33 hours after departing Lima, Peru, our bus pulled into La Paz, Bolivia. Our team, along with Team Anew, continued onward 45 minutes to the city of El Alto, where we would be doing our ministry for the month.
Our host, Fineke, is absolutely wonderful. She is from Holland, and has the biggest heart for the people she is serving. She founded this addiction recovery ministry over 20 years ago, It covers just about any addiction one could name. They have three houses: for girls, boys, and married couples between the ages of 13-28.
The first day we were here, we had an opportunity to go to a Christian concert with the people in the ministry. No one from our teams wanted to go…but I felt a pull to go.
So, I boarded a bus with only Spanish-speakers…ones that I didn’t know nor had even met. The only person I knew, Fineke, was going to meet us at the concert. I felt so out of place.
I closed my eyes, and just prayed…out loud (this is the one benefit of no one around you speaking your language).
I asked the Lord to just break me…I didn’t know what that would look like…I pictured it happening through worship or the message, but really had no idea.
I sat by our host, Fineke. A girl walked down to Fineke, embraced her, they said a few words, and then Fineke sat down…weeping.
She told me the girl’s story. Her mother introduced her to drugs at age 7, addicted to cocaine by 13, prostituting by 15, and then enrolled in the ministry at 26. She had graduated from it, and was now working baking saltenas…a Bolivian pastry.
Here’s the kicker: The girl was there with her mother, grandmother, and daughter. This girl’s grandmother had been praying for her family for years…and finally, over 20 years later, all were sitting together at this Christian concert…following the Lord.
Fineke looks at me and says, “In this ministry, you love deeply and you grieve deeply.”
You love deeply, and you grieve deeply.
There it was: the breaking point.
Sometimes the thought of having to grieve keeps me from loving.
Not knowing how something might turn out and knowing I could get hur…t or suffer a loss…or even the fact that someone might not want as much for themselves as I want for them…or when they don’t choose to believe what is already theirs…THESE things have kept me from loving DEEPLY.
But you can’t have one without the other.
Grieving is painful…but freeing. You can choose to avoid the grieving…but then you lose capacity to really love…because you’ve closed off a part of your heart that the world desperately needs.
And you have to choose.
So, I choose to love. I choose to love when I don’t know what the future holds.
I choose to love when I know how deep the loss could be.
I choose to love when life isn’t going how I would like it to.
I choose to love when the person can’t even stand me.
I choose to love when I can’t stand them either.
I choose to love when it hurts like hell.
I choose to love when I don’t see with my eyes the benefit of it.
I choose to love…deeply.
I choose to love deeply…
And when it’s time to grieve…I will…and then I will love…again and again and again.
