Homelessness and Lacrosse

Sometimes, I think that God has given me my passions just so that he can have a good laugh. This week, I took some time to step back and think about where God has really placed his heart in me. As I was thinking, three words flashed through my head: Inner City and Lacrosse.

This blog is a clear testament to the fact that I love working in the inner city. Sometimes, the people I work with are a little rough on the outside. Sometimes, they're rough on the inside too. I'm not always placed in the safest situations, but I'm o.k. with that. Psalm 91 reminds me I'm being watched over. I'm not always around people that look like me. And it's not uncommon to talk to someone who suffers from addiction, or broken relationships and to see that as much as I love them, they may never change.

BUT, I also meet people every day who are changing my life. I experience unconditional love in a way that I've never seen it before. I meet the victors who have lived through everything life has thrown at them, and I've heard their stories of triumph. I see the staff I'm working with push through exhaustion to continue to patiently love the teens we work with. And I see people who have nothing to offer share everything they have.

I can not deny that I am passionate for my job. I love it.

For anyone who does not know, this past semester I started a prayer ministry for the Men's Lacrosse team at Gordon, with help from their coach and one of my mentors. At times, the team was frustrating. I was irritated with some of their daily choices. Their attitudes got to me. I see so much potential in them.

BUT, just like with the homeless ministries, the good far outweighed the bad. I heard stories that only God could orchestrate from players of the team. As I prayed for them daily, I knew that there were 30 other girls on campus praying for at least one player every day. I saw the teams attitudes on the field begin to mirror the attitude of Christ. And I watched some of the team start to understand that they are leaders with influence on campus. Their coach played a large part in this, with the example that he set forth for his team. And as prayer was poured into the team, they began to follow their coaches example.

What am I getting at? Just like I can not deny that God has shared a little bit of his heart with me for the homeless, the poor, and the broken in the inner city, I can not deny that God has shared a little bit of his heart with me for the Lacrosse team at school. When I take the time to actually think through this, it BLOWS me away. These two groups of people could NOT be more different. But, I love them both the same. Both have hurt me, and both have taken me in and loved me. In turn, I have promised both of them that I will love them unconditionally, and I will never cease to pray for them.

This unconditional love is something that I know I can only have received from God. And it floors me that if he let me love both of them, he can only love them so much more than I can fathom. If he can love these two extremes through me, he must be able to love everyone inbetween with this same unconditional love. I don't know how he does it, and I don't want to know. I like that right now, I have the luxury of stepping back and being amazed by the extremes of his love. It puts a smile on my face, and it gives me the encouragement I need to keep walking in the middle of his love :)

My Beauty and the Beast Moment

The day before I came to Washington DC, I decided to watch Beauty and the Beast. It's a classic, and I hadn't watched it in years. I figured I was due for another viewing of this Disney fairytale. Not much has changed since the last time I watched this movie. I was just as fascinated, and I still sang along to all the words :)

When my Dad came home, I told him that Disney hit a home run with Beauty and the Beast. He patiently explained that he has been trying to tell me that for years. He also told me that when I was growing up, I reminded him of Belle. He said that it had to do with my obsession with reading, just like Belle. With friends, I always stayed a little bit on the 'outside' because, that's where I'm comfortable. My thoughts after that comment were, "If I'm Belle...then where's my beast?"

Yesterday, my group served at a ministry site called Thrive DC. Thrive typically feeds around 150 people breakfast every morning. My job to help them prepare for yesterday was to put the cherries, that are in the picture, into 150 bowls. Let me just say, these cherries were legit. They were fresh picked from a local farm and they had been donated to Thrive. They still had the leaves attached to some of their stems, and they were delicious. As people began to come up and take their cherries, I realized that I would not have wanted to serve these cherries to anyone else. Most of the people I was serving put the biggest smile on my face. They were warm, funny and engaging. They made me so happy, and could not thank us enough for the food they were being given for breakfast.

As I was putting the cherries together, I realized that I had found 'my beast.' In the movie, the beast is a bit cliche. When Belle begins to love on the Beast, his response is kindness. At first, he doesn't know how to treat her because he is unaccustomed to her attitude. But, as she perseveres, he responds by giving to her as well.

When my thoughts after I had watched the movie were, 'where's my beast?' I had been thinking about a boy. Yesterday, it was so cool to see that God had my 'beast' be a group of people that were better than a guy. The people that I encountered at Thrive did not always know how to react to our love. They sometimes responded with bitterness, or anger. But, as my group and I persevered, their attitudes slowly changed. They transformed from people that were homeless and bitter to a group of welcoming, and funny people. The only change was that instead of treating them rudely, we loved them. By the time a lot of them were leaving, they came over to our group and said that they hoped they would be seeing us again.

This whole experience was so exciting. I wouldn't have it any other way. I love the fact that for right now, the people that I get to love are the people who attend our ministry sites. They make my days worth it. I love them with an unconditional love that I can't explain, and I'm so glad that I have been lucky enough to be able to get to know them. They may seem to be 'my beast' at first, but the more time I spend with them, the more beautiful they become :)

I Miss My Mountain

This may seem a bit whiny...but bear with me :) Last week was tough. There's no need to be extensive on why, because I have already blogged about that. Let me share my biggest challenge this week.

My biggest challenge for this week is that it is easy. At least so far. Everything is going smoothly, and there have been no major issues, obstacles, or challenges and it's KILLING me! Last week was so challenging, but it was also filled with so much dependency. As the week became progressively more challenging, my need to depend on God became stronger at the same time. I reached a point last week where I had no choice but to turn to God to handle each day, because I was not going to be able to make it on my own. And the blessings, as well as the joy that came from that were more amazing than I could have ever expected. Living day by day having to trust God was the more uplifting experience. I spent everyday last week in awe that he not only brought me through last week, but helped me to come out victorious, so that I could in turn give the credit to him.

This week, it's a bit of a different story. Each day is going fine, to the point that I don't need God. This means that I do need to remember him. This week it has been easy to breeze through the days not having to give glory to him, because I'm not needing to turn to him at every moment. It's surprising to me that if I had a choice, I would love to change this week to bring me to that point of challenge so that I could regain that dependency. It's confusing to me, because it's not logical. All that I know is that, each day, I have had to remain very conscientious that I need to spend time with my God. When I do, it's well worth it.

It's amazing to me that I can start to understand why so many people in difficult experiences have such joy. I got a sampling of the joy that is experienced through dependency last week, and now that I'm not in that state, I miss it. I guess my new challenge is to see the joy that can be experienced in the mundane day to day, rather than the miracles that shine to glorify my God.