Something about the people in Guatemala dancing in their Sunday-best with no reservations crumbled my heart of stone. I didn't even know my heart wasn't flesh, wasn't beating for these people I was serving.
And I immediately thought of the stereotype of the Latin culture that Satan had reinforced over and over again.
My mother had dated a man from El Salvador, one of the many illegal immigrants who came to work at the pig plant nearby. He treated her like dirt, he left her after she got pregnant with my brother. He took my mother away from me when I needed her most, then he left her sending her down a self-destructive spiral.
I never realized I hated him. I never realized he (as well as the many drunk Latin men who roamed the town) had shaped my view of Latin men. And my heart had become stone to these men; to this culture.
But today as I sat in church, surrounded by the overwhelming aroma of hair gel and cologne that took me back to my thirteen-year-old self, my heart melted.
All I felt was LOVE.
Love for the old man in the front who shouted praise with just abandonment. For the little girl singing as she gawked at the strange gringos and her daddy as he held and swayed his little daughter. And then my heart exploded for the man who broke and abandoned my mother.
And I'm wrecked. In awe of a God who loves such a hypocritical girl.
And I'm brought to my knees.
Favored by a Father who is faithful to pour love into His children.
A Father who refuses to keep our hearts deceived by the lies this fallen world has fed us.
"And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." (Romans 8:27 ESV)
