I visited an area of town they call "under the bridge" this week. Let me just say, I've lived here for going on 9 months now and have visited other 3rd world countries but this was one of the worst living conditions I've seen I think. These people basically live in a trash dump. It floods the senses and overwhelms the emotions as you take the little boat across the trash filled sewage then crawl under the bridge (where many people live) to reach the other side where all the shack-like houses are lined up along the banks of the sewage. " No one should have to live like this" is basically what is running through your head the whole time. I went to help out with a program they have every tuesday for kids and their moms to basically just have a time of singing and playing followed by a meal to hit all the basic food groups. Which is probably the only balanced meal they get all week.
I just have such a hard time wrestling with issues like these when I'm faced head on with it. It angers me, frustrates me but also makes me realize how small I am in the whole scheme of things. What can I do to help? It doesn't seem like I can do much, and for that reason, so many just choose not to do anything at all. Lately, I've just been feeling like I want to use my life to provide for the poor, needy and neglected. I want my life to be dedicated to battling poverty, oppression and social injustice. I'm physically sick and weary of just visiting every now and again, praying every so often and making the occasional donation but not really doing much else. I think it all begins with praying regularly against poverty and messes like this. Only after regularly coming before my Father about these things will I ever be in the right mindset to help with an unselfish motive. I don't want to help b/c it the "Angelina Jolie", cool thing to do to be involved in helping poor people. I want to help because LIFE MATTERS. Every life.
I was listening to Christmas music the other day because I love it and it encourages me...who cares if it's September. Anyway, O Holy Night is my absolute favorite Christmas song. I get goosebumps or tear up everytime I hear it and really listen to the lyrics and what they mean. But the line that says, "and in His name all oppresssion shall cease." Wow. That's what poverty is...oppression. God hates it, it's even more heartbreaking to Him than it will ever be to us. Spiritual and physical poverty both. He came and died to conquer that grotesqueness.
God, please break these chains. Show us how to practically use our lives to chisel away at these chains in your power. May we never "get used" to the poverty some of us see on a regular basis. Let it always make us uncomfortable enough to fight it and wrestle with our role in fighting it.
