Love Recklessly

Somewhere over the US, between Georgia and Ohio, as we were closing in on home in the waning hours on a Tuesday, I woke up with a start and had a moment of unfocused clarity. “What in the world are we doing? How did life end up like this?”

 A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. This past year we have covered thousands and thousands of miles, one step at a time, some have been big steps and some little steps, some fast, some frustratingly, agonizingly slow.  It brought mountains and impossibilities, and tears and fears, but also answered prayers, and hope lost and hope renewed, and on this night, the realization, unlike ever before, of the viciousness of the double-edged sword of love.

In the middle of this night though, my heart was aching for a goodbye that I had to say on this day, aching for the kiddos whom hope has escaped. The children who will never know family like they deserve. The ones who are prickly and full of pain that I will never fully understand, no matter how hard I try.

I know I have said it before, but because it smacked me in the face again on this trip, I am reminded of how terrifying hope is. What happens when what you have hoped for doesn’t happen? What happens when what you have prayed for, desperately, isn’t answered? What happens when the secret longings of your heart fade, unmet? How long before it changes you? How long before you give up on it and walk away?

The “before” stories of Casa Bernabe’s children are completely unique. Each is but one child waiting on a family. For some it has been years that they have carried the weight of “why not me?” The burden of unspoken despair that fills hope’s absence. On this night, these burdened were the ones my heart was hurting for. Suspended above the earth, shoulder to shoulder with a stranger, these were the feelings I was trying to sort through.

In all of the redemption that I have seen in some of their stories, I also find myself with a front row seat to a world of destruction and brokenness. This world is very different from mine and not only unfamiliar, but uncomfortable. These things, combined with having to watch the ones I have come to love, endure the consequences of such a world can be terrifying and heartbreaking at times. Their failures, their screw-ups, their missteps, the times when they literally blow it all to pieces, they leave me wishing I could do more.

On nights like this, this life cuts my faith to the quick. And as I said goodbye to one sweet, hurting soul today, I tried to encourage him that there is always hope, even as he protested in disagreement and disbelief. I slipped off my esperanza (hope) bracelet that I have worn for years, urging him to put it on and be reminded that God is able to redeem any situation. I have to believe it because if I don’t, where does it leave me? How do we continue to push forward without hope when it all seems so exhausting?

It is so hard to keep hope alive during the waiting. For these kids, they are stuck in an endless, heartbreaking, wait. Waiting to be reunited with their family. Identity. Longing to be chosen by a family. Belonging.

Pick me. Choose me. Love me

How did I get here? Holding my breath, waiting on the exhale of the happy ending, waiting on it all to be ok. And if it’s not, well, we still continue to travel this road. I will love on as many of these kids as God will allow, whatever that looks like, for however long I have.

“Even though I realize I cannot always mend or meet, I can ENTER IN. I can enter in to someone’s pain and sit with them and know. This is Jesus. Not that He apologizes for the hard and the hurt, but that He enters in, He comes with us to the hard places. And so I continue to enter.” Katie Davis

I love what Katie Davis says there, “Not that He apologizes for the hard and the hurt but that He enters in.” We can’t always fix it. We can’t always erase it. But we can show up and maybe ease it, even for just a bit. We can sit. We can cry. We can pray. We can enter in. This is love in action. 

Yesterday we talked about Dreaming Wildly and Praying Bigger. I don’t know how we can do any of that without also loving. Not a fairytale, happily ever after love story, but a broken one. This is a type of love that will hurt, it’s a type of love that will take you out of your comfort zone and it’s also a type of love that will change change you. It’s reckless. Jason Johnson puts it best when he says, “You can’t open your heart to the vulnerable and defenseless and not be transformed by them. You can never unsee what you now see, unknow what you now know, unhear what you now hear, or unfeel what you now feel.”

I’m not sure that we treat the great command like it’s the greatest commandment. I have the conviction that if love isn’t easy, we don’t give it. Often, we only offer our love when it doesn’t require much effort. We love our families, our hobbies, and we love donuts. We love the things that are easy, but this world needs people who love in face of disagreement, rejection, and even hatred. The world needs people to love when it’s hard. I wonder what would happen if we had an out-of-control type of love—one without conditions, fears, barriers, qualifiers, or protectors. What if we loved when it wasn’t easy or convenient? What if we loved God and others recklessly?

We’ve all had moments where we could have extended and given our love away, but instead we chose to do nothing. Doing nothing is the silent killer of the gospel. It’s sort of like boiling our faith down to reducing sin—we can easily think that not doing certain things makes us good and holy…but it’s the opposite! It’s doing something that makes us faithful followers of Jesus! 

In the parable known as The Good Samaritan Jesus paints a picture of what it means to love recklessly. The Samaritan didn’t only see the need, but he chose to do something! The story compares the Samaritan’s actions to a Priest and a Levite, who chose to do nothing. It’s interesting that these two people were “religious” people who claimed to love God, yet they avoided the messy, hard situation. How many of us do this in life? We love when it’s easy, we are good people but seem to go neutral when reckless love is required. 

The danger for most of us is not that we’ll become bad people who don’t care about things that matter. No, the danger is that we’ll become good people who don’t do anything that matters! Within you lies a person who desires to love. God’s Spirit is pulling you and inviting you to become more of that person. The Spirit never guilt's you, shames you, or bullies you to become loving.

He compels you!

The world, these kids, they need you to love.