Praise the Lord!

I get email forwards all the time but this is one that I received recently and I loved it so much that I'm posting it here:


There was a little old lady, who every morning stepped onto her front porch, raised her arms to the sky, and shouted, “PRAISE THE LORD!” One day an atheist moved into the house next door. He became irritated at the little old lady. Every morning he'd step onto his front porch after her and yell, “THERE IS NO LORD!”

Time passed with the two of them carrying on this way every day. One morning, in the middle of winter, the little old lady stepped onto her front porch and shouted, “PRAISE THE LORD! Please Lord, I have no food and I am starving, provide for me, oh Lord!”

The next morning she stepped out onto her porch and there were two huge bags of groceries sitting there. “PRAISE THE LORD!” she cried out. “HE HAS PROVIDED GROCERIES FOR ME!” The atheist neighbor jumped out of the hedges and shouted: “THERE IS NO LORD; I BOUGHT THOSE GROCERIES!!” The little old lady threw her arms into the air and shouted: “PRAISE THE LORD! HE HAS PROVIDED ME WITH GROCERIES AND MADE THE DEVIL PAY FOR THEM!”

I love this for a few reasons. First, I love the sweetness and openness of the little old lady shouting praise to the Lord from her porch every morning. It makes me wish I had the kind of unabashed faith to do the same thing. At the very least I can praise the Lord from my shower each morning as I silently pray.

Second, I love the way the little old lady doesn't let the atheist shouting back at her deter her from praising God. I find that when I am questioned or challenged I often "shut up" and as a follower of Christ, I want to respond like the old lady does, while remaining respectful of others, of course.

Third, I love the main lesson of this story. I love that it shows how God provides for us through other human beings!! And the other people aren't always Christians!!! Totally eye opening and wonderful. God uses all of us to do his work whether we know it and acknowledge it or not.

Last, how can I resist the defeat of the enemy in this story. The atheist thinks he's proving there is no Lord to the lady by buying her groceries and serving as the provider but she is showing him that by the same reasoning there actually is a Lord and the Lord used the atheist to bless her. I'm sure the atheist could go one of two ways, walking off thinking the little old lady has a couple screws loose or walking off thinking twice about whether or not there is a God.

We don't really know what happens to the atheist in the end of this story but how lovely to show that God is in the ordinary. God is in the every day and sometimes we just need a forwarded email to point that out again.