Written by Michelle J. Goff, Director of Iron Rose Sister Ministries
I felt out of place when I first arrived. Everyone noticed my accent. Thankfully, my oddly red-stained hands from the madder root only served to promote my business.
It started out as a family business. My dad taught me as a child. His red-stained, weathered hands guided mine as he trained me in each step of the dying process.
My favorite part was growing and digging for madder root. It grew best in the moist ground near the river. And every time I went down to the river, I felt closer to God, our Creator, Yahweh, the one true God we worshipped.
I cried out to our God when father got sick. Yet, I had to trust in His plan when father was taken from us and I was left to run the family business. After months of caring for him in his illness, our business had suffered. And with the dip in production, we lost some of our clients. They did not know me as well as they knew father.
And as much as I tried, my father’s reputation was not enough. There was simply not enough business to go around and I was losing much of my profits in transport to other locations in order to obtain new clients.
Try as I might, I had to move to a more strategic location... maybe a more modern or developed Roman city where a female businesswoman would be respected for the quality of her dyes.
Thyatira, my hometown, located in Asia or modern-day Turkey. was not on a well-traversed trade route. However, Philippi was a coastal town, a Roman colony and the leading city in that district of Macedonia. The best part: I heard there was a river outside the city gates.
The river became my home away from home, a place of refuge, of prayer, and a blessed time gathering with other women.
I had been a worshipper of God for some time, but one day, down by the river, I listened to these men teach about Yahweh, the same God I worshipped and in whom I believed. I had never heard anyone speak of God in the way these men did.
As soon as I heard the good news, I had to tell everyone in my house all about this Jesus! Everyone believed along with me and we were all baptized that very day!
I invited Paul and Silas, these teachers and followers of Jesus, to stay in my home. They wanted to continue their journey, but when I offered them generous provisions and rest from their weary travels, they were convinced. The fact that they had already sampled my best chef’s excellent cooking did not hurt matters.
From that point on, my home had greater purpose. Receiving Paul and Silas after their escape from prison… And even the jailer, who was converted on the very night of their escape, and his entire family, became part of our church gatherings from that point forward.
As Paul later wrote us, I continue to rejoice in the way God guided my life to Philippi, in order to hear the good news, and be a proclaimer of that good news to those who buy my purple. I love to tell them about how my red-stained hands pale in comparison to the one who bore my stains on the cross.
For the full story of Lydia and the church In Philippi, read Acts 16. The monologue shared in this post was written as an illustration of how Lydia might have shared her story if she were with us today. We recognize the creative license that was used to create this entry and pray that it is not a distraction from the overall message of Lydia's faith and hospitality.