This was one of those books that stick with you - still on my mind after
dropping it off at the library yesterday. Lots of books do that for me, all in different ways. Over the past year, I’ve read three World War 2 novels (love them all) and kept thinking to myself about all I would have done if I were alive at that time… how I would have intervened, done something, stood up for what’s right - I was frustrated by the characters who stood neutral in the face of suffering, the bystanders, the ones who could have done more and didn’t. But then I read this book set nearly in present day and realize that while children were drowning trying to cross the Mediterranean, I was watching Netflix. While people lost their limbs, eyesight and more from being bombed, I was sitting in line at Biggby. While babies were kidnapped during the night in refugee camps to sell off for organs, I was perusing the Dollar Spot at Target. I know none of this makes me a horrible person (and of course I do more with my life than the things I listed here), but the truth is that I have let myself become desensitized in reintegrating back into our culture - something I never thought would happen after leaving the DR. Some of it needed to happen - I came back traumatized and seeing the world through an extremely different lens, too extreme in some ways that I couldn’t cope. I felt like I couldn’t fit in anywhere and I was always misunderstood by those around me. And while I am aware that it is entirely ridiculous to compare myself to a refugee or to people suffering in the developing world (trust me, I KNOW that my privilege has made my story a million times different from theirs), these were always the stories and the people my heart was able to connect to after my trauma. Of course, my experiences and trauma were a millimeter sized drop compared to their ocean of trauma and suffering and pain, but I empathized with their stories in a way I couldn’t have before. Because even though I knew that God, and everyone I knew, had moved heaven and earth to help us, and I had unspeakable gratitude for it, I still struggled with the feelings I could never express out loud. Leaving the country with the clothes on our backs, leaving behind all of our belongings, the people we loved with no good-bye, our jobs, our dreams, our ministry - all gone in a second - to come back to a world that has moved on without you, to hospitals, bedrest, injuries, doctors, specialists - and people expect you to say and express nothing but gratitude…. Because we were the lucky ones. And we absolutely were - I will always be the first to recognize my privilege. And while my story is nothing in comparison, we do this same thing to the refugees who have suffered trauma and pain a billion times more than I could ever understand. Refugees that I have known and loved - who have watched their family members shot down in front of their eyes, run for their lives, are covered in physical scars, raped hundreds of times, gone without food or water for days, walked alone across country lines as children and when they get here, we tell them to be grateful. We tell them that they are lucky. They get to be here and experience the American dream and they should be thankful for it - when we don’t know their nightmares or the very real and haunting things that come with PTSD and their experiences. And we forget about all of the ones still trying to get here and the ones who will never have the chance - we live our lives and drink our expensive coffee and shop for things we tell ourselves we deserve and say that what we do is good enough because at least we’re not doing XYZ like that guy over there.
dropping it off at the library yesterday. Lots of books do that for me, all in different ways. Over the past year, I’ve read three World War 2 novels (love them all) and kept thinking to myself about all I would have done if I were alive at that time… how I would have intervened, done something, stood up for what’s right - I was frustrated by the characters who stood neutral in the face of suffering, the bystanders, the ones who could have done more and didn’t. But then I read this book set nearly in present day and realize that while children were drowning trying to cross the Mediterranean, I was watching Netflix. While people lost their limbs, eyesight and more from being bombed, I was sitting in line at Biggby. While babies were kidnapped during the night in refugee camps to sell off for organs, I was perusing the Dollar Spot at Target. I know none of this makes me a horrible person (and of course I do more with my life than the things I listed here), but the truth is that I have let myself become desensitized in reintegrating back into our culture - something I never thought would happen after leaving the DR. Some of it needed to happen - I came back traumatized and seeing the world through an extremely different lens, too extreme in some ways that I couldn’t cope. I felt like I couldn’t fit in anywhere and I was always misunderstood by those around me. And while I am aware that it is entirely ridiculous to compare myself to a refugee or to people suffering in the developing world (trust me, I KNOW that my privilege has made my story a million times different from theirs), these were always the stories and the people my heart was able to connect to after my trauma. Of course, my experiences and trauma were a millimeter sized drop compared to their ocean of trauma and suffering and pain, but I empathized with their stories in a way I couldn’t have before. Because even though I knew that God, and everyone I knew, had moved heaven and earth to help us, and I had unspeakable gratitude for it, I still struggled with the feelings I could never express out loud. Leaving the country with the clothes on our backs, leaving behind all of our belongings, the people we loved with no good-bye, our jobs, our dreams, our ministry - all gone in a second - to come back to a world that has moved on without you, to hospitals, bedrest, injuries, doctors, specialists - and people expect you to say and express nothing but gratitude…. Because we were the lucky ones. And we absolutely were - I will always be the first to recognize my privilege. And while my story is nothing in comparison, we do this same thing to the refugees who have suffered trauma and pain a billion times more than I could ever understand. Refugees that I have known and loved - who have watched their family members shot down in front of their eyes, run for their lives, are covered in physical scars, raped hundreds of times, gone without food or water for days, walked alone across country lines as children and when they get here, we tell them to be grateful. We tell them that they are lucky. They get to be here and experience the American dream and they should be thankful for it - when we don’t know their nightmares or the very real and haunting things that come with PTSD and their experiences. And we forget about all of the ones still trying to get here and the ones who will never have the chance - we live our lives and drink our expensive coffee and shop for things we tell ourselves we deserve and say that what we do is good enough because at least we’re not doing XYZ like that guy over there.
