The Wind Cries Mary

I met a guy named Joe when I was on the road, a speaker who really had an interesting take on things. He was once a rocker who played for bands of significance in the 60’s. He hit bottom and God rescued him and brought his entire family into ministry. He called himself the Skid Row Man and had made some recordings with that title. He pastors a church in Mississippi and was speaking at an event where the guys and I were performing drama. I wish I remembered more. I remember we were in a school auditorium of some sort but can’t even remember what state we were in.

I do remember Joe though. He had shared with us about his five children and that his daughter Shay who would have been around my age had been killed in a car accident within the last couple of years. He used her testimony and God’s wonderful timing in his speaking and touched a lot of people with his obvious love for his daughter and his willingness to move on and give God glory for the healing being produced in him and his family.

Joe had fun with us. He enjoyed a similar sense of humor as ours and though I was as usual the only girl he included me because he seemed to feel I shared some similarities with his daughter he had lost. While waiting behind the curtains before the event began there were some balls lying around for some reason (or maybe they were apples) and I picked them up and starting throwing them baseball pitcher style toward an invisible catcher at the back curtain. I was wearing my dress and had my “stage hair” on so it was a somewhat childish/tomboy picture I made as I checked the runner on first and then wound up to throw my curve ball. Joe came around the corner, laughed and said Shay would have done that.

The four of us had a lot of talks back stage and in the lounge of the dorm we were all staying in and Joe was that sort of fella that just knows. He knew when we were real and he knew when we were covering things up. One of my greatest regrets of road life was the night that I happened to be sitting in the lounge by myself and Joe came out and asked me if I was okay. I said I was but he knew better. He sat down and neither of us said anything for a while. He finally looked at me and said, “something is bothering you. You want to talk about it?”

Oh how I wanted to talk about it. I wanted so badly to talk about it but I couldn’t…I trusted Joe…that wasn’t the issue, I just didn’t know where to begin. My eyes were filling with tears and I was completely unable to form the sentence I desperately wanted to say to someone. I felt like I finally had an opportunity to let go of some of the horrible things that were pressing on me but I felt like if I opened my mouth it was all going to come out backward and jumbled. I didn’t seem to have a single word in my vocabulary to begin the tirade that was boiling at the back of my tongue. So I sat there silently and really don’t think that my tears were visible because after waiting a good while Joe left the room. I guess he figured I didn’t want to talk about it. So my regret is just simply that I didn’t say something simple in answer to his question. You know…”yes” probably would have kept him there long enough for me to find the words I needed. I think Joe would have been a good person to talk to.

As it was, I cried myself to sleep that night and many after. It was hard to imagine that despite the impossible pressures I saw as crowding my heart God had so much freedom right around the corner and all I had to do was walk into it. I’m so grateful that some of those painful things are past. I learned a lot and I think they were important lessons for me about truth, honesty, standards and boundaries. I saw myself fail in so many areas and realized how fallible I was, how much I needed a Savior and how God can use me despite my pain.

So today…as the wind is blowing mercilessly outside I think of Joe and how the moment we were introduced he quoted Jimi Hendrix and from that time forward announced that The Wind Cries Mary when I entered a room.

I have often thought it would be nice to reconnect with Joe. I googled him yesterday and found a P.O. Box in MS with his name. I think I may need to send him a note and just hope I have found the right Joe.