Redemption

I just got back from a week long immersion trip to Newark, New Jersey with an awesome team of Hope students.  It went above, beyond, and deeper than any expectations that I had.  It was a LOT to process, and I'm still working through a lot of it.  Even in 24 hours back, there are things that were a lot easier to believe when I was blissfully hundreds of miles away from my real life.  This is where the challenge starts, the rubber hits the road, however you want to say it.  Will this really matter to my real life?  I say yes, but it won't be easy.  Lord give me the strength.

I think the hardest and most beautiful parts of the experience are often one in the same.  The most heart-breaking things for me were hearing other's stories, but almost all of these stories have another theme: redemption.
-The woman who will never see her children again.  This is a hard one to see a light in right now.  The woman is receiving love and care from the church community.  There are no words.  But there is hope.  There is always hope.
-Those who have lost things they valued at the sin of another.  In brokenness I see beauty and strength.  In pain I see resilience and recovery.  I see hope, forgiveness, redemption.
-A GIRL who has had MULTIPLE miscarriages before completing the eighth grade.  Though this situation is still very dark, the fact that she managed to graduate eighth grade is a huge achievement.  Lord intervene.  Redeem the evil that has been done to her.
-One of the church caretakers has a past including gang life, prison time, murder, and extensive drug use among other things.  But his smile lights up his face.  He proclaims Christ as Lord.  He has been redeemed.
-What used to be the second most dangerous housing project in the country is now abandoned in Newark.  We learned about the design flaws and system failures that caused the place to become so dangerous, and to be called irredeemable.  But now no one has to live there, and mixed income housing is going up only a block away.  Whether this concept will have the desired effects is yet to be seen, but there is hope.
-This last one is probably my favorite story to tell.  There was a woman, Kimberly, who came to the feeding ministry in the mornings two of the days that we were there.  She is in a wheelchair and because of a variety of medical conditions she is in extreme pain.  The healthcare system has failed her.  By the world's standard, she has every reason to hate her life.  However, she talked and smiled with us.  As I was coming out of the bathroom at one point, my teammate Anna was trying to wheel her in to wash her hands, but the chair wouldn't maneuver through the door.  We didn't really think about what we did, it just made sense at the time.  To God be the glory.  We got bowls of water for her hands to soak.  Anna washed, massage, lotioned her hands and clipped her nails.  It was the simplest act of a servant's heart love.  Another teammate prayed for her.  We gave her the closest thing we could to a manicure there in the church lobby with what we had lying around.  Not something any of us woke up expecting to do that day.  I give God ALL the glory.  Hebrews 13:1-2 says "Keep on loving each other as brothers.  Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by doing so some of you have entertained angels without knowing it."  I firmly believed that I was blessed to entertain an angel that day.  I am giving myself no credit, it was I who was blessed by her quiet spirit and joy amidst suffering.  One day, her pain will be redeemed.  I could write for days, but I'll close with some words from a favorite psalm, especially well loved when set to music here at home sweet Hope:

"Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.  He who goes out weeping carrying seeds to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him." -Psalm 126:5-6.

We hold to this hope, this promise of sweet redemption in Christ.