I wrote this a while back as I reflected on my time in Africa. It is not your “typical” “missionary” “report” with a call to “go to all the Nations”, but it is a collection of thoughts and insights, I have struggled with and am continuing to struggle with as I try to live a life of a follower of Jesus. I have incorporated several quotes from Henri J. Nouwen’s book The Wounded Healer through many of my thoughts.
I do not even know where to begin as I reflect on my last month, more or less the last ten months in Africa. I have opened myself up to so much. I have had so much joy, yet so much pain. Triumphs and struggles have gone hand in hand with new friendships and broken relationships. I have loved. I have lost. I have learned. I have overcome. I am a broken and wounded vessel who has been used, and yet still gave my heart to truly being with others. I have felt more deeply then ever felt before; it has been exceptionally rewarding. Opening yourself up to feeling deep, to loving hard, and to learning comes with much potential risk and also the potential for much reward. “On the other hand it also is becoming obvious that those who avoid the painful encounter with the unseen are doomed to live a supercilious, boring and superficial life.” (pg. 37) I have allowed myself to experience the painful encounters and relate all too well with this quote: “It is a painful fact indeed to realize how poorly prepared most Christian leaders prove to be when they are invited to be spiritual leaders in the true sense.” (pg 37) Yet while there has been much pain and I do not feel I have always proven myself as a even good spiritual leader, I must not, I can not ignore my/our basic task of leading other people out of a state of confusion into a state of hope and love in Christ. This is essentially our basic call. Thus I/we must take the courage be an explorer of new territories or new lands where pain and hurt lie but hope can prevail. I have been an explorer on an exploration for the last ten months.
As an explorer I / we are called to be in the midst of people while showing compassion, grace, love.
“The compassionate man stands in the midst of his people but does not get caught in the conformist forces of the peer group, because through his compassion he is able to avoid the distance of pity as well as the exclusiveness of sympathy. Compassion is born when we discover in the center of our own existence not only that God is God and man is man, but also that our neighbor is really our fellow man. Through compassion it is possible to recognize that the craving for love that men feel resided also in our own hearts, that the cruelty that the world knows all to well is also rooted in our own impulses. Through compassion we also sense our hope for forgiveness in our friends’ eyes and our hatred in their bitter mouths. ” (pg 41)
Through this type of compassion we bring ourselves to the level of others because we realize that we are all just the same. We are all human with the capability to have bitter mouths and cynical spirits. Yet we (I), whom are followers of Christ, are also given the ability, the power, and the hope to truly relating to others through solidarity, grace, compassion, and love. This solidarity, grace, compassion, and love will open ourselves up to the world of hurt, pain, and suffering; but we, through Christ, can rise to redemption, healing, and health as wounded fighters! As Christians, we are not asked to nervously go around trying to put people on the “right track”.
"For we are redeemed once and for all. The Christian leader is called to help others affirm this great news, and to make visible in the daily events the fact that behind the dirty curtain of our painful symptoms there is a something great to be seen: the face of Him in whose image we are shaped.” (pg 44)
As we break this cycle (of living behind the dirty curtain and living in our pain and hurt and suffering), we are able to see new and creative avenues of life. All of a sudden, we have the hope and ability to dream! And we, as mere humans, desiring to be used as vessels of the Lord’s great redemption and love, PRAY, PRAY that we will be able to give others clarification in the midst of confusion, compassion to see the wide world of humanity, and the ability to be creative as we live and work in this broken soon to be redeemed world.
Let us pray.
