Part 5 of Finding Home - Why do we do anything?

     I think it's important to note what I meant when I entitled this series, "Finding Home." See, there's really no place on this earth that will ever satisfy our cravings for our True Home, where we really belong. Try as Satan might to make me comfortable in this world, I pray that I am always available to the Lord to do what He wants with me, where He wants, and when He wants. I can so easily make my own imaginations about how things should be. As a planner, I just love to plan. So while I found the Dominican Republic to be a kind of home, it won't ever be my Real Home. Heaven, and Heaven only, is where I shall find eternal satisfaction and everything will be forever perfect.

     Meanwhile, here on earth, we do things imperfectly. We try to climb and we stumble. Even when we're doing the "work of the Lord" we can make terrible mistakes and be very sloppy. Was every moment of that week filled with trust? No. Was I a perfect sinless saint for that brief week? Not at all. Doing what I did didn't and doesn't make me better than anyone else. I'm not a super-Christian. And when I boil down what "I did", this is all I get: I let God strengthen me, and I let God love through me. God was my strength, God was my love. Everything I did, ended up being nothing of my own, but only what God had done. I just want to make sure it's clear that I'm broken and God is beautiful.

     These verses really sum up how I feel about this:

"Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me His own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Phil. 3:12-14

We can all do that. You don't need to go on a missions trip to press on towards the goal. 

With that said, I want to tell you about the happiest and best day of my life. 

No, I didn't get married. 

     It was the morning of our last full day in the D.R. and I wrote in my journal, "I wonder what the Lord will do today!?" Little did I know what He had in store. The plan was that I'd be going with the medical team, helping out in the pharmacy, maybe do a little interpreting for my mom. We had no clue how many people would show up, what the batey would be like, or whether or not there would be toilets. Upon arrival though, it was clear that it was definitely a much better batey than many around. Relatively clean (which is rare for the D.R.) and filled with a rather Christian spirit in the air, it looked like a really nice location.

      I was working in the pharmacy and there were a bunch of little boys pressing their faces up to the window and talking to me. "Amiga! Amiga!" They called for me. They asked for the pills that I was counting, but I told them that they couldn't have them, they'd make them sick. Then they asked for tooth brushes. The more I talked with them, the more I just wanted to go out there and love them. My Mom called me from her parasite medicine station. She wanted me to talk with a little ten-year old girl named Mary. I began asking her some question and asked if she'd want to listen to me read her a book. For some reason, I had stuffed all the Spanish books that I had brought with me in my bag that morning and brought them to the batey. I began to read, and a crowd of boys and girls became quiet and huddled around me. Then I taught them some English words using the pictures to help. They seemed quite interested.

      As the day progressed, I became fast friends with these children. But two girls in particular.

Rosemarie and Mireyah.

     We were immediately best friends, and God gave me the grace to be able to communicate with them and understand what they were saying. I wish that I could capture in words what those girls did to me, but I struggle to communicate what can only be felt in the depth of one's heart. All I know is that I have never loved like I loved that day.

     Again and again, I just marvel that God gave me the opportunity to love those children. Me, of all people, assuredly the most undeserving! Why would He let me love them so passionately? Well, I got to the end of the day, and realized that all along I hadn't been the one loving them. Christ had given me the love, and that's why it was so amazing; because though human love fails, His love never does.

     So when I ask myself, "What did God teach me through that experience?" I find that the answer is something like this:  If I, a fallen and imperfect human, can be so filled with love and longing for these children, how much more so does God passionately feel for His children, long for His beloved to return Home, and yearn for them to love Him?

     Even my love will fade, but His is stronger than the grave. The love that filled me that day almost made me explode. How can I presume to fathom how much God loves me, you, and everyone else?

     I believe He allowed me to love those kids to give me a little glimpse of how He loves the world. And if He loves His creations, His children, with such a passion, then how can we, His chosen, not go and tell them that it is so? Or in other words: God loves the world. We need to tell them. If we know this to be true, why do we keep it inside? 

  

So what's the reason for any of this? Why serve, why give, why love? 

Because God loves.

God loves. 

God loves. 

That's why. 

     I had let Mireyah and Rosemarie draw in my notebook. Looking back through it, I see the answer was there all along, written by Mireyah next to the house and beneath the flowers:

Dios Te Ama. God loves you.

   I had told them that God loves them, but had I told myself? God loves me. Have you told yourself recently?

     I know I'll fail and I know I'll sin, but God will continue to love me. So I'll seek to do His will, go where He wants me to go, love whom He calls me to love, and all because God loves me.