Today one of my teammates asked us all, “When you think about God and his unique love, what do you think of?” The answer for me came a lot easier than I expected it to, and it also gave me the words for speaking of Malawi that I’ve felt have been lost to me since arriving here.
“It feels like always being welcome.”
Rejection has been a recurring theme in my life, and I think for a while, I wore it like a warm coat. “This is what I’m used to. This is what happens when I show up in the world.”
In some seasons it was comfort, and in others it was nearly suffocating as I wore it when the temperature and pressures of life were higher. When I didn’t feel useful or like I mattered, I used my coat to say to those who loved me the most, “Look, this is what you’re supposed to do.” I’d use it to tell people that my pushing them away was the way it was supposed to be.
One of my favorite moments with the Lord happened before I ever decided to follow him completely. I grew up a ministry/preacher’s kid (depending on which side of the family you were looking in from) and one morning when my youth pastor at the time was praying over us, and I was praying separately, a word the Lord spoke through him, over me was, “You have my heart. You are my Esther. Anything you ask me for is yours. Even up to half my kingdom”
Reading through the book of Esther afterwards, I learned she was tasked with marrying a king who’s previous wife was sent away for disobedience and later with saving the Jewish people from mass genocide by doing the same. She would have to go before the king in his inner courts—into his throne room—without being summoned, for which “there is but one law—to be put to death” (Esther 4:11). In the end, she walks into the place where she should not have been allowed, and she wins favor in sight of the king who then raises his golden scepter and tells her, “What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? It shall be given you, even to the half of my kingdom” (Esther 5:3).
What shifted in me when the Lord spoke these words over me wasn’t the fact that he said I could have whatever it is I asked for. It wasn’t that he renamed me. It was the fact that I was welcomed into his throne room—the place where there is but one law—and I could come as it says in Hebrews with confidence into the throne of grace because of what Jesus did to make me worthy. What changed me was that I was welcome. I was no longer rejected.
Another teammate of mine said today that the Lord told her she could take off the chains of abandonment she carried, and for me, the Lord whispered through her vulnerability that I can finally take off the coat of rejection I’ve worn even up to coming on the Race.
Sierra DeMulder, one of my favorite modern poets wrote once, “What glory it is to be welcomed.” That is exactly what I have experienced in Malawi. Sometimes it has been difficult (being stared at, laughed at in some occasions, touched without consent) but in other cases it has indeed been glorious. Our ministry here has been to set up what I call “pop-up Sunday school” in some of the most rural villages in our area. We play games, sing songs, dance, and get to show and tell them about Jesus by loving and being loved by anywhere from 100-600 kids/teens/parents and sharing Bible stories. They have let us into their homes in the rain, remembered the stories we’ve shared of those in the Bible and of the gospel, followed us around, and have gotten more excited to see us than most American teenagers would be about meeting Justin Bieber. They have handed us countless babies in complete trust though we were foreign and welcomed us in with smiles and open, receiving hearts.
We’ve seen what its like to be welcomed in by strangers and whether or not we ever see the fruit of the seeds we’re planting/watering, we know that the Lord has called us here for such a time as this. We know we can pray bold prayers because they will never return void and will bounce around until they’ve accomplished their purpose. We get to be part of a bigger story, and one day, I pray to the Father, that I can be a part of the welcome party when these kids walk into heaven’s gates praising the King of Kings as priests and ministers who were once the poor, brokenhearted, captives and prisoners (Isaiah 61). That they may be called oaks of righteousness who once built up ancient ruins, raised up former devastations and repaired ruined cities—the devastations of many generations.
I hope my life becomes a welcome party. I hope my home will one day be a refuge. I hope my love will one day be the mat that welcomes people into the arms of the Father for his love feels like always being welcome—a love that has changed me forever.
