We have step foot into Spanishtown, Jamaica. At night we hear blaring 90s music from the bar that shakes our roof until 6 in the morning. I wake up to the voice of a DJ screeching into the mic. We sleep on the floor of the church where I have to be careful not to roll off my sleeping pad or I will wake up in the morning being able to smell my teammates morning breath. We have to take a local with us to the grocery store as a safety precaution and cannot go anywhere to find personal space. I have about 30 mosquito bites covering me from my hands to ankles and bug spray is the new perfume. The first week I would be lucky if I got 5 hours of sleep with all of the distractions but our ministry has been worth all of it.
My ministry this month is sharing God’s love and message with the people within the impoverished communities in the morning and tutoring kiddos in the afternoon. I talked to a boy the first week we arrived. I saw him wandering around the church at 12pm on a Wednesday and asked him if he had school. He told me yes, but he couldn’t afford the 70 cents to get there. “Where is your father?” asks my friend. He replies “I have no idea”. He is not a special case. He is simply one of more than a handful.
Every day I have been tutoring my seven year olds and I’ve seen oppression from bullying. “You’re so ugly” screams a 10 year old boy to a six year old girl as he rushes by to play after class. As I look to my left I see a boy crying as a bigger boy climbs on to his back to treat him like a bull and pretends to whip him. After we tutor, I play with the kids and learned nursery rhymes. “Mama gets shot by a G.I. Joe”. Another rhyme is to the beat of hankie pankie but the rhyme finishes with a child who determines what playmate they want to “shoot with a gun” to lose the game.
On Friday night a teenage girl showed up to our youth group 8 months pregnant with the child of her and her rapist.
Think of the small snipets of stories I’ve told you. Who is the bad guy in this story? Is it the DJ who wakes us up every Wednesday & Friday night causing our sleep to be restless? Is it the bully who screams lies or treats the smaller kids like animals? Is it the man who raped the teenager who is now almost due and feels like she has no one she can lean on? Is it the mom and pap that are not acting like a father or mother and are missing?
Well let me share with you something.
Remember the DJ that kept me up at night? God turned my frustration of restless sleep to me asking God what the purpose was of us sleeping so close to this bar. He told me that when I wake up I should pray for the DJ and others there. I would from then on wake up and see it as a glimpse to pray for people who many looked down on in the community. The next week we are out in the local development and a group of men come up to us, one a DJ, and we get to encourage and share with him for two hours. I’m certain Tori the DJ was the reason God had me up praying every night the week before.
Remember the bully that rode the seven year old like a bull? I pulled him aside right after and asked a simple question. I asked if he believed in God. He said yes. I asked him, “What does God love about you?” He couldn’t give me one answer. Then I proceeded to ask “What is one thing you like about yourself?” He spoke nothing.
Remember the pregnant girl who was raped? One of my squad mates is now the Godmother of the baby and is going to help her deliver him later this month. What was an awful act is now about to bring forth life and new creation.
In the past if you gave me a list of people I could put them into two categories: good & bad.
List includes: bullies, victims of bullies, women who are pregnant with their rapists baby, rapists, missing parents, and kiddos living in unhealthy households
I can no longer categorize these people through a black and white filter. Why you ask? We are multifaceted.
God told me this week “You are my creation. You’ve broken the box around who I am. Stop putting a box around who you are because you were made in my image”. This isn’t just for me, it’s all people. Yes, every person in the list above was made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). Do you believe that? Do you believe that a rapist, abusive parent, and a bully were made in God’s image? Stop and soak that in.
Every person on this Earth is multifaceted. Our identity isn’t in a one dimensional scale that qualifies us as good/bad, fun/deep, learner/one in awe, or vision caster/implementer of dreams. Our identity is in knowing we are more complicated than a quantitative scale. If we weren’t multi-faceted where would have Paul lied on the good or bad scale? Would he be placed under the “bad” category since he was a murderer of Christians? Or would Paul be placed in the “good” category since he spent His life preaching the gospel and loving people with the greatest kind of love: wanting them to be in relationship with their savior.
I’ve realized I personally cannot embrace my fullness until I stop seeing myself as a point on two dimensional line somewhere in between two extremes on a personality test but as a puffed up 3D painting of God’s image. A painting isn’t God, but it resembles Him and isn’t a methodical way to categorize Him. No two paintings even of the same object is the same. Each person’s story resembles a different angle of God, a unique stroke expressed in their story, and a different splash of color. We are all paintings of the same origin even though it might have a unique expression and a different flavor.
Understand the fullness of what God is doing and has done in your life. Be in remembrance of His grace and love throughout every step. If we truly know this we can love those that Earth throws out as the outcasted. However, we can love knowing their origin: one created in the image of our Creator. True love is embracing their fullness even if they don’t see it yet and leaving space for God to share that with them.
If I were to ask “Who are you?”, what would would you say? You are more than a job you have, a university you graduated from, a position you lead, and you are more than your mistakes. You are more than you think you are. Take down the box of who you think you are and ask God to reveal to you the treasures He has painted on your canvas. Life isn’t black and white. Life is in color. See the fullness and the color of how God has created you as a masterpiece in the eyes of your creator (Ephesians 2:10).
To know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:19