So what am I getting at here? What is my point in writing all of this? It is this: No matter how helpless we feel and how small contributions seem to be, we can always always ALWAYS be a part of ending someone’s suffering. Bob Pierce, the founder of World Vision once said: Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God. And I don’t want to be so acclimated back into our culture and my cushy life that my heart stops breaking for the things I have seen, the refugees and victims and survivors I have known. That I am so caught up in comparing my house and car and clothes to someone else on Instagram who looks better, younger, prettier than me instead of focusing on what I was meant to do in this world. And I don’t want to give my kids a cushy life where they get everything they want either - even though right now I’d say they have it pretty dang close…. To the point that they have everything they could ever physically need, everything they want and ask for and they still have and get a whole lot more. I remember the nausea I felt watching Kenya open gift after gift after gift at Christmas after coming back from the Dominican Republic and knowing so many kids back on that island couldn’t afford medicine or were on the street selling drugs or their bodies to simply survive. I remember flying in from Haiti on the day of my wedding shower twelve years ago and feeling nauseous about opening wedding gifts that I didn’t need while others didn’t have clean water to drink. I write this at the risk of sounding ungrateful to the people who gave us these gifts, which I promise I am not. But what if we just did things just a tad bit different?
I swear I’m not trying to be a total Grinch and I don’t want to overthrow Christmas or totally give up Biggby, Target or Netflix either (though I could definitely stand to cut back). But what if instead of spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on stuff for people that they don’t really need this Christmas, we tried to be more intentional and be the hands and feet of Jesus over the Christmas season? Even if we each changed out just one gift - we bought someone just one gift that gives back - a gift that we don’t have to feel nauseous watching someone open while we simultaneously think about the people who are suffering and dying like the ones I just read about in my book. Okay so maybe you don’t fight a feeling of nausea at Christmas like I do - and that’s okay, I'm not asking you to - but I can’t unsee, unfeel, unexperience or unread the horrors that I know either). Or maybe you’re thinking you have no idea what store to go to buy gifts that help other people?
Okay so BOOM (that one's for you Tracye ;) - I’m finally getting to the point of this whole thing (being concise was never my strong point). From now until Christmas, I am going to use my long forgotten, neglected old blog to start writing again (and yes I’m starting now because I have friends who put their tree up ON Halloween - if you’re one of these crazies who already has their tree and lights up, I do still love you). Anyways, each post about a different person, organization or cause to support. Something you can buy and give that will give back - that will make a difference - to people like the ones suffering in Aleppo and in refugee camps and like the ones I’ve seen in Haiti. Like the ones I know who have been coerced into human trafficking and the ones who are at risk and need someone to prevent it. And I’ll also share about people right here in our community doing good work, reaching out and trying to “be the change” for people here too. Because God’s children are here and there and everywhere, on every corner of our planet (sidenote: I cringe when people praise me for adopting “one of our own” instead of from another country, after our international adoption fell through - if you are a Christian, then every single child on the planet is one of our own. Another sidenote, please don't praise someone for adopting a child at all, but that’s another soapbox for another day).
Since this is long enough, I will save my first shared cause in another post mañana
because if you have read this far you already deserve a trophy (or maybe you
know me well enough to know my history of long windedness and you just
love me anyway). I don't promise that any of my writing will be any good (because hey
I'm tired guys) but I do promise that I will only share amazing organizations that I
know are doing amazing work for the people who need and deserve it.
Stay tuned from now until Christmas to learn more about how you can change the world
and stop suffering with each gift that you buy for others this Christmas season. 💗
Since this is long enough, I will save my first shared cause in another post mañana
because if you have read this far you already deserve a trophy (or maybe you
know me well enough to know my history of long windedness and you just
love me anyway). I don't promise that any of my writing will be any good (because hey
I'm tired guys) but I do promise that I will only share amazing organizations that I
know are doing amazing work for the people who need and deserve it.
Stay tuned from now until Christmas to learn more about how you can change the world
and stop suffering with each gift that you buy for others this Christmas season. 💗
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