Something out of nothing.
This is a theme I’ve noticed throughout the world on this journey…
Two sticks in the sand make a soccer goal.
A piece of cloth wrapped around your waist makes a suitable skirt.
A stick can serve as a writing device in the sand to do your math homework.
And hole in the ground somehow becomes a suitable toilet.
People around the world find a way to make something out of what we would consider nothing.
Sometimes the poverty that surrounds us is devastating.
Even worse, sometimes the massive amount of need and hands held out toward you can be overwhelming to the point of inactivity. After a while, and sometimes without even knowing it, you can become desensitized to the need around you.
We’ve now been to 7 different countries within 3 continents. We’ve seen a wide range of human needs…poverty, hunger, loneliness, addiction…and the list goes on.
You long to help but the amount of wrongs that surround you would take a lifetime to right.
What I’ve realized is you can either let the nothingness that surrounds you overwhelm you to the point of doing nothing…or you can choose to act. You can choose to do something despite the overpowering feeling that your efforts are ineffective.
Its days like today I don’t want to forget.
…Days when you have the opportunity to bring a smile to a tear-stained face, to make a little one with dusty bare feet and holes in her clothes giggle with joy, to bring a word of hope into a desperate situation and to embrace a crippled man in need of a touch.
Its days like this when youremember that you really can make something out of nothing. You can do something to impact the Kingdom despite the feeling that nothing will change.
When the tragedy that surrounds you almost paralyzes you, remember there is always something that can be done. There is always someone who needs a smile, a touch, a hug, a word.
Choose to see that someone. Then, choose to act.
Choose to be the one that decides that, even against all odds, something can come out of nothing.
…And typically it’s something really beautiful.
