of house and home. We found out the reason she home-schooled was that she didn’t believe in vaccinations. So, you guessed it, when her daughter contracted a disease (like chicken pox), so did we. Esther believed in recycling, so she pulled in trash our neighbors discarded on trash pickup day, eventually filling the entire garage with junk. I know what you’re thinking. “What were they thinking?” Believe me we’ve asked ourselves that time and again. But wait …
We asked Esther to leave way before the six months was up. She said she had a lease AND a lawyer. We reminded Esther the lease was only good if she paid the rent. But Esther didn’t budge and the trash kept piling up. We wanted to evict her, but the constable advised if we tried to “evict” her, we could end up being evicted. We were now prisoners in our own home.
The final straw came one afternoon. For several weeks, Esther said she was moving, but showed little effort to do so. So, we decided to help her out (literally) by moving her boxes for her. Esther ended up calling the police on us (in our own home). Thank goodness! Once the police arrived, saw the mess, heard the facts, they made sure she vacated swiftly, evening carrying some of the “492 boxes” out themselves. Finally, freedom!
Not long after, we got calls from three different people asking about Esther. Similar circumstances, same problems. There was now an official “Esther Club.”
We learned a lot about ourselves from the “Esther” saga. Now we do a self-check on our motives. Are we helping someone for purely selfless reasons? Are our actions enabling someone in any way? Hopefully years and some wisdom have made us more judicious, making sure we are helping the need and not meeting the “wants.”
Tagged: Bible stories, purpose and calling
