The other day I was in the very back of a chicken bus with a teammate and a student. My teammate, Kayli, has type 1 diabetes which she has been a champ about this whole trip. However our student with full faith told her (in spanish) “you can’t have diabetes. Just pray and God will take it away”.
Now even just to think that takes a lot of faith but to say so takes even more. To say the least, this kid’s got faith. He also has the kindest heart.
Kayli went on to ask him to pray for her diabetes and his response entirely broke my heart in pieces.
“But I’m a sinner. I can’t.”
Now I can imagine that if my Father In The Sky heard His son say that he was unable to talk to Him because of his sin, it would break His heart even more than mine. By a lot.
We live in a world where shame and guilt control every inch of our beings. We live in a world where there is less shame in walking into a brothel than kneeling before the Lord in full vulnerability. When the world tells you you’re not good enough, 9 times out of 10 you’ll believe it. We’re told daily through media, strangers and those closest to us, to keep your mouth shut and keep it to yourself because whatever you’re feeling isn’t worth entering the world.
But the beauty of my God is that He says the exact opposite. He says that every feeling you have has value. He’s given you those thoughts. Not just that, but He wants to hear them. He wants to hear your crazy dreams and how your day went. He loves simply hearing your voice.
The fact that even one of His children feels they are unable to talk to Him is unbearable.
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen shame overcome beauty. I had a friend in Cambodia. 5 years old in a trauma hospital with a broken femur. We’d laugh and play for hours on end. But my final day with him was robbed from me. An elderly lady saw our fun and walked up to yell at him for being seen naked infront of me. He hid his face from me, buried in a pillow, for my remaining time there. This was a beautiful relationship orchestrated by God but destroyed by shame.
In the back of the bus this week, Kayli gave the perfect response to a broken soul. She told our student that God doesn’t see his sin anymore and all He wants is to get to talk to him.
Our student proceeded to tear up and avoid any further mention of the subject. Because he was yet again overcome by the shame that comes with being a 14 year old boy crying.
I wish I could say it ended differently. That something miraculous happened. But I still have faith that God planted a seed in his heart. A seed that will one day grow bigger than his shame. Bigger than his guilt, bigger than the pain he experiences, bigger than any sin he feels is too much for God to handle.
Because in that moment he’ll no longer be the lost prince of God’s glorious kingdom. He’ll return to his rightful place. Where he should be. Beside God on a throne where no shame can reach him. And he won’t even remember the day he said
But I’m a sinner.
