the haunting reality

It haunts me.

So vague, so fuzzy, so undefined… and yet so real, such a part of me that I can’t deny it. It is a dream, yet of what I know not entirely. It is a longing, but for what I do not fully understand. I grasp for it, but know not quite where to grasp. It is a yearning that I cannot clearly define.

It glimmers through my airplane window from the lights of a city… the lights of a million people, each one wrapped up in his own little world. It looks up at me through the eyes of a homeless man named Kent, peeking out from under his cardboard box to receive the food I offer him. It speaks from the concrete along the LA River in the language of the gangs, graffiti. It cries out in the heart-broken weeping of a small child, left feeling unloved once again. It walks towards me as a 64-year old alcoholic named Denise, trapped in an abusive relationship and desperate for a way of escape.

It is hopelessness, when I hold hope. It is hunger, when I hold food. It is bondage, when I hold the keys. It is darkness, when I hold light.

And I long to give that hope, to feed that hunger, to loose those bonds, to shine that light – and yet, so often, I know not how.

I look at my hands, the hands that I have dedicated to God for His service. And I long to use those hands to bring life, to heal, to do the work that Jesus did when He was here on earth.

But how? How, Lord? What do You want me to do?

I feel so small, so inadequate. I see the needs, I long to help. But I want to help everywhere. I want to fix all the world’s problems. I want to gather the entire city up in my arms and care for it as a mother cares for her child.

But I am not the savior of a city.

I am not even the savior of one person.

I cannot save them. I cannot force them to be saved.

All I can do is rest in my own Savior, and trust His love and His grace to be sufficient for them as well. It is only through Him that I can offer them any hope. It is only as I allow His light to shine through me that I can even begin to pierce the darkness that surrounds them.

And so I reach out my hand, and, instead of attempting to hold an entire city of people in that small hand…
I place my hand in the hand of my Savior.