Six years ago, I stood in a slum in Africa for the first time in my life.
I saw human suffering face-to-face. I stepped over raw sewage and followed armed bodyguards into hell. I shook with fear. I stood helplessly as gaunt little children pulled at my clothes and begged for food.
I shook my fist in the face of God with hot tears splashing the ground and I asked questions good Christians aren’t supposed to ask.
I doubted and I raged. I sobbed and I regretted.
I came home and before we started Mercy House, I wrote a raw, gut-wrenching story about what I had seen and how I felt about it for a large Christian women’s online site.
And it was rejected…
Along with these words: “Kristen, we love your heart, but the article you submitted is too honest, too messy. If you would like to edit your story so that it is encouraging and tidy, we would love to read it again.”
Every piece of the middle-class, comfortable Christian good girl I had been for the first 37 years of my life had been shattered.
I remember standing in front of the mirror wondering, “Who am I now?”
I don’t always fit neatly into this safe and sanctified Christian world.
I don’t know how to wrap grief and sorrow, disappointment and discouragement up with a pretty bow. I can’t edit what I’ve seen or erase the tragic stories I’ve heard.
So, I’ve stopped trying.
Because life isn’t always good…
Just in the last week, I’ve been reminded of that truth:
Maureen, my heart-daughter in Kenya, messaged me at 4 a.m. to tell me she would have to bury another immediate family member…the 4th one since I’ve known her.
A couple of friends lost jobs.
I’ve heard unthinkable stories of abuse towards oppressed women.
A non-profit leader from India stood in our Mercy House warehouse and told me how he had rescued a 5 year old rape and trafficking victim.
God doesn’t answer every prayer the way we want Him to.
He doesn’t move every mountain when we ask.
He doesn’t heal every sickness in the way we would like.
He doesn’t always part the waters for us to walk through.
He doesn’t answer every cry.
But that doesn’t change a thing. I will trust Him.
Because even when life isn’t good, God is.
He pressed his fingers into the sore of the leper. He felt the tears of the sinful woman who wept. He inclined his ear to the cry of the hungry. He wept at the death of a friend. He stopped his work to tend to the needs of a grieving mother. He doesn’t recoil, run, or retreat at the sight of pain. Just the opposite. He didn’t walk the earth in an insulated bubble or preach from an isolated, germfree, pain-free island. He took his own medicine. He played by his own rules. Trivial irritations of family life? Jesus felt them. Cruel accusations of jealous men? Jesus knew their sting. A seemingly senseless death? Just look at the cross. He exacts nothing from us that he did not experience himself.
Why? Because he is good.” -Max Lucado
It’s been six long and short years since I stood in that hellhole.
I’ve witnessed redemption in unlikely places.
I’ve seen miracles.
I’ve taken off my shoes on holy ground.
Maybe the hell you’re enduring today doesn’t stink like sewage in a slum, but it stinks nonetheless. Hold on, friends. God is near. He is in the middle of this hard, messy, unedited life. His ways don’t always make sense in our limited understanding, but we can trust the Way Maker.
Some days I still ask hard questions. I shake my fist and cry. I stopped searching for that pretty bow to tidy up all these broken pieces a long time ago.
But I know that even when life isn’t good, I can trust that He is.
Thank you for your bravery to speak honesty and truth even when you were encouraged not to. This life is messy, this life is full of ups and downs, this life is far from perfect, but if we ignore the darkness, how can we ever shine light there? Thank you for being real. It’s refreshing and needed more in this world!
thank you for your words…they mean the world to me. I love the honesty..because you’re right…the world isn’t a nice place. It IS hard….but God is sooo good and we just have to have the faith and patience to listen to HIM…and control the urge to respond ourselves….
I heard your testimony at Declare 2014 and I was undone. I thought maybe it was just the emotion of Declare. So much happened for me and to me at the conference. But your story, this ministry, will not leave me. I’ve spent a lifetime “fitting neatly into the safe and sanctified Christian world”. I look the part, speak the part, and have the seminary degrees to go with it. But God is undoing me. Again. I don’t know what He has in mind exactly but I’m weary of this season of playing it safe. I haven’t always but it sure felt good to “be safe” for a while and out of the church ministry fishbowl—until I realized what safe really meant. Thank you for being honest and messy. God has used you to change me.
Oh Kristen! How I pray that one day I will open and be real like you. That I won’t always be “neat and tidy!” That I will let God use me in a very real way! Every word is such encouragement!
Yes!!!!! Thank you for being open and honest with the things we all struggle with. It is amazing to witness the work of God through the “yes” of your family and be open to see what He would have me do in my small circle of influence. Your ministry is a blessing! Praying for you as you continue to trust through the difficult times.
I read your post tonight and sobbed. I love your heart and your commitment to being messy and honest. You inspired me to write a blog post tonight as well. Hope you don’t mind, but I linked up to this post on my blog.
This is such a beautiful reminder that while God is in this world, this is not His world. The Kingdom of God is beyond this place, a beautiful reminder that He is in complete control of all things, and we need to rely not on our own understanding, but His beautiful, complete plan.
Thank you!