If you can't feed a hundred people, then just feed one

This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them. Psalm 34: 7-8

Larry Ward was a crying man.  The pain sprawled across the world broke his heart over and over again, one life at a time.  And then the moment arrived, when he once again he was shaking his fist at this God he could not love or understand through these tears, a vision rolled out and a voice declared: But Jesus said, 'You feed them."  And so he dedicated his life to these walking orders: He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry, and when someone wrote a book about his life and the millions of lives that he helped one at a time, because they die one at a time, and were transformed because of his obedience, including mine,  it was titled, This Poor Man Cried.

I remember one moment, well, one of the many moments, when I was mentally shaking my fist at God, and asking where in the heck did I fit into the Big Scheme of Things in a world seething with holes to be plugged, a voice declared quite audibly: For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.  And rolled out on the pastor’s whitewashed wall was a very crisp Blue-Ray vision of me standing there at a kitchen sink, filling up cups of water and handing them to the longest line of dirty-faced kids imaginable, that stretched out through the open door and over the horizon.  Which at the time did not make any sense at all because really, the only three kids in the world that I particularly loved, much less liked, were my little three towheads with pretty dirty faces.  But that was a long, long time ago.  And that door to my heart has been propped open and the butterflies have come in.  

My sister is shaking her fist at God these days.  It is a long haul and there are no rolling visions, which really don’t solve The Problem, but are simply action plans that break it down into lots of small problems.  And she is choosing to believe that God really is good and powerful and wise and lovingly involved in each of the situations, and all of the millions of people in harm's way all day every day ARE being lovingly noticed, not just crushed like bugs under a heel.  Even though we can't see the eyes and heart of the One who sees....and are looking for evidences of His love.  Mostly it is coming to that part of finiteness that we will never understand some things until heaven, and in humility we have to get be where we are OK with that, instead of childishly demanding answers that we couldn't comprehend even if they were given.

But we are children.  His children.  And something that I have been hanging onto these days as the newspaper headline blast ugliness into my face, are the very clear Joshua rocks of His action and intervention– very real and very tangible– that are a memorial to me that He is encamping around me and delivering me.  And if me, I can extrapolate to the millions of people because when I wander the streets of New York City, which to me feel and smell and sound like the streets of the world, my heart breaks with tenderness for each and every person who pushes past me. Because His heart breaks.  

No need to be so confused, By all the fires you have to walk through

They're breaking you, and making you, And building you to be

Soft enough to love the least of these, Even me.

And there was a moment of silence in the church service Sunday, a long moment punctuated by the most heartbreaking sobs imaginable, deep gasping sobs that made every single stomach tie up in knots except for Valerie Begley’s, because her arm was around the woman, bringing her in close.  And after this long, long silence, Cameron and Bill Inbodin on the harmonica slid into the 23rd Psalm, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death and pain, You are with me, I knew that this was one of those rock moments.  It is true.  The LORD hears.  The LORD saves.  Blessed be the name of the LORD.