It’s been a while since I’ve updated this thing. My apologies. I am now in Oradea, Romania working with an awesome ministry called Felix Family Homes. They are too legit to quite let me tell ya. I feel so thankful and humbled to be here.
But more on that later.
If I may, I would like to share something the Lord has been doing in me since the Race began a month ago.
He’s opening my eyes to see Jesus everywhere I look.
He’s giving me holy eyes to behold Jesus in disguise. In the widow. The orphan. The drunk. The homeless. The young. The old. He’s peeling off the scales of judgment and condemnation, of how society says I should view people, to see them as the Father does. The objects of His affection. Children made in His image and therefore worthy of all the love I have to give.
He’s everywhere. And I’m finally starting to see Him. Especially in the most unexpected of places.
I saw Him in Moldova. In the babushka’s we visited. In the children we played with. In the men sitting on the curb, always a bottle of beer in hand. In the men and women we served alongside. In the single mothers struggling to provide for their children. In the pastor desperate for His community to know the power of the Gospel.
And I saw Him today, in Romania. A few of us walked around town after church, enjoying our day off and seeing the beauty of this European country. While we were getting gelato I saw her. A woman with baby on hip. Dirty. Disheveled. Desperate. Hand outstretched for money. For hope. For someone to look at her not in judgment but in love. To see her humanity and our common struggle to survive in a world that is too often merciless.
I saw more than that. I saw Jesus in His most distressing disguise (as Mother Teresa would say).
I looked down and her daughter was next to me. Looking me straight in the eyes. I bought her an ice cream. Strawberry (I figured since it was fruit flavored it would be healthy). I walked over to her mom and gave her some money. Smiling as I looked into her eyes, hoping she could feel the weight of love Jesus has for her. And we parted ways.
In America, I feel like we’ve been trained not to give money to the homeless. It’s been ingrained in our minds that they will only use the money to buy drugs or booze. And sure, maybe sometimes they do.
But who am I to judge?
Jesus calls me to love as He loved. His love was not conditional on what the person had done or would do. With grace-filled eyes He saw into the depths of their souls, their brokenness, their need for affection, and He gave them the love that never fails. He gave them all of Himself. And He beckons us to come and follow.
The need for love is everywhere. If only our eyes would be opened to see it. If only we would allow ourselves to see Jesus in disguise in the outcasts, the unloved, the abandoned, the least of these. Oh how that would change the way we lived. The way we love. We would give without reservation, for it all belongs to Him anyways.
