“He’s a drunk,” she whispered to me. “Oh, and this lady
here? She’s lost her mind, she’s just crazy,” a woman next to me said as she
pointed out 2 particular people walking by.
The man, dressed in dirty clothes with holes in them stumbled on by – and I could
smell the unmistakable scent of alcohol on him. And the lady who had been
pointed out to me as “crazy” walked through the crowd that parted to let her
pass. They moved away from her quickly, as if her lunacy would rub off on them
if they touched her. She was dressed in a brightly colored skirt – bright
except for the dirt that dulled the color – and a dirty shirt, waving her hands
every so often as she walked; her head flopping from side to side and up and
down like a bobble head.
Oh yes, the woman next to me said. Do you see them? We just
have to send them away.
And all the while, something like fire erupted in my heart. No! That’s all wrong! I wanted to
scream. That’s not who they are.
“He’s my son,” I
heard an inaudible voice tell me; a voice that revealed grief and pride and
magnificent love all at the same time. “Oh,
and this lady here? She’s my daughter. I love her.”
How is it that sometimes that quiet, inaudible voice can be
heard louder than the voice of a person sitting next to you?
And so as I watched these two people walk on by and
disappear around corners or into the crowd, there was a heaviness in my heart
that I cannot take credit for. It was as if God was asking me, Please do not define my children as these
things, no matter how lost they may look.
The drunk man, who couldn’t have been more than 35 years old, has a
name. More than that, he’s got a family. Many of the drunk men we see in Eldama
Ravine have children – children who know hunger all too well because the little
money they have, their father uses to buy alcohol instead of food. It’s
ridiculous, isn’t it? That a father can be so broken, carrying so much pain,
that he can know full well that his
own children are suffering and still succumb to the craving to have another
drink?
The woman who seems to have lost complete track of the real
world around her, who couldn’t have been older than 40, has a name. She’s got a
mother and father somewhere if they’re still alive, and probably a brother and
sister or two. Maybe before her mind began to crumble, she fell in love and was
married. Maybe she had children of her own. Maybe not, I’ll probably never
know.
But it’s probably true, isn’t it, that if people aren’t
willing to even touch her, they won’t be willing to help her either, right?
In the country where I was born, there are clubs and support
groups for people who struggle with alcoholism. There is money and attention
given to people who struggle with mental illnesses…sometimes all it takes is
the right medication to re-balance the delicate chemicals in the brain.
But I’m convinced, convinced,
that it’s LOVE that makes all the difference in the world.
In a documentary I watched with some of my team earlier this
week (yes, crammed in a little room, huddled around a little netbook screen!)
there was a scene with a pastor of a church who talked about a dream he’d had.
It was his church, and there were all sorts of people in the sanctuary, but
they were all “wrong”. They were doing every sinful, ugly, disgusting thing
that’s associated with the world – right there in the church, in the pews! In
his dream he began to send them out, appalled that this was happening in his church. And then he heard God saying
to him, “Why are you sending out
those I’m sending in? You’ve asked
me for the lost.”
Why do we send out those God is sending in? Jesus didn’t
come for the healthy, did he?
Do we fight for the lost, the broken, the dirty, the needy, the ones the world
is ashamed of – or do we fight for the ones who are “easy on the eyes”, the
ones who are within our grasp?
“Heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons….freely you
have received, so freely give.”
Oh Lord, help me to
live in full dependence of you. No one is out of your reach.
It’s the moment that we label someone as a drunk, or as a
crazy, or as a homeless person that they become a nameless, faceless carbon
being…less than human, not carrying any potential or importance. When we label
someone as such, we’ve given up on them
and that’s not fair, or right, or ok.
Most of us are where we’re at because someone out there did
NOT give up on us. Right?
Freely we’ve received, so freely give.
It’s not a
suggestion, it’s a command.
I want to reach the end of my life knowing that I’ve freely
and humbly given the redeeming love that I received. Who am I to push others
away, others the world has deemed as “lost”? Who am I to judge them by outward
appearance?
Jesus came to save the broken. He came to heal the sick, to
love the unlovable, to touch the untouchable. It’s all for nothing if we do
nothing to live by example.
God is love…plain and simple. Love keeps no record of
wrongs, it is patient, kind. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes,
always perseveres. It NEVER fails (1 Corinthians 13:4-8). And “never” really
does mean never.
1jn. 4: 18: It’s a fearless kind of love;
not giving a care to what others watching might think. In the presence of this
love, fear cannot stand.
And our love, as His sons and daughters, is supposed to be the same.
Church, let us love that way; fearlessly, perfectly. A love that never fails but
ALWAYS hopes.
I dare you to fearlessly love. You up for the challenge?
