A Tin Can Life: (But God Calls her "Precious")

By D. Nobody

The name and photo on her nursing home employee I.D. does not begin to reveal Leah's identity, her story. She has been through hell and back in many respects, yet spend a little time with her and you will get a very real sense of her redemption. She knows how to laugh as well as cry and both are cleansing. She doles out hugs and words of affirmation, which prove to be cleansing as well.And her story, though tragic, is not an ongoing tragedy. She is ever learning and relearning that who she is, is more than her past and her pas is what opened her eyes to Jesus, which makes her present and future full of hope and glory. Her forever identification in Christ assures that. But it has been a long, hard journey - one that began the very moment she was born.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098048785

Book preview

Prologue

Have you ever felt unwanted, unloved, and ignored, no matter how hard you’ve tried to fit in? You feel as though your life has been much like that of a tin can—you’ve been tossed out, kicked around, disregarded. You’ve suffered. At first glance, this is *Leah’s life. It includes a dysfunctional, unloving family, foster care, rape, illness, the death of a child, on-going abuse, a divorce, and more. But it doesn’t end there. Jesus sees and knows. He has never abandoned or given up on the tin can, on Leah. In fact, He has a plan for her…and for you. As you read her story perhaps you’ll discover what she has discovered: God’s true love brings with it true hope.

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The Human Condition

Work as Ministry

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago (Ephesians 2:10 NLT).

Leah wakes up early for her eight-hour shift at the nursing home. She begins work at 7:00. This is her routine five days a week. Often, however, before her feet hit the floor, negative thoughts invade her mind at the start of a new day, threatening to crush her and rob her of the joy, peace, and contentment that is rightfully hers to experience. If she’s not careful to do the hard work of chasing away the devil’s hisses—his accusations and belittling—and replace his cruel voice in her head with the positive truths of Scripture, she’ll be weighed down and wound tight. Defeated. The devil talks to your mind, after all. If you’re down, he wants to keep you down. That’s the way he works. Leah knows this all too well, so she goes to battle, as best she can, as often as necessary.

Leah has learned to talk truth to herself: I was fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139). I am righteous in God’s sight (Romans 4:5). God took pleasure in adopting me—I’m His. (Ephesians 1:5). Strengthened by the reality of God’s Word, she gets out of bed, puts on her uniform and readies herself for work. This energizes her better than any strong cup of coffee ever could. These all-too-often battles aren’t easy. In fact, they can be downright exhausting, but it’s worth the fight. And Leah is a fighter.

Before the sun is even up to greet her, she pulls out of the driveway of her New Jersey suburban home and sets out for her 40-minute journey to work. This commute gives her time to get her head in the game and further prepare herself for the day ahead. The nursing home is a busy, unpredictable place. Some of her work is routine, yet she’s worked in her field long enough to know she should expect the unexpected. She says a prayer for strength and wisdom and for the needs of her patients as she navigates the road. Though each day within those nursing home walls brings its share of challenges and stresses, Leah, now in her forties, takes pleasure in her work as a nurses aid. These people need her and she needs to be needed. She knows her work is important and she feels called to it.

Caring for patients at the nursing home (and interacting with their loved ones) is only part of her job. Another side to her profession, her ministry, which is of equal importance, is being a light to those she works with. She doesn’t hide her faith at work; she’s bold with the doctors and nurses she labors alongside. They know where she stands when it comes to spiritual things. Leah says it like it is, as she believes. She’s not intimidated by the world’s popular thought (like, There is no God) and the