It’s been a week since I last posted.
And I am TIRED.
If I have to write an overall prevailing feeling, that is it. Tiredness.
It’s hard to describe what the past week has been like, not because I don’t know, but because I can’t figure out how to share right now in a way that will best reflect what I want to share.
It’s about the details.
What we are doing, what we are trying to achieve – it’s all about the details!
But as I share the details does that make the overall goal and point disappear and become invalidated?
Like the details matter. We can’t achieve what we are trying to achieve without them, but it’s bigger than them individually.
It’s the combined effect we desire.
It’s the overall healing we want to bring, even if this whole year around America is to reach a single person.
…Am I making any sense???
So we are spending time with all these people, getting to hear them and their stories. Getting to share our own. Getting to share in their daily life, – but if I start talking about their issues and their stories it can become an emotional appeal for support – and a betrayal.
In sharing I am worried that the relationships could lose its sacred intimacy in the public accessibility of others.
Last night I wept into my homeless-shelter-loaned pillow.
I wept because I’ve spent two days with ladies who have accepted me into their community and loved me as if I am one of them.
And I am.
I am broken and walking with the Lord in a posture of humble learning.
I am homeless and haven’t had income now for a year, going on two.
I haven’t had my own housing since February 2017.
My stuff is in storage, beyond my reach (a HUGE blessing – yet I don’t have immediate access to it at any given point).
I am far away from my close family and friends, here and in Korea.
I am limited this year on what I can do and where I can go.
Everything is a prayer away from me.
And yet, – I have resources. And I am free from the entanglement and debilitating addictions that most of them battle on a daily basis. I have people to run to at any given moment. I have the Lord. I have confidence. I have the practice of defeating and controlling my doubts.
In contrast, I see the look in their eyes when the light clicks on at 5am, like they’re in the corner of the ring, blood trickling down the side of their face. Deciding if they have the grit to get back into the middle.
I am HONORED. Honored to be among them.
In just a few days, a lot of stereotypes that I had (never knowing from experience if they were true or not) have been placed into their proper perspective.
Being homeless in and of itself is not an issue.
It is the underlying things that usually drive people to it that are the worrying things.
One dear lady sat with me yesterday and shared with me her desire that a documentary be made to show the joys in their lives. She said that in general all that gets shared about homelessness is the hard terrible things – and that those things are NOT the true representation of a homeless persons experience.
I did not expect to hear those words.
I have a newfound respect for people in general. The indomitable spirit that God has placed into people. And the way that sinful nature has torn people apart, and how hope still glimmers in the most naked, raped, impossibly helpless places.
Some of these people should not believe that a good God exists.
But they do. They have encountered Him, and they believe that He is healing and redeeming them.
Do we then, on the outside, watching their destruction miss God in the moment?
Are we seeing the evil and letting it blind us to God and His subversive powerful love – poured out so freely despite the actions devoid of His character that He is reversing?
And those who are actually experiencing the horrors we see, who are breaking under the effects of sin in our world are the ones who are open to be helped, are unable to save themselves and are the ones acknowledging and allowing God to write them a different story?
Are we projecting our feelings on situations that we haven’t even experienced and in doing so creating this feeling “that God doesn’t care”, that “God doesn’t see”, that “a good God could never allow this”, – when in fact we as people with free choice are the people implementing the evil, and turning a blind eye to the things we could do to prevent them? And God, is the one restoring the things we break?
So much to think about….
So much to learn….
Thanks for listening!
I will be processing some more on my own and will get back to you with more of what God is doing and how!
