Again, I find my heart a thousand miles away. Pulled in different directions. I close my eyes, and I see my brothers and sisters in Rwanda. Syria. Myanmar. Across the globe. I see their pleading eyes, the children reaching for my hand.
And I reach back ... only to find that my arms aren't long enough. I wake up and realize that I'm in America. Home of the free.
I try hard to live a normal life. When I lay in my bed at night, I really do try not to think of the children sleeping without a home or parents. When I walk the streets of my city, I try so hard not to look at the prosperity and feel brokenhearted for my friends that don't have anything at all to eat for dinner.
Yeah, I try. But I've been wrecked.
I let myself feel. I let myself care - deeply. I felt their pain, their loss, their hopelessness. And it wrecked me for life.
I've sat in refugees' homes and felt the facade of American life slipping from my grasp. I listened to the Rwandan genocide survivor's story and had no framework on which to place the information I was hearing. I talked with Syrians and Iraqis as they cried out their lives of pain and fear.
It hurts to have your whole worldview broken to pieces.
Sometimes as I try to sleep at night, my heart breaks for so many nations, so many tribes, that sleep won't come. I pray ... but words seem ridiculously inadequate.
I've been wrecked. My life has been scarred by feeling, by seeing, by caring.
I see the world differently. I realize my own fragileness, and as a result of that, I'm able to love deeply. I may only have three short seconds with this person, to shine hope into her life. I may only be able to tell my friends that I'm praying for them, as woefully inadequate as those words are in view of a massacre. But those little things are what makes a different in this world.
I can't change the world. But I can do what I can to make a difference.
I'm glad I've been wrecked. Because it forces me to live life wide-awake. Go ahead and let God wreck your life; don't hold back for fear. You won't regret one second of it.
And I reach back ... only to find that my arms aren't long enough. I wake up and realize that I'm in America. Home of the free.
I try hard to live a normal life. When I lay in my bed at night, I really do try not to think of the children sleeping without a home or parents. When I walk the streets of my city, I try so hard not to look at the prosperity and feel brokenhearted for my friends that don't have anything at all to eat for dinner.
Yeah, I try. But I've been wrecked.
I let myself feel. I let myself care - deeply. I felt their pain, their loss, their hopelessness. And it wrecked me for life.
I've sat in refugees' homes and felt the facade of American life slipping from my grasp. I listened to the Rwandan genocide survivor's story and had no framework on which to place the information I was hearing. I talked with Syrians and Iraqis as they cried out their lives of pain and fear.
It hurts to have your whole worldview broken to pieces.
Sometimes as I try to sleep at night, my heart breaks for so many nations, so many tribes, that sleep won't come. I pray ... but words seem ridiculously inadequate.
I've been wrecked. My life has been scarred by feeling, by seeing, by caring.
I see the world differently. I realize my own fragileness, and as a result of that, I'm able to love deeply. I may only have three short seconds with this person, to shine hope into her life. I may only be able to tell my friends that I'm praying for them, as woefully inadequate as those words are in view of a massacre. But those little things are what makes a different in this world.
I can't change the world. But I can do what I can to make a difference.
I'm glad I've been wrecked. Because it forces me to live life wide-awake. Go ahead and let God wreck your life; don't hold back for fear. You won't regret one second of it.
