Month four of the race I was so blessed to be at the El Shaddai orphanage in Swaziland. I spent the month living in community with the other 43 girls on my squad. A typical day for me was waking up, having some quiet time with the Lord, breakfast with the squad and then labor in the garden. After lunch, we spent the afternoon with the 40+ kids ranging in ages from 3-18. We were all assigned a buddy for the month, this was the child that you would pour into and try to hang out with. I was blessed to have two buddies, Akheelah and Nokuphila. I was never able to break the ice with these two girls. They were very shy and preferred to hang out with their other friends. Although I wish I could have done more for them, I was still able to cover them in my prayers. My afternoons were spent playing with the other children, mostly my teammates’ buddies, David and Gift. David is an out going 6 year old who is so smart and a real joy to be around. One day after a little girl named Shilo called someone an idiot, David looked at her and said “Shilo you always call yourself a princess but princess don’t talk like that. You need to say you’re sorry.” He always made us laugh with his dancing and fun games.
Gift is a 12 year old girl who is just that, a gift. She is so sweet and filled with so much joy, she is also very wise. Gift helped teach me the biggest lesson that we all need to learn. All throughout scripture we are told to love one another and up until this point I thought I had. John 15:12 says:
“This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
We have heard this a million times, but do we really do it? Or a better question, do we really understand it? I thought I did, but that was before I met Gift.
One evening as we walked into chapel, the two guard dogs, Zeus and Hercules, followed us in. They went wherever Gift went. Zeus absolutely loved Gift and Gift loved Zeus. The two dogs came and rest by our feet.
As I was petting Hercules, I looked at Gift and said “Gift, how do I get Hercules to love me?”
Without even a second to think about it, she looked at me like I should already know the answer, and said, “You just have to love him first”. Ha, of course, duh I should have known that. I was amazed by her quick response and wisdom.
That sounds easy enough I thought as I bent down to give him a big hug. “How?” I asked as I laid my head on his.”Like this?”. As the words escaped my mouth I got a big whiff of wet dog and I quickly retracted my hug and started laughing, “YUK! He smells like wet dog!”.
Gift looked at me unamused and said, “See? That’s your problem. He will never love you until you learn to love all of him. Even the parts that are hard to love, like his wet dog smell.”
I was speechless. I was so amazed at this little 12 year olds wisdom. “You’re right,” was the only thing I could say.
I sat there dumbfounded and was so happy to hear chapel starting. I turned around in my seat and thought about what I had just a heard. This little girl, who had been abused, abandoned and unwanted, knew more about love than I did.
Although this is a message that I knew, or at least thought I knew, it made me check my self. Am I really loving like Christ loved me? Romans 5:8 says:
‘God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’
This means that He loved us, even when we hated Him. He loves us in our filth. It doesn’t matter what you have done or how bad you messed up. Jesus loves you and wants you to be His child.
I want to challenge you to look at your life, look at the way you love those around you. Are you loving all of them, or just parts of them? Or maybe you are picking and choosing who you love.
1Corinthians 13 says:
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is LOVE.
