reasons
So I have talked a lot about my adventures living in the bottoms and I just thought I would share the reason I moved there.
About two years ago while living with my parents, I began to do a ministry with Grove City Nazerene church. We would get in a church bus and drive to the bottoms to shelters and to the places where the homeless peeple live and pick them up and take them to church. I loved the people I met… they were so broken and raw and real. They were fighters. They inspired me and encouraged me and I wanted to know them more, but I was afraid.
Sundays I would get in my shiny red convertible “minister” to the people of the bottoms and then go back to my Dads house in the country and ride my horse and sit in the hottub and try to feel righteous.
But God was working on my heart. I wanted to understand these people. I wanted to love them. I was inspired by them, but to be honest I still thought they were lazy and criminals and hopeless. I didn’t get them.
And I didn’t really love them even though I said I did.
So I moved to the bottoms. It was hard. Really really hard. I remember one Sunday after I had moved there I sat in my car in the church parking lot and cried.
I would like to say I cried for the people and their struggles and their souls. But I didn’t. I cried for myself.
I cried for my flesh because to be honest my flesh hated the people. I even yelled at God and told him that the people were dirty and smelly and drunk and mean and rude and they just kept taking and taking.
I sat in the car and felt sorry for my self until some people from the bottoms came and asked me what was wrong, I just said I was having a hard day. You know what happened then? THEY told ME that I was loved. THEY asked ME if they could pray for me. And they reached out their “dirty smelly” hand and reached for mine
And I cried even harder.
Because I was ashamed. Because at that moment I was so very ugly and they were so very beautiful.
Because I was so concerned with the outside of the cup and I didn’t even look at the inside.
So I have learned to love the sinner and hate the sin. BECAUSE I AM THE SINNER. And these people aren’t hopeless and criminals.
They are lost and broken and hurting and they need JESUS in me. What ever you have done unto the least of these you have done unto me. Now I know what that means.
I try. I mean I love them as best as I know how. I reach out. I open my home. I invite them over. I don’t tell them they can’t cuss or smoke or drink around me. I tell them that I love them anyways because I know that God does too. I have gone to places I didnt want to go because that’s where they are. And if they don’t want to come to God maybe a little bit if God can come to them.
And its worth it. all the drama, the drive bys, the fights, the tears, the frustration. Its all worth it.
