Filed under: Lessons Learned
When I was growing up my family did not attend church. We went a couple of times in those early years. You know…Easter, Christmas, funerals, weddings. It was not until I was 8 years old that I was introduced to Jesus Christ.
We were living in an apartment complex. Every Sunday and Wednesday a local church sent a bus into our neighborhood to pick up any children that wanted to go. Since the bus driver treated everyone to Dunkin Doughnuts after service, I was all too eager. One of the women I met was named Judy. She took my sister and I under her wing. After Wednesday night AWANA Club she would often drive us home. I remember one evening when Judy was driving. We were speeding down a busy highway. I thought it would be funny to yell “red light”. When I did she began to come to a stop. Once she realized the light was still green she continued on. She then thanked me for reminding her how she needed to pay attention to the road more than what was going on inside the car! I remember being dumbfounded! My Mother would have scolded me good. She would have lectured me for the next five minutes on what I had done wrong, and that attitude would have encouraged me all the more to try and get on her nerves. It was Judy’s patience and kindness that led me at 8 years old to want to know the God she served. It was one of those defining moments in life!
Fast forward to today. I have been working with a couple of refugee families for a few months now. And at times it has been exhausting! There have been a few days I wanted to go home, shut the blinds, and pull the covers over my head!! And I did. But I have found something different at work in my life lately. LOVE!!! This powerful love that has allowed me to lay down every expectation I have of these people and just serve them. You see…they have lived a life I cannot even begin to imagine. So when they horde everything they are given, and then lie and say they need more; well….the justice side of me wants to make them understand just why they can’t do that. When I see them spending their money frivolously, instead of paying their bills, and mind you, I know that money is coming from my hard earned tax dollars. Well, I really want to jump on that! Oh, but the love, mercy, and grace of God has melted my heart once again. I don’t need to protect my stuff. Even if the motive of their hearts is to take advantage or lie or whatever. If I realize that nothing is more important than they are, and if everything I have I freely give, then nothing they say, do, or any way they act is not going to change my attitude of love toward them!
It is not my job to save these people! It is not my job to change these people! It is my job to serve them and to love them. That is what Judy did with me all those years ago. She realized I had come from a place she did not understand and all she could do was serve me and love me, and that led me to Christ! God has and will continue to give me opportunity and seasons to speak into these lives. And prayerfully they will come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, but until that day I will continue to learn just how much the Father loves me as I give away all that I have to them!
