My computer rebooted itself and my Microsoft Word recovered a document I didn’t realize I lost. It held just two lines: “When My Life Runs Purple. Thoughts on everything that is wrong with the world and how knowing that God loves me has to be enough...”
I sighed. It was the beginning of something I didn’t have time to expound on. But the words still rang true. Perhaps even truer... Even if to you they don’t seem to make a lot of sense...
A couple weeks ago, I had a new but dear friend over at my house for a few days. Our time together was a fantastic blend of relaxed, chill, “we happen to be reading a book in the same room” time and intentional “off to do something” time...which meant there was any degree of conversation ranging from silly laughter to deep theological discussion. Talking about big things as well as the little things was pretty natural. But when we went to watch a movie, I think we were both expecting something laid back. At least in terms of experience. That was until we picked out the movie “Precious” from my family’s DVD collection – one still in its plastic and neither of us had watched. It was...intense.
We were speechless for quite some time and then began discussing this based-on-a-true-story, so-real-and-yet-so-unlike-our-lives film that had us both in shambles. And then, after praying together for the lives we couldn’t save and the world we couldn’t fix for a time which seemed too short for the length we were on our knees, we began to paint. Taking wooden lizards and primary colors out of a craft-store kit, we declared “Art Therapy”. It was an adventure for sure our hands were covered in the attempts of our art. With minds busy, I wished my hands were as covered in humanity.
As I went to wash off the paint, hot water spilled across my blue and red stained hands and the water ran out a deep shade of purple. The pain of humanity was spilling from my soul into my sink. It was a reflection of all that was wrong in the world.
And everything is wrong with the world. If you haven’t seen the movie “Precious”...take several deep breaths and consider it. (It will give you an idea of why people are driven to drink. I wanted a bottle of something hard though I don’t drink at all). It alone will give several good pictures. There are hundreds of things to care about because there are hundreds of things wrong. Listing them one by one would exceed my longest blog. The list would go on and on and on...
Those were my thoughts: Everything is wrong. And it sucks. It sucks because I’m just one person. It sucks because I care but trying to decipher what and how to do something about it in relationship to where I’ve been gifted and graced in both passions and abilities are entirely different matters. It sucks because I feel like for how obvious hurt and pain and the absolute digression of morality and the dilapidated state of existence...too many people (I included) just stand to the side...especially those who claim Jesus and should be doing the most, be the most covered in the red, blues, and purple of humanity. The economic divide, the educational divide, the location divide, the religion divide, the divide divide...and we stay divided. We never get close enough to do anything.
So what if my life runs purple...
The last couple of weeks we’ve had 5th graders from the urban Detroit (at camp). You can tell when you talk to a few of them – even over the course of just a couple of days – that they’ve seen a lot of life (we’ll leave the story there for now). My hands, and my heart, have been bleeding purple a lot over the last week. I want to reach in and touch something and I try, but I have just two and a half days to make a difference that will impact them for a lifetime.
Yeah right.
Which is why I must come to the same conclusion I did when I first jotted down arbitrary thoughts three weeks ago when my hands ran purple into my bathroom sink. I have to know the fact that God loves me is enough.
It has to be.
It has to be because if He loves me (of all people), then I know He loves them. If He loves them, then they are worth loving. I know that if He loves me then even if all I get are 48 hours...then I get 48 hours to show kids something different. If He loves them, then He holds the worlds I don’t and can’t. If He loves me, then I have forgiveness for the times I don’t live up to that love, don’t live up to the call to love them, for when I stand to the side and perpetuate the divide.
I can’t save the world – not from any job I find myself in – no more or less this one than the next. I will never be able to. It’s not my responsibility to save the world. I might not even, really, make much of an impact. But every day I find myself with an opportunity to look humanity square in the face (wherever in life or the world I may be) and watch as my life runs purple and know that I can’t save but I have the responsibility to point towards the Savior. If I can know that God loves me and loves that world that so desperately needs love, then, for tonight...it will have to be enough.
3 comments:
Actually, Precious is not based on a true story. It is based on a book written by Sapphire. But what is heart wrenching about that movie is the fact that it could so easily be a true story. What I love is the ending, because it's so unfinished that it could be real, and because of that, it's actually more uplifting to me than if everything ended up working out perfectly for her.
What you write about here is what I struggle with most about social work. It's difficult...incredibly difficult to see people with such pain and feel helpless. There are days where I come home from my internship and just bawl and pray because there isn't anything else I feel I can do.
I remember this [that is not a true story] now that you say something...two or three of the other movies I've watched recently had the follow up tag lines about the continuing true story. I think the fact it did, indeed, feel so real convinced me it was such. I hated the fact that it seemed so real...that I couldn't write it off as a Hollywood storyboard.
Keep praying...and probably keep bawling (if we lose our ability to feel, we're in trouble)...and maybe together we can stand inside of the divide, becoming a catalyst in wishing for the world to change.
God is beyond our comprehension - thank you for being His hands and mouth to those you touch.
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