I had the opportunity to love like Jesus, but I chose
to walk away…
At one of the Carepoints on Tuesday, the boys did some
construction work while us girls played with and loved on some children. Of course, this is one of our favorite things
to do, as little African children are as cute as can be! But for me, this day was especially difficult
and the Lord taught me something I’ll never forget. There was this one child in particular that
had special needs. He was covered in dirt, food and
slobber. He kept his mouth open at all
times, so the drool was just dripping down his shirt and on anything he came
into contact with. I wish I could say
that I picked that child up and loved on him for hours, but that isn’t what I
did. Honestly, I was absolutely freaked
out by this kid. I was clean for the
first time in four days and the thought of being covered in this kid’s drool
grossed me out. He saw that I was
picking up other children, so he ran over to me, put out his arms and began to
jump up and down. I picked him up for a
second, but I could not hold onto him for long.
As soon as I put him down he grabbed onto my pant leg and kept motioning
for me to pick him up again, but I just couldn’t. He seemed to take a liking to me and began to
follow me around. At one point he snuck
up behind me and placed his drool covered hand on top of my head and rubbed it
into my recently washed hair. As you can
imagine, I was not pleased. I literally
ran from him at one point. Not my
proudest moment. I don’t know why he was
particularly fond of me, but now I realize it was the Lord trying to teach me a
lesson. I sat down for a minute away from the children to think, and
the thought popped into my head, “What if it
were Jesus? Then his very
words in Matthew 25:35-40 flashed through my mind,
“‘For I was hungry and
you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,
I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I
was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit
me.’ Then the righteous will answer him,
‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you
something to drink? When did we see you
a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we
see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did
for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'”
It breaks my heart that this child represented Jesus, and I
did not pick him up because I was too wrapped up in my own selfishness. The only thing this child wanted was love; to
be held and to feel like he was special.
There is no one there to love him, and he cried out to me and I rejected
him. Why? Because he wasn’t neatly
packaged like a lot of the other children?
The Lord doesn’t call us to love only when it was
convenient for us. He calls us to love
even when it is downright painful.
