One of the really perplexing, yet intriguing, parts about God is the way that He allows each individual person to have their own unique perspective on Him. Each person has a different view of Jesus. Some see Him as an old white man with a long beard, or a Middle Eastern man on a cross, or a brilliant and indistinct figure of pure light. Honestly, if He wanted us to all view Him similarly, He would have given us a much clearer picture of His physical appearance and personality. I for one think He enjoys our range of lenses we see Him through.
With the freedom God has given me to imagine what His distinct personality was while on earth, I take time to seek it out. Jesus gives us so much throughout the New Testament that portrays who He really is, what brings Him joy, what breaks His heart, and ultimately how He loves us. A lot of times it is all very general. There is not an overwhelming amount of direct dialogue by Him. God gives us guidelines, but not a rule book. We have the big picture, but not all the details. The bible has so little on what Jesus’ character was and who He is, but at the same time, the entire bible is one enormous story of God’s character and where His heart lies.
Jesus is not a God of boredom. He is a God of beauty, adventure, creativity, and furious love. He is a God of freedom. Sometimes we need to step outside the box of man-dresses and Jesus-sandals of bible times and add a little imagination to our faith.
I believe if He were physically here still, He would spend long nights laying under the stars and feeling the cool breeze brush over His face. I believe He would laugh the loudest at peoples’ jokes, even if they weren’t all that funny. I think He would look people in the eyes when they were talking about the pain in their life, and take time to slowly sip His coffee, and seek to serve constantly while still making time for silly moments with friends, and be inspired to love harder by movies like Beauty and the Beast, and enjoy eating too much ice cream on occasion. I believe He would appreciate His dirty feet when camping, ditch school occasionally to hangout with the rebels, mercifully stand up to abusive people, cry salty tears even when it meant revealing frustration, and smile when falling asleep because rest is just so dang good.
From what I know about God and who He is, I know He would have taken massive amounts of time to simply exist and enjoy life. I want to be like Him, and if I’m going to be like Him, I need to take more time to simply exist and enjoy life too.
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And the Flashbacks Begin…
I realized that even with the plethora of informative blogs I am constantly updating my page with (Haha- that was sarcasm. Mom, at least you got it :)), I still have so many untold stories that need sharing. Especially being here in the Philippines, our last country, I have done a lot of reflecting on each place I have lived in this year and what kind of experiences have actually stuck with me. Throughout the next few blogs, I am going to share one story from each country that reveals a little bit more about our time there.
Flashback to Costa Rica:
We had left our jungle house of Costa Rica at 3 am. Rain started dumping down on us, trying to sabotage our plans to head to Nicaragua. Our jeep couldn’t handle it, so we walked for 10 minutes through the downpour. Mud splattered our feet and legs by the time we got back in the car.
We’re not really supposed to go anywhere alone, and I didn’t feel good about walking around by myself anyway, so I asked my friend Kit if he would go up to the bathrooms with me. He headed for the men’s room as I sized up my resources in the women’s. Toilet paper. And I was lucky to have that.
I began wetting the toilet paper and trying to scrub the dirt off of my chacos. It had built up so much that my shoes were twice as big and weighed like 10 pounds, and wet toilet paper did absolutely nothing to help! I was nauseous and so tired and sweaty and stressed, and I am not this emotional all the time but I think I was actually tearing up at the disaster of my cleaning attempt. I just wanted to feel somewhat clean.
Then, a woman in a blue polo shirt came out of a stall. She stared at me as she washed her hands. That wasn’t anything new though. As white people in foreign countries, we were used to being looked at constantly. What she did next surprised me though. The woman spoke a few words I didn’t know in spanish and motioned for me to follow her.
“No, no, esta bien, gracias,” I replied, thinking she was trying to sell me something. She kept motioning for me to follow her, so I finally accepted, skeptical as I was. She lead me across the hall, unlocked the door, and took me into a custodian closet. “Oh, she works here, of course!” I thought. She took my hand as she went over to a utility sink in the floor and let the water pour over my feet. This kind soul took the disgusting, backpacker shoes off of my feet and scrubbed them under the faucet with just her hands. My awful, mud-caked sandals.
The moment that stuck the most, though, was when she lifted my bare feet into the sink and waved my hands away as she gently rubbed to purify them of the Costa Rica mud. She didn’t even let me wash my own feet. This woman I had known for all of 5 minutes, an employee of the bus station, a woman I didn’t even know the name of and could not speak the same language of, washing my feet. I was astounded.
By this point, Kit was standing in the doorway watching it all happen. “Mic, she’s washing your feet for you,” he said in awe. I couldn’t respond because I was a little choked up by tears at that point. I was so overwhelmed by the intense kindness of this woman towards me! I was the missionary, I was supposed to be the one portraying Christ to people, and here I was, the recipient of one of the most significant actions performed by Jesus.
I never got her name. I didn’t get a phone number. I didn’t offer to pray for her. Our bus was leaving soon, and all I did was say “thank you” in her own language and say everything else I wanted to with my teared-up eyes.
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Just wanted to share that glimpse with you all! Things are better here in the Philippines. Circumstances haven’t changed, but our attitudes and community are pretty rock solid right now. We are finding ways to pursue the people around us, even if it is just the man who sells me vegetables. Or the checkout clerk. Or our downstairs karaoke-singing neighbors. We are making connections and looking for God through it all, as always. Coming soon is more flashback stories and an introduction of my team mates here on team Granola!
