I’ve heard this phrase many times. You’ve got the person in the film that trips on the way out of a scary situation, and instead of getting up and saving himself he chooses to yell out, “Save yourself! Leave me here to die!”
I hate these movies. Take Jack from titanic for example… we ALL know there was enough room for him on that door. If he truly wanted to live he could have just had Rose lay on top of him. That would have kept him warmer anyways…
I never have and never will understand that line. I have no sympathy for the character that says that line. He knows the person won’t go on to just leave him there to die. His intentions may have been for the person in front of him to continue running so he didn’t hold them back, but in reality that person ALWAYS runs back. No one in his or her right mind would leave someone to die.
I can’t just leave him there to die.
I first saw him 4 days ago. His entire leg was swollen and there was a gash in it that revealed his muscles and bones. He was sprawled out on the streets begging for money and it was hard to look at him for longer than a few seconds. As I walked back into my hostel the Lord told me to go find him again. I searched for days… looking on back streets and alleys and in tunnels. He was gone.
Until today.
My teammates said they saw him in the tunnel beside the train, and I immediately jumped up and we went to go see him. His name is Augustine. He is 62 years old and 20 years ago he was hit by a car. After going to the hospital where screws were placed in his leg, now 20 years later his leg is extremely infected. So much to the point that it has eaten away his skin and muscles.
As I sat with him on that dirty ground I will never forget the words he said to me. He begged me with tears in his eyes. He pleaded with me as he grabbed my hand…
“Leave me here to die.”
He wept as he told me about trying to take his life, and how he desires to jump off the top of a high building. He says he is a Christian and he thinks this is all happening to him as a result of his sin.
With tears filling my eyes I silenced every lie he believed about himself. This is NOT the result of the sin in his life. This is NOT the result of bad choices he may have made. If that is the case… then I should be worse off than he is.
How often do we pass these people and condemn them because they got themselves into this situation? We think they didn’t work hard enough, we blame them for being addicted to drugs and we show no compassion or grace for where they are. Yet if we truly evaluate our lives and wonder if these situations happened to us and we had NO ONE to take us in… we would be just like them. This could be me on the streets begging for money, but in the moments when bad things happened and my life began falling apart I had my faith, and in the moments when I lost that faith… I had people to pour into me and show me love.
Augustine didn’t have that.
Day by day people walk past him and stare at his leg. As I sat with him I heard the little children shriek and saw the grown man cover his mouth. I saw the woman look away in fear and people look at me odd for even sharing the ground with him. He believes he is untouchable, unloved and there is no reason for him to live. He doesn’t have a family, he has no children, and he has no one to fight for his life.
I felt a love for him I had never felt for a stranger before. I loved him in a way I would love my own grandfather. I lost my Papa when I was young, but I can promise you that if it were my own papa on those streets I would have fought for him. If I thought for just a moment I could do anything to help him be alive and with me today… I would do it in a heartbeat. I would tell him how much I loved him and how much I wanted him to fight for his life. But my Papa didn’t have a choice, and Augustine does. So I talked to him with a love that a granddaughter has for her grandfather and I convinced him there is a reason to live.
I offered to take him to the hospital, I offered to pay his bills, and I offered to stay with him even if that meant putting my Race to a halt for a short period time. I connected with doctors from Canada to get their opinion on his leg, and to see if there was anything I could do personally because I would. I was willing. I am willing to fight for him.
I went back to check on him the next day and when he saw us his face lit up. We asked him once again if we could take him to the hospital, and it didn’t surprise us that he yet again said no. But there was a difference in his “no” this time. He began to tell us with tears filling his eyes that he was ready to take himself to the hospital. “I need to fight for my life. I need to do this for myself. I am not going because you offered me money and I am not going because you tried to convince me. I am going because you loved me, and that is all I needed.”
Those were his exact words and they pierced my heart. He didn’t need our money, he didn’t need for us to drive him, all he wanted and all he needed was to feel loved. “Love covers a multitude of sins.” Augustine felt loved for the first time in his life not only by other people but also by a God who loves Him and continues to love him despite his choices or circumstances.
How many times in our lives does God come to us over and over again willing and able to take away the things in our lives that bring us pain, but we are so adamant that we maintain control over our own lives even if that ends in pain and destruction? And then when we don’t listen to him or follow him he doesn’t just abandon us… he loves us. Right where we are. He continues to seek us out, not in a way that is pushy or demanding, but in a way that shows us He loves us and cares for us.
I never saw Augustine again and I don’t think I will see him again until heaven. Today I don’t know if he has a new leg or if his leg was amputated. All I have to convince me that he is okay is the face he gave me filled with hope when he said, “It’s time I fight for my life.”
And even though I had to leave him in Kuala Lumpur, I know God is not going to leave him there, and I know he no longer wants to be left there to die.
