Half way up that hill

This is going to be long, and I don’t really expect many folks to read it.  Yet, a pretty solid plan for life is to do what you do regardless of the reactions of others.  Read it if you want.

Some time ago, I was in Honduras having what was one of the most important conversations of my life with a teenage girl from the ministry that I work with.  I won’t cover all the details, but this girl was more than upset, planned to leave the ministry for good, and I didn’t think I would ever see her again after a few days.  So we were talking about God.  Now, there are a lot of parts of my testimony that I don’t share with my girls at the farm.  Yet, for this conversation, I dove a little bit deeper.  I explained some of the darker parts of life that I had been through.  I described some of the trials and struggles I have had.  Then I explained how my God gives me love, a new life, and a purpose.  It wasn’t anything I had practiced, but it was all that I had.  My testimony and witness for God was greeted with a response I haven’t been able to forget.  This young girl replied, “Oh, you’re going to tell me to pray.  I am not going to pray.”  This ended the conversation.  I gave her a bible that I had been reading and writing in for the last year and we were done.

I know that doesn’t seem like a very interesting story, but it is something that has driven me since it happened.  With her response, I had nothing left to say.  Now, I know some bible verses.  I study the bible.  I’ve been in church since before I was born.  I’ve listened to more sermons and bible studies than I could possibly remember.  But with her response, none of that seemed to matter.  I didn’t have the right to talk to her any longer.  See, the girls that I work with down here in Honduras know struggle.  They know pain.  Most of my girls have been abandoned by their parents.  The people who were supposed to love and raise them tossed them aside.  They weren’t important enough.  Even worse, many of my girls have been abused.  Family members who should have encouraged and protected them treated them like trash or stood to the side while others used them.  When some of my girls were found, they were so malnourished that their teeth and hair fell out and their legs didn’t have enough meat to keep their socks up.  Some of my girls had sores all over their bodies from living outside with animals.  Some of my girls don’t know of a single family member in the world. 

And so this is what hit me.  It hit me that the washed up, melodramatic, over dramatized testimony about how dark and sad my life had been meant absolutely nothing to the girl I was talking to.  My pain is a flu shot, and her pain was being hit by a truck going 70 miles per hour.  My happy-go-lucky Christianity was not recognizable or comparable to her life or her problems.  And when she told me she wasn’t going to pray, there was nothing else I could say to relate.

The Offspring had a song in the 90’s that was real catchy.  I don’t expect too many church people to know it.  But there is a line in the song that is true.  It goes, “The more you suffer, the more it shows you really care, right?”  For as much as they miss out on many aspects, I feel this is spot on.  And so does Jesus.  Luke 9:23 reads, “Anyone who would come after me must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.”  The point being, you have to suffer to reach those who suffer.  You have to hurt to comfort those who hurt.  You have to go without some pleasures in your life if you want to share the gospel with those who have nothing.  You can not share light to a world in darkness from a soft cushion on your couch.  You cannot explain Jesus’ love to a broken world if your top priority is a television show.  You have to die a little to reach a world that is dying.

I don’t normally like to preach, but today is an exception.  Today, as I’m writing this, it is my birthday.  I am 25 years old.  I spent the day going to church with my girls, then eating lunch and a birthday cake that they made for me.  Then at 4 o’clock, I walked 3 miles back to my house before it got dark.  I miss my friends.  I miss Charles and Dean and Steven and so many others who I would have shared the day with in the States.  I miss my brothers, Josh and Sam, and their wives.  I miss my parents who always cook for me on my birthday.  I got to feeling a bit lonely after walking home.  I got a little down.  “The more you suffer, the more it shows you really care, right?”  Then I remembered my girls.  I remembered that Lucy has a birthday on the 24th, then Alicia on the 31st, then Norma on the first day of the new year.  I remembered that they will share in the same birthday celebrations that I did.  I hoped that when I tell them “happy birthday”, they would feel as warm inside as I did today when Paola told me “Feliz cupleanos” or when Lizzy mouthed it to me in English during the church service.  I remembered that while it was a choice for me to be away from my friends and family for my birthday, they will have no other options.

But it made me feel good to remember that.  Because every time that I hurt a little more down here, I have a better opportunity to love these girls.  Every time I struggle a little bit down here, it means that I will be better able to empathize with a little girl who is crying because her life has been a disaster.  Every time that I give something up, I get a little bit closer.

For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.

–Philippians 1:29

Mourn with those who mourn.  –Romans 12:15