I sat on a library floor,
with 20 women.
They introduced themselves,
telling me their age,
where they are from,
why they were there,
and one thing that made them happy.
Each with a smile-
Not for why they were there,
but what they knew they would get…
at english club.
You see, each woman had a countdown- either in months or years,
for how much prison time they have left.
Some waiting a few months, others up to 10 years. 10 more years.
These ladies were excited for english club and I was excited to know why.
This week’s discussion topic was on movie quotes from the movie Wonder.
They had watched the movie the week before.
[For those who haven’t seen this movie I’d 10/10 reccommend it.]
Auggie Pullman is a 5th grader, born with a genetic disorder that caused numerous craniofacial deformities. He had 27 surgeries in total by the time his parents thought it was a good idea to transition him into public school. Auggie suffers what many middle schoolers consider; the fear of not fitting in, not being good enough, and not making friends.
Faced with those fears, Auggie is bullied by a classmate. It didn’t take long for Principal Tushman to find out what was going on and intervene.
Tushman invites the parents of the bully to a parent conference. In the meeting he is quoted telling the parents, “Auggie Pullman can’t change the way he looks, but maybe we can change how we see.”
And so the discussion opened up to the women. Most agreeing with the statement recognizing how seeing people for who God created them to be was an important moral of the story.
Then one woman in particular spoke up and said a few years ago she would have never even said hello to a prostitute or drug dealer on her street. She said she wouldn’t associate with them even in the cells because of what they did.
Yet, she finds herself in prison, with no choice but to make friends with the women she’ll spend the next ten years with.
She went on to say, she too had to change the way she saw things. That prison taught her she needed to see a different way. That she needed to see the others not for what they did, but who they really were- women, with a heart, who got into a little trouble, just like her. She said God helped her to see in them what she knew He saw in her.
This woman has been in prison for three years.
Has found and hasn’t forgotten the power of His redeeming love.!
She didn’t see the drug dealer, she saw the woman trying to provide for her children. She didn’t see the prostitute, she saw the 20 year old stuck in the sin of this world because nobody has shown her a way out.
Are you seeing what the world is telling you is important?
Are you seeing what you think is important?
Or are you seeing through the greater lens of love and what God shows us is important?
By the end of Wonder, we see with new eyes.
And what we see is a kingdom perspective.
What we see is hearts strengthened by a heart that was broken.
Broken by bullies, and the feeling of not being accepted. Broken by lies that he wasn’t normal enough or would never be good enough.
And you know who else was broken?
Jesus.
He knew the power of sin and death and chose to conquer it once and for all. And in doing so, He flipped brokenness upside down.
Brokeness doesnt tear us apart from God,
but it’s the exact thing that draws us nearer.
What the world tried to do to break Auggie,
God used as ingredients for a divine recipe to stand out!
And yeah, you can try the ‘well that’s a movie’ excuse, but I’d like to think if a 5th grader, and a woman in a prison in Indonesia got the gist- we can too.
God will use our broken [our messes, mistakes, problems, etc.] to help us see ourselves, the way He sees us. To reveal himself to us.
Near the end of the movie it is said, “And …. if you act just a little kinder than is necessary, someone else, somewhere, someday, may recognize in you, in every single one of you, the face of God.”
Something I’ve learned from traveling these past 11 months, immersed in different cultures with different languages, is that you don’t have to act a little kinder than is necessary anywhere except exactly where you are.
That someone doesn’t have to be an orphan in Africa or a street kid in Nepal.
For the woman at english club, the someones are her cellmates in prison.
For Principal Tushman, it was a student and his parents in his fifth grade classroom.
For you (and me in a short 11 days) it could be a friend at the gym, the cashier at the grocery store, a co-worker or even the stranger or friend who sits next to you in the pew at church next Sunday morning.
… be a little kinder than necessary.
It’s a choice!
Choosing to see the world and those around us through the lens of what God see’s as important teaches us things.
One thing in particular it’s taught me is it enhances my ability to see the beautiful in everyone I meet.
And with that, I start to wonder what the other person has that I don’t- and how do I get to the bottom of finding out their beautiful.
I found that the beautiful I couldn’t see in english club, was at first covered by the reasons the women were in prison, their sentence, and how on earth were they smiling?
Then I saw.
It wasn’t about why they were in prison, but rather what they got to be a part of in english club.
Kingdom perspective.
God, they can’t change what they’ve done,
but maybe I can change the way I see.
It didn’t matter why the women were there. What mattered was what they got while they were there!
They are hungry for life.
English club brings life.
They are hungry for people to meet them in their broken and say, I’ve changed the way I see things, and your broken is beautiful.
English club is broken and beautiful.
What you’ve done doesn’t define you, but whose you are does.
English club accepts, it doesn’t reject.
If a simple Tuesday afternoon english club in a prison in middle of Indonesia can bring the lost to life, broken to beautiful and accept the rejected- I wonder what more little kinder than necessary things we can do in our own community?
… maybe we can change how we see.
XOXO
Tay
