Sometimes loving is difficult;
Our ministry this month has shown me that.
It’s hard to love when children disobey,
hard to love when out of my comfort zone,
and hard to love when 7 babies are screaming their lungs out at once.
I’m learning that Jesus never said that it would be easy. In fact, He says that we are to love our enemies. We have to follow in His footsteps and serve those who are not the easiest to serve. They are not the ones chosen first for anything…except for the Kingdom of God. These are the ones Jesus desire.
Through this month, I have seen countless runny noses, numerous dirt-covered faces, and children’s bare feet walking in glass-infested sand. My first instinct is to wipe their faces and buy them shoes, but God is showing me that love is more than that. These children need spiritual and emotional love more than material items. Many of them have never even seen love.
The majority of these children were born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, meaning their mothers drank when carrying them. Many of them have harsh family environments. When I say harsh, I mean more intense than we could imagine. Some fear going home because they have been sexually abused on numerous occasions. Some fear walking home because somebody might jump out of the trees and hurt them. Some have no idea what it means to have a father, let alone a dad, because their fathers left the instant they were conceived. Those that do have fathers go home to abuse and yelling. Very few have even glimpsed the meaning of the word love.
God is showing me that we are love to them. Angry or not, disobedient or not, dirty or not, these children would be in the lap of Jesus hanging on His every word. We must be Jesus to them. We must show them what it means to love. Both have been incredibly difficult, but learning to love has changed me.
