I have seen abuse, neglect, brokenness and pain that threatened to squeeze every last bit of hope from my heart and gnarl me into someone that snaps shut their eyes to the hurt.
But I also saw Jesus. And in seeing him in the hurt, I refused to let myself shut my eyes. Because if I had shut my eyes to the pain and brokenness and filth of the streets and of our sin, I would have been blind to his glory.
All I have to share with you tonight is a little piece of my broken heart. I wish I was still in Memphis and didn't have to say goodbye to a little girl that wrapped her little brown arms around my neck and around my heart. I wish I didn't have to walk kids back home to their moms that don't bathe them often and their siblings that beat them to prove their dominance to their fellow gang members. My heart hurts when I think of what they see and hear everyday--gun shots, shouting, one threat of death after the other, their mother in the next room giving a man what he wants because she wants cocaine.
This brokenness is real. My brokenness is real.
And so is his love.
In his love, I find hope and I find rest. I find joy in that the war on those streets is already won and that Jesus has conquered the hell on earth those people endure as well as the hell that we are doomed for without him.
I wrote this on Monday, June 30th:
The brokenness here breaks me. I wonder where cuts on faces came from and if anyone took immediate care to it. The eagerness in a child's face to get their lunch makes me wonder who gave them their last meal and when that was. The kids learn too early a "survival of the fittest" mentality and they are only five years old and ready to fight. Who teaches them that?
They say things that cut to my heart and they make me laugh. My heart explodes with love and I want to put every one of them in my lap and hug all of them. Their brokenness and thirst for love that most of them have never known before breaks me, but Jesus meets me here. I see him here and I remember just how much he loves me like he loves them. That's so amazing.
Here, in the dirt and on their dirty hands that touch my face and their small bodies in my lap and hugging my sides and clenching their brown hands to my white ones, I find joy.
And I know that this is what he made me for.
I have seen him in the pained eyes of a small child and in the smile of a girl that knows that he loves her so. I have heard his voice in the cry of a young boy that is afraid of going home and in the laugh of a child that screeches with joy when I tip her upside down in my arms. I have felt his touch when my sweaty hand meets that of a young girl that wants someone to show her that they care, and I have felt him in worship when I am sure that there is no life I could imagine that is better the one he has for me. I smelled him on the trash lined streets because he is reclaiming them and I smelled him in the tight hug of a child that hasn't been bathed in weeks.
So I force my eyes wide open and ask that he would let my eyes see brokenness in a raw way. I refuse to shut my eyes to the hurt expression of a young boy of the hopelessness in the eyes of a little girl. I refuse to shut my eyes to the condom wrappers and broken bottles that line the roads that tell the heart-shattering tale of the fast pleasures these people seek and their lostness and oblivion to what truly gives joy.
I refuse to shut my eyes because I am determined to see him here. I refuse to shift my gaze from Jesus' eyes just because seeing what he sees is uncomfortable and dirty.
I hold his stare and look at the snot and the dirt and the sin because he is hope in this place. He is love. He is joy. He is redemption.
Behold his glory and just open your eyes.
He is not done and he wants YOU to see him and to be a part of what he is doing.
Wake up, sleepers. Redemption is here.
"Come, let us return to The Lord. He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us; he has injured us, but he will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us that we may live in his presence. Let us acknowledge The Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth."
Hosea 6:1-3
