To be quite honest, I don’t really want to write a blog. I know I need to, heck I’ve been in the Philippines almost 3 weeks now, but for some reason I just don’t know what to say.
I’m completely overwhelmed at that fact that God is teaching me to love right now. I don’t mean superficial “I love you because I’m suppose to” or “I love you because you’re cute or innocent” or whatever other reason people give for loving others kind of love. I mean downright God type of love. The fact that I need to love my team and squad mates even when I don’t really want too and feel complete abandoned at times by them or ignored. The fact that I need to love not only the innocent children I’m surrounded by because they didn’t deserve to be abused. But I’m also called to love their parents and guardians and aunts and uncles and siblings who raped them, who sold them, who beat them, who raise them as boys even though they are girls. I’m to love them too and that’s hard! I’m to love the girl who sits in the middle of the bridge begging for money or the man with severe cataracts who sits in the middle of the stairs everyday asking for money. I’m to love them and not look at them as an annoyance even though in America I’ve been taught to ignore them, turn the other way, don’t give them money. Yet here I am, called to love them for God said “love me first and love others second”. I’m to be patient with them, kind, not holding their wrongs against them, to not be rude to them. I’m to love them. Plan and simple….LOVE THEM. Why? Because God loves them and has called me, each of us, to love each other.
How many times have I gotten angry hearing the stories of how children were abused or raped or sold by their parents? How many times have I gotten angry knowing hundreds of people live in flooded homes for months on end, year after year, and walk through contaminated water? How many times have I been overwhelmed with the thought of wanting to fix it all and yet nowhere to start or questioning “why God” when nothing makes sense?
Not only have I realized God’s trying to teach me to love like him, I’m in a place where I feel like I don’t fit in period. A place where I feel I don’t fit in with my squad. A place where I feel I don’t fit in with my new team. A place where I feel my ministry is pointless. How do I relate to girls who have been raped when I never have? How do I relate to people who live in a flooded home when mine never has? What do I have to offer them? Oh yes, once again, I’m called to LOVE. That’s what I have to offer.
So now the question is…what does love look like?
