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| I came in to work this morning and wondered why my office seemed so different...but i ignored it and started preparing some files for the day. It took me about 5 minutes to realize I was sitting in the dark with the lights off  . I think its time for a vacation...
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| its been a while since i used this... its been a long, long season of darkness, loneliness, and pain. There've been breaks in the storm clouds along the way, when i can see the bigger picture a little more clearly, no doubt. But for the most part, i've struggled deeply with hopelessness and bitterness... starting when i started my calling to work with the homeless.
God gave me an insatiable heart for the poor and homeless and i kno its not my own, but a supernatural love for them because its so deeply profound. The death, destruction, drugs, poverty, and daily struggles of these people just pull and pull at my heartstrings because they are His wonderfully beautiful, cherished children... the ones forgotten and brushed aside by society, the ones with hearts softer than any we would know... hidden behind stone walls of pain and hurt. I should be so grateful that God has shared this part of His heart with me and has called me to these amazing people.
But seeing the corruption and apathy of the ones in power and the vicious cycles of oppression that these people face is enough to make anyone wanna give up. And this type of work i've found to be so lonely, frustrating, and entirely exhausting. There is so much work to be done, so many people that need help, so much love that needs to be given. Yet i have nothing to give... my cup is dry. When I look back, I really had nothing to give in the first place- it is only God through me that I was able to love at all.
But somehow the disconnect between wat i see and experience everyday versus wat the church's focus on ministries or "holiness" seems to be concerned with is so vast and seemingly irreconcilable. My own life flooded with hopelessness and a profoundly haunting feeling of abandonment and alone-ness, enough to make me lose almost all the faith i had. I questioned if God existed, if He was really good or not... if His promises were just empty lines for the most naive to cling to... I felt (and still do feel) abandoned by Him and not heard. I felt alone and uncared for by people around me. I stopped praying. For a while, I stopped believing in God's goodness and i grew silently bitter about how i so foolishly jumped into serving this God who perhaps didnt even exist.
Yet I've been encouraged time after time- how quickly i lose courage and hope! I am so grateful that in this time with the economy, I still have a job and a paycheck that comes every 2 weeks. I am honored that God has given me this calling for this part of His heart. But i find myself so deeply disappointed, so exhausted, so tired of it all.
I talked to one of my favorite profs while i was at seminary... and shared my struggles with him. My email correspondence with him has utterly changed my perspective on my calling, on wat i do, on God, and on the church. I'm still not 100% all right with God, nor with His church. But he suggested i read Mother Theresa's book of her struggles with her faith, with God, and with her calling to the poor and homeless in the slums (not that Im comparing or even suggesting ive been in her footsteps)... and it has encouraged me in incredibly powerful ways.
Im still trying to hold on to wat little faith I have, if any...definitely infinitely smaller than a mustard seed...but even if the waves of abandonment, loneliness, and emptiness still overwhelm me, may they not overcome me...
TIME magazine article on Mother Theresa
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1655415,00.html
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| its been almost a month since i started work... things are starting to settle down and I'm picking up on the good and bad of being at this place. I love the work that we do, I love the people who come in and my heart breaks a lot for the ones that really need help. I've seen people get really blessed by the services that we provide for them. We serve people are looked down upon, homeless people whom everyone else wouldn't even glance at, people drowning in the drugs that they abuse, others just out of prison, some homeless veterans, many with mental health problems, many struggling with HIV/AIDS.... and i've learned that its not always the big things that bless people as much as something as little as a warm smile...
And these things don't really define any one of these people... I really wanted to serve the homeless/poor and HIV/AIDs populations... but in reality, its just serving people- there's nothing different about them - they're no different than any other human being, despite what they've been labeled by our society.
its been a month of building relationships (both with the people we serve and with my co-workers) and tryin to be faithful where God has called me for this season. I think the "honeymoon" stage is over.... all too quickly. This week was an especially tough one... two homeless guys of ours were found fatally stabbed in abandoned houses and one other was confirmed to have been murdered by 3 drug dealers. The police came twice in a row, hunting down a guy who's a regular at the soup kitchen who's wanted for a felony and then for a mentally retarded homeless Vietnam vet who was beaten by a gang.
I really enjoy working with the staff, the two other counselors and the custodial staff- they're awesome and really cool. But I've been rudely awakened to the corruption of the "higher" staff- and I wont get into detail here, but it disgusted me... so much so that I almost quit this week- I haven't been that angry in a long time... 3-4 weeks in and they're asking me to help them do certain things- my ethics really got put to the test this week and I'm still trying to figure out what the right thing to do is....
But I know that this is where I belong for this season and I'm tryin to be faithful to where ive been called, until He tells me where to go next. | | |
| My little baby is already 4 years old...1 more year until he's an adult horse =P. Training's been going well except for the occasional bad day- ive been working teaching him to jump and to yield to more leg commands, but he's still his spunky, goofy, sometimes nutty self. He's been bucking and taking off less, which is a good sign, but we still have a loooong ways to go... here's a pic of him in his field, he's following me with the camera and really wanted to eat it, or at least bite it. He's my lil monster, even though i guess he's not so little...
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| After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, I've finally been given a job... the Lord has proved faithful in providing, as usual, even though during the waiting, i felt as if i'd been forgotten in His plans... left to fend for myself and do things on my own. i realized during this time that i couldn't allow myself sit in His presence, whether it was because i felt unworthy or because i'd failed Him time and time again, or i was afraid of letting my heart be vulnerable, or because i just couldn't sit still long enough to hear Him and feel His embrace. And i realized how much i relied on my own strength to do things- but this time i couldn't do that for long... i literally had nothing to do, nothing to lean on as a crutch to my self-sufficiency. all i really had to do was come to the Father and be held by Him... such a hard thing to do when you're used to going around through life with an orphan mentality...
and all the times that ive been deeply disappointed was piling up on me until i couldn't take it any longer- i confronted God a few nights ago, angry because i was asking Him to use me, that I was saying to Him "Here am I, send me" and i wasnt being "sent" anywhere. Angry because i was so tired and weary of waiting, my financial situation was wearing on me, and i needed more medical care for my GI system but had no health insurance. And surely enough, the Lord spoke to me, asking why i was so disappointed, why i kept getting so deeply hurt... and i knew it was because i was hoping for things, rather than hoping in Him, and i was trusting in my own ability to provide for myself or even more, my own ability to serve Him.... which seemed near the end, to amount to nothing.
so now, i start a new chapter in my life with Manna House, Inc., a soup-kitchen/drop-in center (with emergency supplies such as showers, phones, underwear, hygeine products, clothes)/HIV clinic (for those who cannot afford treatment). I'll be serving in the soup kitchen as well as working to place homeless and poor people into permanent safe housing as well as HIV+ and mentally ill people access to healthcare and treatment. After this long waiting period, i now have a better understanding of things- the task seems daunting and i know this won't be easy... but i'm slowly learning to genuinely trust in Him and to trust that He is good- and to place my hope only in Him who does not disappoint. | | |
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