Giving Tuesday in memory of Susan Whalen Gaskell and honoring all those whose stories bring Jesus' Love into our pain and struggles.
This Giving Tuesday we encourage you to support Girl Talk in honor of someone that showed Jesus to you or in honor of the girls that still need to meet Him. Maybe you had the joy of having a sweet mama that was a mother to many. Maybe your story is like mine and you want to give in memory of your mom that needed Jesus even before you knew you did. Girl Talk is a Christ-centered community of girls and moms in many situations. We know there are many girls that go home to empty houses or worse, go home to bad situations. Help us continue to pray for them and meet them where they are. We need Jesus and we need each other. Thank you for your support!
Read below Lindsey's story honoring 10 years since her mom went to be with Jesus:
“Can you believe she did that?”, she laughed as she exclaimed! It was her favorite story to tell. She loved talking about her baby girl. But at this point she wasn't a baby anymore. She was in middle school and the thing she did was just a logical response to her desire to do something fun and something she had really wanted to do with other people. It was a warm summer day. And she was at home again, alone. Her mom had gone to work, and she wanted to swim. But, her friend was the TV so her hopes of swimming and being with friends could only be resolved by bringing the plastic baby pool into the living room and sitting it in front of the TV. So she did. It was a blue pool with cute little yellow fish on the inside.You know, the hard plastic pools that are stacked in each other and sitting against the fence outside of Walmart every summer as the temperature begins to rise, and each child begins to daydream from their desk inside their classrooms.
After she pulled the pool into the middle of the den, she went outside and got the hose from the back deck and pulled it through the den door to let it rest on the side of the pool. She then went back outside and down to the back of the house to turn on the faucet. While it filled up, she went and got on her bathing suit, and then came and sat back down inside the frigid water. But that didn't matter because she was getting to swim and watch TV. It was summer! A few hours later, after watching a few shows and passing time, her mom came home. She was met with a surprised look and laughter. Her mom exclaimed, “Wait! Don't move! Let me get my camera!”
I don't remember how I got all the water out of the pool or even how I got the pool back out of the house. This was just one of the many ways I found to entertain myself during the long days of summer once I got too old to go to daycare. Thankfully, this was a funny story and my mom didn't get mad. It really was her favorite story to tell about me.
From the time I turned two years old my mom worked as a single mom to raise me. That in itself presented a lot of challenges for the both of us. She spent her days sad and frustrated that she couldn't spend them with me and I spent my days sad that I couldn't spend them with her. She had been hurt, disappointed and was broken. I believe she was stuck in a place of hurt and fear and didn't trust that there was a place to turn for hope and healing. As the years went by her challenges, fears and agitations increased, and we both found ourselves struggling to enjoy life.
Acts 17:26 says that God determined the times set for us and the exact places where we should live so that we would seek him and reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. Little did I understand, nor feel, God's nearness and love for me. As a southern girl, I had always heard that Jesus loved me, but I did not feel loved. Sometimes I went to church. As an adult, I can look back and see how God showed himself to me through others around me that knew him. I started noticing that the most joyful people around me were the ones that went to church. So I wanted to start going to church. In high school, I asked my mom to take me to Sunday school. I would go to church, youth retreats and pray every once in a while and still go about my normal life. You could say I never went looking for trouble, but it was always looking for me. Like Paul says in Romans 7 when I wanted to do good evil was right there with me. For my spirit, delighted in God's law but the other law of my mind, waged war against me, making me a prisoner of the law of sin. It was so frustrating.
It wasn't until the powerful day of September 21, 2001, literally, my birthday, when I sat down to spend time in prayer, and the Lord spoke to me from Philippians 1:3-6 "I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with Joy because of your partnership in the Gospel from the first day, until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in, you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." It was not an audible voice, but, as I read that verse , I was overwhelmed with the powerful presence of the one true living and holy God. I was in awe. I was overcome with powerful yet tender love I had never felt before. It was the sweetest feeling that brought me to tears. I felt a newness that I had never felt. I couldn't do anything but cry in gratitude for this new awareness and presence of the one thing I had always longed for: a sweet, unconditional, and fulfilling love! Amazing! The truth that Paul speaks of when he declares, "who will rescue me from this body of death?Thanks be to God- through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Over the next few years I continued to grow in the Lord, his word, and his presence, and he began to open my eyes to wonderful things that helped me have mercy and love toward others, especially, my mom. He took my broken, prideful heart and helped me give the love He had filled me with.
It's been ten years since my mom went to be with Jesus and I'm thankful to say that a few years before she did she found her hope in the Lord Jesus. I shared my experiences and His truth with her and we prayed together alot. By His mighty power she was able to overcome her struggle with addiction and we enjoyed some fun years together as she played with her grandbabies. At this point her body had suffered beyond repair. After she took her last breath I sat at her side, holding her hand, and told her she had gone too soon. Her five grand babies had alot of years and she was supposed to be there with them. Since her death I continue to remember her and strive to be the mom I knew she would have been if she had the opportunities I did. She loved to cook, sing, dance, and give parties. She loved to give. As Walt Disney said in Saving Mr. Banks “George Banks and all he stands for will be saved. Maybe not in life, but in imagination. Because that’s what we as storytellers do. We restore order with imagination. We instill hope again and again and again.” He was speaking to P.L. Traverse who had written a story of a fictional Mary Poppins that came to save the children. But the reality is that through the work of the Cross and the mercy and forgiveness found in Christ the best parts of my mom can live on.
Romans 8:28 says that God uses all things to work for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes. I can see how God used my pain and suffering growing up to make me who I am today. He began calling me to himself early on, and even though I walked a ragged road, he was always with me, and showed me who I really was, who He was and how much He loved me despite me and most importantly, He taught me how to love like Jesus did.
He used people just like you to show me his goodness, and I believe he has called me and you to partner with him in the Gospel. That is why I love GirlTalk. It’s the partnership in the Gospel where we spend time with girls sharing the truth and power of God’s love and grace that He wants to pour out on them. We give them a place to have fun and learn who they are in Him. We help them learn how to pray, how to overcome sin, abide in His love and grow into the abundant life of joy and peace Jesus died on the cross for. Our prayer is that we will meet with girls who don’t feel loved so we can share the truth of God’s love with them. Romans 10:14 says How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”