Monday 28 March 2011

A New Definition of Worth

So I have a beautiful friend, her name is Christine.



She is a marathon running doctor in training with a heart for the poor. This year she has had cancer. Maybe an excuse to take it easy for a while, curled up in a ball of self pity? Not C, She is probably the most inspiring person I know. In the middle of her chemo treatment at her most vulnerable Christine went to a birthday party. The party was for our friend Chrissy (keeping up?!) Chrissy is a woman that we met three years ago doing a soup run on the streets. Chrissy is a story in her own right, a woman with the most amazing heart yet she has been through more in her life time than I (and probably you) could imagine. She currently has diabetes and a liver condition brought on by her alcoholism which in recent years has led to her being frequently in and out of hospital. Last year she had to be shocked back into life after dying because of a drugs overdose. The party wasn't exactly the safest venue for a girl in her early twenties, but C stayed, even after a dealer showed up, scared but also convinced that she was meant to be a light in that place.

Today we visited Chrissy in hospital and I was overwhelmed with what I saw, she couldn't wait to introduce us to her friend Irene. Irene a beautiful lady of 80 is bed bound and childlike in her unawareness. Since being on the ward Chrissy has befriended her. Today she brought her a teddy bear just to see the expression on her face when she opened it. The love she showed this virtual stranger was incredible, she leaned in to give her a cuddle and a kiss, explaining that showing and receiving physical affection was Irenes favourite thing to do. Chrissy was the first to recognise the indescribable worth in someone like Irene who the world has deemed worthless.

We ended the visit with my just out of chemo friend comparing cannula scars with a woman so bashed around by life that her very aliveness is a miracle. There is something so beautiful in the way that Christine and Chrissy have dealt with their suffering and illness. Both have made a decision to love others, to trust in a God they can't see but could no more deny than they could the raging Sheffield wind.

I saw Jesus first hand today working in and through a drug addicted ex prostitute who he loves and values more than I'll ever be able to comprehend. And I was left with the distinct and terrifying feeling that this is what citizens of heaven should look like. Messy and unafraid or perhaps just unable to hide our brokenness. Known only by the earth shaking love we show for the vulnerable around us.

I firmly believe that God sees people very differently to us and I am praying that he will open my eyes too.

Saturday 19 March 2011

A Story Worth Telling

I've recently been re-reading Donald Millers ' A Million Miles in a Thousand Years' where Don as ever, writes beautifully about the truths of God and life. He's thinking about the idea of life as a story that each of us tells..

'If I have a hope, it's that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically, into the story, and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, enjoy your place in my story. The beauty of it means you matter, and you can create within it even as I have created you.

I've wondered though if one of the reasons we fail to acknowledge the brilliance of life is because we don't want the responsibility inherent in the acknowledgment, we don't want to be characters in a story because characters have to move and breathe and face conflict with courage.

I've noticed something. I've never walked out of a meaningless movie thinking all movies are meaningless... I wonder then if when people say life is meaningless what they really mean in their life is meaningless,'

p59

Today I realised that no one wants to read a story about someone who watches an episode of something and then checks facebook. So I took my story firmly in hand, put on my wellies, and went out into the almost spring. I made friends with the worlds nicest dog, chatted to a fellow walker and eventually found some solitude in a new spot which I think God had reserved just for today. An amazing view of where city turns abruptly into countryside, as if the builders got fed up and went home for tea. I looked at the setting sun until my eyes hurt and remembered what it feels like to be peaceful. Later I joined the team doing homeless outreach like i've been meaning to for months. It was not comfortable, I faced questions and conflict and I felt like my eyes were opened again to suffering. I think sometimes to live a better story I just need to get out of my own way and just get on with it.

the end.