In my last blog, I spoke about the vision of Swaziland. The position that we are put in as racers to affect the nation of Swaziland through young leaders. Now this week of ministry has been one of fulfilling it.
This week, parents came to visit my teammates and squad mates so those of us who didn’t have parents, spent the week together. It was a intimate time of quiet rooms, budding relationships, and an outpouring of hospitality from our base mentors, David and Jenna. It was eating family-style again with the accommodation of a mother’s touch in the kitchen. I was reminded of the stillness awaiting me when I get home. Relationships of hard-struggles and broken chains will readily stand as I fly back to Raleigh Durham Airport in roughly two months. But I didn’t long for home this week, I rather found it.
I found it in the intercession for my brothers and sisters. We had only been separated for four days and honestly, it felt like years had passed. Time was a marker of dear friendship paused but not cut. After seven months of traveling together, I wasn’t interceding for there to be breakthrough, but for the specific windows of pain that each of my brothers had shared with us. The memories and issues that would have rather lay stolen away in their minds had surfaced in their obedience and I brought forth those struggles to our God. The freedom of Christ Jesus allows for our deepest wounds to be lifted high by our brothers and sisters. As much as I want to hide, He is wanting to bring in those to fight for me. This is the Body and Him as our Head.
On that thought, I have been more emotional writing this blog and praying for people than I have in a long time. More astounded by the grace that He has gifted to me and I now share in with others. It’s producing in me an adoration all the more for Him. An adoration for His loving and powerful words to those who carry the alabaster ointment and run staggeredly across gravestones oppressed. In reflecting on this week, I can see Jesus bringing the children into and under his arms. I can see more clearly the picture that we wants and has for us.
Growing up, I always saw Jesus with kids that looked just like me. They wore bright colors, smiled, and displayed the image of well kept, interested children. I was as equally drawn to the images of the children as I was to Jesus. But that’s not what I see now and I don’t believe we were intended to see either.
“WE are the lost sheep, He is the saving Shepard”
“WE are the jars of clay, He is the intricate Molder”
“WE are the simple ones, He is wisdom’s Maker”
“And such were some of you” (1 Corinthians 6:11)
When Nicodemus came to Jesus, He said “you must be born again.” To be birthed anew in to something different. Something radically changed by the gift of grace over our lives and astounding joy filled with glory. What has struck me so deeply in Jesus’s words is simply; I am unworthy. I deserve nothing of Him. I dare not even dance in “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.” (Romans 11:33). I AM the children that I cared for this entire week. I AM the child covered in sores, itchy rashes, peeling skin, blind eye, and aged skin. I AM the child with runny nose, a constant cough, dirty clothes, and yearnings so deep I don’t even know why I search for a stranger’s hand. That is what I felt this week.
I was greeted and was known by each of those kids this week. They most likely won’t remember the times I have swung the around, asked them how old they are, or my entire existence in their life. But I am not there to fill in the memory of their mind. I am there to love these kids, so evidently broken, as I was. I am there to be to them a glimpse of love so high and untold no record could hold its act of kindness. I am there to be to the least of these. (Matthew 25:40) It’s who I was and it’s who I will always be. One thing I have encountered on this race has been my own childhood. The memories and moments of my life that have caused resentment, bitterness, and complacency to rise in my heart from long, long ago. We can be so far removed but yet so close to the past.
A quote this week that has had my mind and heart before the water’s reflection has been from the book, The Ragamuffin Gospel. It says:
“The Good News means we can stop lying to ourselves. The sweet sound of amazing graces saves us from the necessity of self-deception. It keeps us from denying that though Christ was victorious, the battle with lust, greed, and prides still rages within us. As a sinner who has been redeemed, I can acknowledge that I am often uninformed, irritable, angry, and resentful with those closest to me.”
&
“When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games.”
I have felt that self-deception turn in me again. I have felt the pride within me cower at the words of grace. I have even had the question run through my mind…”It’s almost month eight and you are wanting to go after this, chase grace and expose it all?” I know I am not polished nor well kept as displayed so often with Jesus. But I am covered in sores in the arms of the greatest Healer. I am a starved soul, longing in the arms of the Comforter who knows my innermost being. I am the forgotten found by the Creator and Savior of the universe. I am not choosing this life, I am choosing Him. I hope you can also find His grace and adoption of your everything in the confrontation of the past. He loves you and He has people around you, waiting seek Him on your behalf. From one snotty nosed kid to another. So. Much. Love.
-will
P.S. There will be an announcement soon about my plans for after the race so stay tuned for it!!!!!!!!
