The world these days feels heavy and forbidding, or perhaps just slightly depressing. We find ourselves forced to choose between two possibly equally terrible choices (but I'm Canadian and can't vote, so let's be clear that I am not making any political statements here). We discover we have no option but to move forward even when the innermost sanctum of our hearts urges us to play the ostrich and bury our heads in the sand.
We've been told that our ministry cannot be supported because 1-we don't "hard sell" the Gospel enough or have an ambitious and large enough growth strategy, and 2- we don't have consistent enough church attendance. And so we wonder if perhaps they are right, if maybe we are accomplishing nothing by the pouring out of our very lives. We catch eyes across the table, and wonder together if we truly are the kind of foolish we have been deemed by others who have been doing this longer and with more "success." Too soft, too full of grace without enough practicality and law. Not enough bars on our window and no security cameras making sure we know it all. Too naive, too gentle, too easy-going, too much of everything except all the right things.
We've been told that our ministry cannot be supported because 1-we don't "hard sell" the Gospel enough or have an ambitious and large enough growth strategy, and 2- we don't have consistent enough church attendance. And so we wonder if perhaps they are right, if maybe we are accomplishing nothing by the pouring out of our very lives. We catch eyes across the table, and wonder together if we truly are the kind of foolish we have been deemed by others who have been doing this longer and with more "success." Too soft, too full of grace without enough practicality and law. Not enough bars on our window and no security cameras making sure we know it all. Too naive, too gentle, too easy-going, too much of everything except all the right things.
She yells to me from the fence beside our blackberries bushes, "hey Becca!"
"Hi Mikey," I wave back and smile wide, offering her some strawberries from the garden. "Oh no," she waves them off, "I just wanted you to know I'm going to Missouri for a while. That's where I'm from, and I'm going for a month to visit my family and I didn't want you and Adam to worry."
She is probably in her late 30s, and most often I wave to her while she sits on the street corner across the way, or when she asks to borrow a dollar for the bus or for some corner-store chicken. For a while, her pimp rented the house behind us, and I would watch black BMWs circle the block to pick her up and drop her back off at the crumbling front steps. She never waves to me on these circles, only later when she walks by, and I run down to offer a hug or a slice of leftover pizza (we always have lots of Little Caesars pizza around here). She asks if she can "hold a dollar," and I hand her whatever change and snacks we can scrounge up while the boys shake their heads and her and at my eagerness to offer her something.
I have a necklace to give her, a key engraved with the word hope. But somehow I lose it before I muster the courage to offer it into her hands. What will I say, I wonder: how will I explain the hope I wish her to hold in her heart, without sounding hokey or lame, or pushing her further away than she already floats by circumstance and the inevitably of life?
We met her at our first thanksgiving feast, when I held baby Amir and summoned my courage to invite the group on homeless men and women congregated by the corner store to come in for the golden turkey Adam brined to perfection, and the $200 pan of macaroni my parents brought from Whole Foods.
Since that night, and at every Thanksgiving feast, she stops by for the meal; and then occasionally for dinner or cookies in-between.
But we count it "success" when we stops by to tell us she's leaving for a month, even as we wish we could offer more. Because we will gladly take the mantel of being the ones she knows will care, those who might notice her absence. We don't understand her whole story, and can only hope one day we might have the privilege of listening in and holding it close to our hearts and to His. But until then, we will settle for being the ones she takes an extra loop around the block for, the ones she tells she is leaving because she knows we see her and we will notice when she is gone.
“God has not called me to success, but to faithfulness” -Mother Teresa