So this started out as an email that I had sent to dear friend but after sleeping on the ideas I realized I had more to say and that I wanted more to know how I felt. I hope you take a moment to listen and feel the following thoughts.
Oh how to even catch up……..
We’ve made it too Mozambique and I love it here. The church community here is incredible and the way they serve God and serve the people in the villages is so pure and amazing. They really understand what it looks like to do life as a community as opposed to just serving people out of charity or throwing money at the poor. We are living in our tents on an elementary school play ground in the middle of a remote village. Haha as in the houses are made of mud and sticks. Its crazy cool in the most humbling of ways. I have been teaching long multiplication to a class of 12 2nd graders, I’ve mudded a hut, and worked in a few gardens in the Gogone (guh-go-knee) village. The people grow on me more everyday. Its funny how you can travel all the way to the other side of the world and the needs are the same people just want to be loved and listened to. They want to know that somewhere someone cares. A squad mate gave me this book of Mother Teresa’s thoughts, prayers and stories and I’ve been meditating on them quite a bit lately. Here are a few lines that I really like;
“There is much suffering in the world — very much. Material suffering is suffering from hunger, suffering from homelessness, from all kinds of disease, but I still think that the greatest suffering is being lonely, feeling unloved, just having no one. I have come more and more to realize that being unwanted is the worst disease that any human being can ever experience. “
“ We should ask our selves, ‘Have I really experienced the joy of loving?’ True love is love that causes us pain, that hurts, yet brings us joy. That is why we must pray and ask for the courage to love.”
“Love to be real, must cost—
it must hurt— it must empty us of self.”
“Abandonment is and awful poverty. There are poor people everywhere, but the deepest poverty is not being loved.”
So yeah they all kind of have the same theme of how important it is to love people well. As I’ve been away I have come to realize that more importantly then just living a full life with achievement and adventure is having people to share it with. Not only having people, but choosing to involve others who might not otherwise have anyone. Ya know. After seeing so many people who either have nothing or have everything it doesn’t seem to matter. Everyone just really wants you to lend a hand, an ear, or even more your heart and compassion. A little really can go a long way.
Early on in my realization I was discouraged that I had spent so much time blinded by my own selfishness. MY job. MY money (or lack there of). MY needs. Where do I need to go. What do I need to accomplish. Who do I want to hang out with. I decided that wallowing in discouragement was again selfish so instead I am choosing to get excited about the future, or the present even. Now that I have an awareness and can direct my time to the needs, wants, and time of others!!! I’m so excited to be more present in moments shared with others! There truly just isn’t enough time in life to waste it in a box for one. Don’t get me wrong, taking care of oneself is still important in fact we must take care of ourselves so that we can continue to take care of others.
If you take away anything from these thoughts I was having I hope that it is this; the kind of afore mentioned love doesn’t exist with out Jesus Christ. He is the one we draw this kind of love from and when have fully emptied our selves He is the one who is there to fill us back up with more. See in and of ourselves, even the most selfless of people, our human hearts only have to the capacity to love so much before we begin to fail one another. Psalms 73.26 says “My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the strength of my heart and portion forever.” Even 2000+ years ago they knew we couldn’t do it alone.
On a personal note if you have felt that I have failed to love you well, I apologize. Over the past year or two I have been so wrapped up in my own mind that I have ditched or missed being present when some of you needed me as a friend. Sometimes though physically present I wasn’t always mentally or emotionally present which sometimes can be even more damaging. In a desperate attempt to refill my rapidly emptying tank I used and abused the love of those around me in hopes that it would suffice. I found that it only left one of us if not both parched all the more. True sustaining love only comes from The Lord. His well of love is overflowing and never runs dry. On the flip side the moments I have truly loved you well came from the part of my heart and soul that are rooted in Christ for only though him am I capable of such love.
I know that was a lot but I hope that some if not all of it touches your heart in someway. I pray that if not in whole at least parts of it will create a new platform for thought or better yet action. Go out and love on someone who needs it today!! Friend, family, foe, or stranger I promise you it wont be time wasted!
Love ya,
Amanda
