the risk of loving people

Somedays, while I am working...I find myself being called everything but a the name my mother gave me. They can be incredibly creative with the things they hurl at our staff.

I work with angry people.

I work with broken people. 

I work with hopeless people.

Today was one of those days. I had very few fans today. I sat and absorbed so much negativity.

The negativity that I see everyday comes from a variety of different factors. Some of my clients are victims of intense, physical, psychological, and sexual abuse and trauma. Some of them have intense mental illness. Some of my clients are in various stages of battling addiction. Some of my clients of experienced deep and painful personal loss. Some of them have no life skills and live in a society that has justified this for them. Many of them have a combination of some or all of these things.

At any rate, these things work together to make many of the people I serve very angry and mean.

Today after work I sent a text to a friend recap some of the struggle of my day. 

I asked if she thought the Lord would permit me to quit life, find a convent in the Alps like the one in "The Sound of Music," and let me go there so I can pray and sing solemn and peaceful songs for the rest of my days. I mean, I have most of the necessary qualifications to become a nun. I am ROCKING the vow of poverty and the vow of chastity. Also, those robes they wear look like they could be bra optional and black is slimming.

The closer I grow to the Lord, the more I want to run from life and just be in His presence. Locking myself away in a convent in a black robe, praying and singing all day is not what Jesus was all about. He came for broken people. Before He went back to heaven, He commanded that we be about the business of reaching broken people.

Sometimes, loving people is a risk. 

People will hurt you. They can break your heart and let you down.

The words they say can cut you like a knife.

Going into all the world and reaching the lost for Christ, means risking the fact that they don't want what you have or believe what you have to say.

Not everyone will like you. 

Not everyone will embrace you with open arms.

I am always amazed by the level of warfare that can come flying out of the mouth of my clients that could only be coming from the enemy through them. They call out my deepest weakness and insecurities and toss them into my face. 

I have to remind myself that even on the worst days...people are worth the risk.

I saw this today:


The Lord thought we were all worth the risk. Through out the word we are constantly reminded to love as we want to be loved and to forgive as we have been forgiven.

I have been shown to much love and mercy even when I show contempt for the sacrifice of Christ.

How much more should I show love and mercy, even to those who show contempt to me.

This is a struggle. I have not mastered this AT ALL.

But day after day I will continue to remind myself that the Lord thought I was worth the risk of loving me despite all my brokenness.

How can I do anything less than take the risky step of loving others.

I guess it will be a while before I get to go to my convent in the Alps. In the meantime, I suppose as a step of obedience I will take the step to keep trying to be the hands and face and feet of Christ...even when it's hard.

Because I am His...and so are they.

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