in my church at home, we have this place in the back of the sanctuary that we call the "wailing wall." people are encouraged to write things that break their heart, as well as break God's heart, and post these on the wailing wall. we've been doing this for a very long time, and over time this wall has gotten to be completely covered with pieces of paper, pictures, money, newspaper articles....
today in church we had sort of a relfection service where we took these things off of the wailing wall, read them to the congregation, and then placed these at the foot of the cross standing at the front of the room. this was an extremely powerful service to me. to hear these things spoken out loud was, well, unexplainable. there was one in particlar that really struck me...the piece of paper urged people to pray for a young boy's family...this boy, 8 years old, in 3rd grade, took his own life.
what?
it breaks my heart that this young boy, hardly even starting his life, found that he had no hope...
at an age where you have all the hope in the world.
it was so bad that he took his own life.
what?
i read a note that said to pray for those children who are abandoned and neglected, that they would find hope. invisible children comes to mind....children who are affected by the sex trade comes to mind...
these things break my heart.
there was another note that stuck out to me.. it encouraged us to pray not only for those being abused, but those who were abusing. i think this is something that we often forget to pray for. we see those people suffering, those abused, neglected but we don't think to pray for those who are oppressing, abusing, neglecting, abandoning. God loves these people just as much as he loves those who are hurt. so should we.
my pastor used an illustration he heard from David Crowder...distinguishing justice from compassion..
picture you and some friends sitting by a river, enjoying a beautiful day and having a picnick. all of a sudden you see people, floating downstream, drowning. you jump in and pull those people to safety. after a while, you keep seeing more and more people floating down the river, drowning. you continue to attempt to rescue these people but after a while you decide that you need to go up stream to figure out how so many people are drowning and to stop whoever is making this happen.
this is the difference between justice and compassion. you have compassion on those who are drowning and you make those attempts to rescue them, but you also must act with justice and do something to stop the oppression.
i have such a hard time with this. reason being, i feel as though i am so small, so unimportant...how can i stop children from being sold into the sex trade? how can i rescue the homeless, feed the hungry...i'm only one person.
i think this is something that many struggle with. it's so intimidating.
how can i make the difference? how can i be the difference?
