"Your Pain...
Not too long ago I heard a song by the Contemporary Christian artist Sarah Groves. She wrote it after a mission trip to Rwanda. The powerful video that accompanies the song can be found on YouTube (I Saw What I Saw).
I adopted the lyrics as a theme song and mantra for my life in the harvest fields. The pain of the people I encounter HAS changed me. I return to my home a different person than the one that left. This emotional growth is never more true than when I return from serving at the Wounded Warrior retreats.
I often share this particular area of service is the hardest thing I do in the course of the year. While the conditions are luxurious (held at a golf resort) compared to the other places I go (many times lacking hot water) the emotional toil is far greater.
I'm not sure if it is the age of the soldiers (many younger than my own children), the severity of their physical wounds (amputees, burn victims, and traumatic brain injuries), or the "collateral damage" I see on the faces of the spouses and children that makes it so very hard.
"I saw what I saw and I can't forget it; I heard what I heard and I can't go back...*"
I come back home each time (I have participated in eight such events) profoundly impacted truly knowing how great is the cost of our freedom. I voted in this election because I know men and women that paid a very huge price to give me the opportunity to do so. I read my Bible every day, because religious freedom is one of the cornerstones of our country. Many people I minister to will never have that luxury, out of poverty or threat of persecution.
"I know what I know and I can't deny it. Something on the road, cut me to the soul...*"
I am off again, to share the Gospel of freedom in India. Though you may shake your head at my travel schedule, or wonder about rest, and all the other things that take time in preparing for a trip overseas - don't. That "something on the road" is the burning passion to see nations turn to the Living God for their salvation and security. I do not take my freedom to do so lightly.
"Your courage asks me, what I'm afraid of, and what I know of love, and what I know of God.*"
This is what I know of God. He is the provision. He is the Father that runs down the road to meet the son returning home broken and filled with shame. He is the Father, that clothes the humiliated with a garment of righteousness. He is the Father, who leaves...
again and again,
to find the one sheep that is lost. I live to be more like Him.
"In this all-out match against sin, others have suffered far worse than you, to say nothing of what Jesus went through - all that bloodshed!" Hebrews 12:4-5 The Message
Changed by His pain
Always in His service,
*Sarah Groves - I Saw What I Saw
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