154,080 Minutes: Broken

What a shattered, tortured world we live in. Inside our souls we know this planet isn't the way it was supposed to be. Our hearts either cry out in agony for our pain and the pain of others or they harden to the suffering around and in us.

How can we talk about the pain, the death? What hope is there?

A couple weeks ago, I caught a glimpse of an elder women on the side of the road. She reached out in front of her and drug her lower body through the dirt. I don't think she had legs. The bus quickly passed her little form, obscuring my sight of her in the dust.

Had she always lived like this? Why did no one help her?

A month ago, I walked by a crippled man at the bus station. His clothes wrapped him in torn bits. His face strained with each movement. My Christian music floated into my ears through my earphones as I watched him drag his atrophied legs across the cement. No one seemed to notice.

What life had he lived? Did he ever experience joy?

About a month and half ago, the students and I worked to clean the school's campus. After cutting large amounts of grass and brush with dull machetes, I brought my room's trash to the fire outside the campus gates to be burned. A woman appeared. I didn't see where she had come from. Her clothes were dingy and her hair frayed. She gave me an embarrassed smiled and then called over her shoulder. A young boy joined her and they started to go through the trash I had brought. I didn't know what to do. The boy smiled at me as I turned to leave.

What brought them to this place? Why did they need to go through the trash to survive?

Several months ago I traveled six or more hours by bus to the state of Andhra Pradesh. We came to visit a HIV hospital run by a pair of amazing people, Emery and Usha Reese. There I had the opportunity to participate in a youth program put on for a 140 HIV positive children. I played with them. I laughed with them. It broke my heart.

Everyone of these beautiful children are HIV positive.

Three of the children stand out in my memory. One was a boy of about ten or eleven. He wore his best clothes, jeans and a blue button up shirt. He left the regular program several times, coughing terribly. Usha told me his body had succumbed to HIV and reached AIDS stages. His immune system had shut down and he had contracted TB.

Another was a beautiful little girl. She smiled all of the time and ran with delight. She posed for Usha's camera like a model. She played the games with great strategy and enthusiasm. Usha told me that her parents were dead. Her mother had died last year from HIV. How long the little girl had to live herself, no one knows. I never would have known that she suffered from the appalling disease unless Usha had told me.

The last was a sickly, little girl of about eight. She didn't play much, if at all. A frown lay across her face every time I saw her. Her dark hair lay thin and short across her little head. A bandage wrapped most of one of her skinny, little arms. Her entire body displayed frailty. I never talked to her and I don't think she ever paid attention to the white guy who's heart broke for her.

None of these children had chosen to have this disease. Why them? Why not me?

There is much more pain in the world. You don't have to go to India or Africa to see it. Many might ask, "Where is God? Where is this loving God your little book speaks about? I don't see Him helping those HIV positive children." My answer, "I do. I see God loving them in their brokenness as he has loved me in mine."

At first, I asked God why he would love me. Why would he love me when these children died, these elders lay crippled, and these people hungered? His answer? He'll always love me.

Did you know Jesus calls all into his loving arms? I feel like a lot of people who call themselves Christians have forgotten this. I have many times.

The church... to us it means an institute. It means a building, a organization. But this is not meaning of ekklesia. Ekklesia is the Greek word predominately translated as "church" in the bible. It means a gathering of people and has zero to do with a building.

Jesus called his church, his people, to reach into the dark places. He called us to love no matter what. He never called us to defend our egos. He didn't tell us to fight for our faith's validity in a skeptical culture. He said love.

Jesus loved. He loves. His plan was and is for his church to love.

I think I would die without Christ's love in my life. I am a broken man. In many ways I have only become more broke since coming to India. All of the confusing emotions inside of me, all of the pain I see, and all the love I've been shown has broken me.

Nevertheless, Christ has shown me how deep his love is for me in my brokenness. I am loved and I want to show God's love to others. Jesus' love is great and the only source of peace in this screwed up world.

I don't understand sometimes.  Why don't people see Jesus' love? It isn't Jesus' fault. He loved and loves perfectly. Deep down I know one of the main reason people don't know his love. It is Christians. Many Christians themselves have been a barrier in between the truth of God's love and the world. The fact fills me with sorrow.

I am sincerely sorry for the ministers who abuse, the missionaries throughout the ages who murdered to force conversion, the crusaders who fought and raped in the name of Christ, the televangelists who manipulate for monetary gain, and the Christians who shower condemnation on the "sinners" around them. I am sorry that they didn't show Jesus' love. 

I am sorry for my own pride. For so long, I have thought myself better than others because of my works, my upbringing, my intellect and my status. What a lie this is. I am sorry that I didn't love perfectly. I'm not very good at it.

I and many others have faltered to show the true love of Christ for two millennia. But Jesus loves perfectly. He loves you equally as he loves me, and neither of us can begin to imagine the depth of that love.

This world is a terrible, pain-warped place. There is death all around us. Even the physically healthy are dying. There is no time to live for ourselves because we will only disappoint ourselves. I want to live for Christ and to show his love to the broken (including myself).

Don't rely people to solve the problems of the world. The world is broken. The people are broken. I am broken. God alone is not broken. In Him alone can we find rest from the physical, spiritual, and emotional torture of this world.  

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." ~ Jesus (Matt 11:28-30)