Do you want to be made well?

A couple of years ago, one of the girls I worked with out on the street, was going to have twins.  I knew that if she went to the hospital in Knoxville, that they would take the babies as soon as they were born because she used drugs.  She came to me wanting help, so I went to work.

I found 7 places who would take her, but I ended up settling on a place in Chattanooga.  For several weeks I was in touch with a girl there who assured me that they would take my friend.  I looked the place up on line and it looked beautiful!  The girl also told me that my friend could have her babies and keep them.  They would also find work for her and keep the babies in day care for quite a long period of time, until they felt that my friend,  (I will call her Emily) was ready to leave.

I went to find Emily who was either living on the street or staying with someone who lived in a run down apartment.  I told her what I had found for her and she was so grateful and so excited.  All I had to do was complete the paper work.  The girl at the rehab place was faxing me the forms that day, so I set a time and place to meet Emily the next day.  She assured me she would be there. I also told her to be ready to leave for Chattanooga because I was going to take her as soon as we got the papers signed.

The papers came through, so the next day I went to find Emily.  I had been very specific about where I would meet her...the run down apartment.  She wasn't there.  No one knew where she was.  I drove around for almost an hour looking at all the places out on the street where I thought she would be.  Nothing.

So, I came home.  The word out on the street was, that  the babies were born a couple of weeks later.  The state took them.  Someone else is taking care of her babies now and the last I heard, Emily had taken up with another man and moved.  The ironic thing is that I heard she moved to Chattanooga!  

There is a passage in the Bible where Jesus comes up to a man who has been lame for 38 years.  The first thing he asks the man is "do you want to be made well?" (John 5)

I think about that phrase a lot.  Do you want to be made well?  I ask myself that a lot....do I want to be made well?  I don't think Emily did.