Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day again.
This day was not what most of the western world thought it was.
It was war.
6:00 pm.
The sunset's afterglow is almost gone. The New Mexico wind picks up as I hunch my shoulders against the cold. My bag is full of books, and the weight aches. My feet are beginning to slow after 5 days of fast walking, yet a force from within pushes me forward to the next trailer. The dust, the trash, the chicken wire fence, the rotting porch all add the darkening gloom of the place. My hand, stained with dried blood from where the dry skin cracked open, resolutely reaches out to the door and knocks. I think of Jesus, knocking at the door of my heart and waiting eagerly for an answer, as I hear sounds of life inside the dingy trailer. Suddenly, the door opens and a red-headed, shirtless, tattooed man is standing there. My automatic canvasser kicks in and I begin cheerfully, and attempt to hand him a book. Pause. He stands there unmoving, "I'm not interested."
Hm. Now normally, when someone says that and they are shirtless, and the wind is blowing, and it's 30 -ish degrees outside, they usually will start to close the door and go back inside rather quickly.
This man didn't. His son piped up from beside him, "Oh, this is for me?!"
I smiled at the little red-head, but his father hushed him.
Maybe he was suspicious of who I was? I showed him the Bible Story books in the back of the cookbook.
Aha! His suspicions were correct. The man then went on to tell me just what he thought about people who believed in the Bible, and that I needed a little scientific knowledge to set me straight. I just looked him in the eye and listened.
If I had not been with Jesus, it would have hurt my feelings. But even though I couldn't find any brilliant words to answer him with, Jesus helped me to see the pain in his heart. Sure he was tough, careless and rude, but ah- his prison! He was just a poor, helpless person who didn't know what he was mocking so cynically.
But what got me was the longing desire in his young son. When he first saw the books, it was giddy hope, like a drop of rain diffusing into the parched earth. That was only time I actually looked at the son, but his body language in my peripheral view told me that he wanted Jesus. He wanted relief. He wanted peace. He wanted a Father. He wanted to know that everything was going to be ok.
And his father wouldn't let him near.
I couldn't give him assurance. I couldn't talk to him. I couldn't say anything to either of them, except with a smile to the father's comments, "Thank you for sharing with me. Have a good evening!"
The boy deflated as his father motioned me off the porch. His pleadings fell on deaf ears as his father told him to go away and find his sister.
I closed the gate quietly behind me and stepped forward, shaking off the rude words. The scene of misery was fixed in my memory, as I wondered,
What was happened there, to those people, at that house?
What else could I have done?
How will Jesus help them?
Did I try hard enough?
Did I ruin that boy's only opportunity to see Jesus because I didn't have anything to answer back?
Then, before I was even out of the yard, I begin to pray. I invited God's presence to that home, to work in that boy's life, in his sister's life, in the mother and father's lives, to break the power of the enemy over them and to win a victory there where I could not. What greater thing could I do?
Thus, the battle continues.
Even on Valentine's Day.
This day was not what most of the western world thought it was.
It was war.
6:00 pm.
The sunset's afterglow is almost gone. The New Mexico wind picks up as I hunch my shoulders against the cold. My bag is full of books, and the weight aches. My feet are beginning to slow after 5 days of fast walking, yet a force from within pushes me forward to the next trailer. The dust, the trash, the chicken wire fence, the rotting porch all add the darkening gloom of the place. My hand, stained with dried blood from where the dry skin cracked open, resolutely reaches out to the door and knocks. I think of Jesus, knocking at the door of my heart and waiting eagerly for an answer, as I hear sounds of life inside the dingy trailer. Suddenly, the door opens and a red-headed, shirtless, tattooed man is standing there. My automatic canvasser kicks in and I begin cheerfully, and attempt to hand him a book. Pause. He stands there unmoving, "I'm not interested."
Hm. Now normally, when someone says that and they are shirtless, and the wind is blowing, and it's 30 -ish degrees outside, they usually will start to close the door and go back inside rather quickly.
This man didn't. His son piped up from beside him, "Oh, this is for me?!"
I smiled at the little red-head, but his father hushed him.
Maybe he was suspicious of who I was? I showed him the Bible Story books in the back of the cookbook.
Aha! His suspicions were correct. The man then went on to tell me just what he thought about people who believed in the Bible, and that I needed a little scientific knowledge to set me straight. I just looked him in the eye and listened.
If I had not been with Jesus, it would have hurt my feelings. But even though I couldn't find any brilliant words to answer him with, Jesus helped me to see the pain in his heart. Sure he was tough, careless and rude, but ah- his prison! He was just a poor, helpless person who didn't know what he was mocking so cynically.
But what got me was the longing desire in his young son. When he first saw the books, it was giddy hope, like a drop of rain diffusing into the parched earth. That was only time I actually looked at the son, but his body language in my peripheral view told me that he wanted Jesus. He wanted relief. He wanted peace. He wanted a Father. He wanted to know that everything was going to be ok.
And his father wouldn't let him near.
I couldn't give him assurance. I couldn't talk to him. I couldn't say anything to either of them, except with a smile to the father's comments, "Thank you for sharing with me. Have a good evening!"
The boy deflated as his father motioned me off the porch. His pleadings fell on deaf ears as his father told him to go away and find his sister.
I closed the gate quietly behind me and stepped forward, shaking off the rude words. The scene of misery was fixed in my memory, as I wondered,
What was happened there, to those people, at that house?
What else could I have done?
How will Jesus help them?
Did I try hard enough?
Did I ruin that boy's only opportunity to see Jesus because I didn't have anything to answer back?
Then, before I was even out of the yard, I begin to pray. I invited God's presence to that home, to work in that boy's life, in his sister's life, in the mother and father's lives, to break the power of the enemy over them and to win a victory there where I could not. What greater thing could I do?
Thus, the battle continues.
Even on Valentine's Day.
Mm.. questions I ask myself a lot. I often wonder, when we look back on this life from the perspective of eternity, how many opportunities will we realise were there that we never took? How blind are we really?
ReplyDeleteI'm on the other side of the world, and its not Valentine's Day any more - but the battle rages here too.
But that's ok - there is Someone who is able to teach my hands to war. (Ps 144:1)