Check out part 1 HERE
Japan was so many different things. I felt kinda broken for the better part of the month, though I didn’t have any clue as to why. (I do now.) I also knew I didn’t want to focus on my own brokenness or even if I could do that while still being empathetic to all that was happening around me. Thus the realization that I needed more of Him. And not just needed, but wanted.
Once I was able to accept what the Lord was walking me through, I began to see more. I can’t help falling in love with cultures, with places, with people. It happened in each of the four countries before Japan, and it predictably happened in Japan as well. With each mask I saw on these people that I loved came a greater desire to love more.
When you love people, you feel the weight of heavy things they carry. You long for truth to ravish their hearts. You break a little when you know they’re not there yet, but you cling to the hope and truth in the Word: that He can make all things new. And you yearn not to run away from the heavy brokenness, but to establish yourself firmly by the side of the ones you love. Your desire becomes to join in the battle, fighting with the strongest weapon, that of TRUTH. You make joy real. You stay consistent. You waver not when it appears you’re not wanted. You are aware not only of how you are needed in their life, but also of how you need them. And you love them so deeply when it is hard that your concept of love expands until your very understanding of love has become something so different, so profound, that it can only be credited to Him who has taught you to love.
As He taught me what it is to love, He gave me many opportunities to learn from the love of others as well. Our contact in Japan and his family are people so after the heart of Christ. There was a continuous pouring-into by them and an intentionality that far exceeded what we could have hoped for. Next, we experienced a sincere love from the people of the church we attended for the month. They taught me hospitality and how much I yearn to have that gift. They spent time with us and tolerated with joy our occasional ignorance of the normal functioning of their culture. We were also loved well by strangers who would stop what they were doing to walk us somewhere if we did not know the way. Though most of these people had not yet tasted and seen the goodness of the Lord, they practiced such a holy quality.
And sometimes the strangers would become our friends; and then you learn that it’s actually not so hard to love a stranger.
I love Japan. I love it through it’s brokenness, and I love it when I, too, am broken. But love becomes something so precious when you choose to love beyond the brokenness.
Below are some people not only who we loved but by whom we were loved well.
