break our hearts for what breaks Yours.

Suffering.  A word that most of you reading instantly wince at. Honestly, a part of me winces as well.  Especially as an American, I think it’s a cultural norm that we avoid pain at all costs.  Ask anyone at church or in line at the grocery store on any given day how they are and the reply is instantaneously, “Fine.”  Most Germans dislike this aspect of American culture---this tendency to pretend to have it all together.  The culture here is starkly contrast; no one bothers asking how anyone is, because no one typically cares. If by chance someone ventures to inquire, the answer is guaranteed to be honest. I’ve really loved asking cashiers here how they are. The two most common reactions are either shock or meltdowns. Just the other day at H&M I asked the cashier, “Wie gehts?” and she responded with desperate eyes and shaky words that she was having a horrible day, that life could be a lot better.  I feel like Jesus has been revealing to me His desire to get to the core of who people are, that He came “to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10).”  The implications of that are huge, if you think about it.  We’re often so preoccupied with seeking friendly and admirable ways to look like Jesus when in actuality, looking like Jesus is really entering the messy and painful elements of people’s lives to speak hope.  It’s comfortable to sit in the embrace of Jesus’ healing love as a new creation, but He calls us, as children and heirs, lights and love bearers, to do as He did---to enter into the messiness and sufferings of others and speak forth His Kingdom, His glorious Kingdom of beauty, wholeness, newness, love, life and joy.  More than just sending money to our World Vision sponsor children. More than casually giving an encouraging word to a cashier or a homeless man. His heart is with the corrupted and broken, the lonely and forgotten, the shameful and hopeless ones.

Shane Claiborne writes, “What had lasting significance were not the miracles [of Jesus] but Jesus’ love. Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead, and a few years later, Lazarus died again. Jesus healed the sick, but they eventually caught some other disease. He fed the thousands, and the next day they were hungry again. But we remember His love. It wasn’t that Jesus healed a leper but that He touched a leper, because no one touched lepers.”  This wondrous Jesus entered into the pain, the shame, the messiness of humanity and He loved.  He’s been teaching me why this is so dear to His heart. 

But before I proceed, I want you to know that I’m preaching to myself here as well; let me tell you about the lowest point of my journey, which was about a week ago.  Hair sopping wet with insecticide, eyes burning beneath chemical and mascara, head contortioned under the sink that shot water across my tear-stained face, I barely withheld exclamatory words as my Syrian roommate Rabia sweetly prayed over me, holding back my hair and gently singing songs of Jesus’ faithfulness.

The seams that held the former capacity of my heart tore against the pressure of the revolt occurring within.  I wept with abandon.  I cried for my selfishness. I cried for the strenuous measures that are required to exterminate head lice.  I cried for the kids who live like this on a daily basis, who don’t have healthy homes or parents.  I cried for their need and for my wealth.  I cried for the girls who rang the doorbell wanting to see me but couldn’t, yet left a precious picture for me that they spent hours creating.  I cried for the ones who catapult themselves into my arms when I walk into a room.  I cried for the goodbyes I have to say. I cried for the dirty feeling of bites on my neck and scalp. I cried for how pathetic I felt because I would rather my hair smell like vanilla. Cried for empty ones. Cried for the ones who don’t know their dads. Cried for the moms who are drug-addicted and prostitutes. Cried for the ones who simply wanted to remain in my embrace but couldn’t do so without giving me head lice. Cried that I couldn’t lovingly wash all of their heads clean and give them popsicles and let them know that everything will be okay. Cried. 

Seeking the lost isn’t always joy-giving, but Jesus is.  “Christ in you, the hope of glory (Col. 1:27).”  Joy Himself chooses to live in us, and we are commissioned to arise and shine into the darkness.  I quickly learned that worshiping Him in the midst of such brokenness is the only way we will transform this world.  Right before I caught head lice from one of the kids last week, I caught an upper respiratory infection and fever, which caused me to miss a staff meeting. The staff ended up coming into our apartment to pray over me and give me communion, because we always take communion together.  “Jesu Leben für dich gebrochen; Jesu Blut für dich vergossen.”  Jesus’ life for me broken, Jesus’ blood for me shed. He was broken so not a thing in me has to be broken. His blood for my newness.  My hope. My life. He sought me out in my mess, my brokenness, and made me into a new creation.  And at the end of every day, despite everything I see and experience and feel, nothing can come against the freedom I have from shame and brokenness.  And in the midst of so much that might typically frustrate me, I found such joy in realizing that absolutely nothing could separate me from the love of God. I could be separated from my friends and home and comforts and culture, but the love of God and His presence for me endures.  He is sovereign. He is for me. And that is the most beautiful treasure of all---which we are honored to share and impart to others.  The Father’s heart.

I’m not the girl I was when I landed in Hanover alone two months ago, sitting in the backseat of a Turkish man’s cab, feeling so utterly alone and unsure.  It’s no longer about moving the fickle hearts of others.  Placed in the wilderness where I’ve learned to lean on God, I’ve learned that in my frailty and dependence in Him, I’m stronger in that position, taking everything to Him in prayer.  Every movement of my heart.  He cares. He’s ever present.  And it’s in those times that the culture of heaven invades our hearts and lives with resources that actually make a powerful and lasting impact that mere persuasion can’t achieve.   As Danny Silk wrote in Culture of Honor, “The reason we must leave our comfort zone is that we must have nothing but God to fall back on if we are going to tap into the wealth of heaven.”

Because real love braves the mess and speaks order to chaos and life to death. Joy to mourning and beauty to ashes.  Jesus came to seek and save the lost.  May our desires and the company we keep be the same.  So we hold them, we cry with them, we share in their pain, and we sing them the song of a love unfading. Hope has arisen; He is here. 

Let our words and lives be the fruit of hearts that love, trust and adore Him.

“Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate.  Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach.  For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come…” Heb. 13:12-14

"But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd.  Then He said to His disciples, 'The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few.  Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into His harvest." Matthew 9:36-39