“How do you handle what seems to be a hopeless situation? “
I was asked this question last night at a speaking engagement and it left me stunned and speechless. I hadn’t answered that question for myself yet, but as I started to speak, I realized how I truly felt and it began to surface.
Let’s get real for a second…
India was my month of frustration, anger, and desperately wanting to check out. When I first arrived, I LOVED the culture, the people, the beauty and even the food (especially naan). THEN something changed. We started ministry. India’s veil got pulled back and I got to see what was hiding: darkness, the caste system, judgment, poverty, lack of human rights and women’s rights, injustice…
Almost every day, we’d walk into the largest red light distrct in South Asia, and every day, I would get smacked with the reality of it all. We’d walk up dark stairs and into a tiny room where I’d look into 20+ beautiful children’s faces and get smacked with THEIR reality. Walking down the road, getting stared at by pimps with looks of hatred or confusion, and again, hit with THEIR reality. We’d walk to the train station and see child after child begging for money, or women holding their children and using them to beg, too, and I’d be struck with THEIR reality.
I coped by sitting on the train – in silence – with my emotions stirring. I was angry at evil for being embedded so deeply within a culture, ruining lives and thinking that it’s getting away with injustice. And I was frustrated with myself for not having any clue as to what I should do about it all.
All I wanted to do was run away. I didn’t want to feel it anymore.
Heaviness.
Pain.
Depth.
I didn’t want to know any more because with knowing something comes the responsibility to do something about it. I can’t plead ignorance anymore. Now I know and now I have to do something. It’s like Matt said once, “Responsibility is your ability to respond to a situation.”
I knew that the more I heard, saw, smelled, and FELT, the more responsibility I would have in doing something about it… because I have an increased ability to respond.
So what did I do? For two weeks, I blocked everything out. I went through the motions and desperately worked at holding myself together, trying to not let God break me.
And I failed.
When week three in India arrived on the scene, I was still in my suppressed state of anger and holding-it-together-ness. We were at the drop in center and I asked one of our contacts about love, what it was in Hindi and if I could share about it with the kids. He told me, “The children do not know what love is. It does not translate for them.”
You mean that they don’t know love? They have no reference point for it? That they cannot even begin to comprehend what the simplicity of a hug communicates?
It wrecked me. I was forever changed and I could no longer ignore the pain, the heartache, or the heaviness.
So what did I do with the feelings of hopelessness?
I prayed.
I cried.
I surrendered.
And I loved regardless.
Even today, I continue to push and pray into the areas that make my heart break. I pray for the women, children, and men who are held captive. I pray for chains to be broken and for light to push back the darkness. I cry and mourn for those who can’t, who don’t know of hope, or a life of freedom.I surrender my anger, the burden, the heaviness, and the frustration. And I give it all over to God. I give it all over to God, and even now, surrender MY PLANS, MY FUTURE, my hands and my feet as I respond to Him leading me.
And in the midst of it, I love Jesus. I love on my team that pushes me. And I love on my brothers and sisters in India.
That’s all I can really do…
