peacemakers
Amidst the craziness that has been my life this week, something extraordinary has happened. I know the heart of the Lord more deeply because of it.
Allow me to start at the beginning.
For me this week, I began many new things. Classes are in full swing, with hundreds of pages each week on macro planning, adult psychopathology, research, racism, youth-led movements, ethnic cleansing/genocide, social statistics, normalcy/relativism, and the list goes on and on...and I sit on my bed and read and read. I am highly caffeinated these days.
I have left many past commitments this week. I have begun my work/study position with a professor studying HIV and sexual/social networks and IV drug use and asian americans. I have busted ass to prepare for the 10k this weekend that I thought was next weekend. Needless to say, it has been a long hard week.
But. This week, I think I may have found part of my place in the world. I LOVE survivors of torture. I LOVE refugees and asylum seekers. I LOVE political and social outcasts. I LOVE THEM.
I began my internship at a huge teaching hospital, in my little corner community organization (The Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human Rights, google it, seriously).
I am also totally overwhelmed. I sit in my office and read articles about what is legally "torture" and what is just torturous. I read about conflicts spanning the globe. When I am not filling my head with whatever I can get my hands on, I am sitting in meetings, talking about how to help this person get an affidavit for and asylum case, or how to navigate MassHealth for a family of 9. Sometimes I'll just be in my little corner of the center with my door closed and I am reading and suddenly I feel so sick to my stomach that I get up and walk around in little circles and pray, ask Jesus to come to my office, this organization, this issue, right now, and bring his healing with him. I think he does. At least my stomach ache goes away.
Tonight I was laying on my bed worshiping the Lord and I asked Him, "Why do I care so much about this? Why is this in my soul so deeply, so quickly?" and I sensed Him reply "I am a torture survivor, and I am one on your behalf. I could have fled, sought refuge in another place away from the Jerusalem (and by the US legal standard, he would have a good asylum claim...) but I chose it because it meant choosing you. And you love them because you love me."
I was floored. Absolutely. It made sense. Jesus is in many areas of social justice because he became like us in our suffering. We see him in the homeless, we see him in the dying, we see him in the foreigner waiting to be welcomed, we see him in our friends and often in our advisories, we see him in the neglected, rejected, persecuted, humiliated and tortured. I see him there, at least for tonight.
I know there will be hard clients, bureaucracy and exhaustion. I know there will be frustration and pain, both looking at myself, the system, and the histories of my clients. Those things are real. But so is the blood of Jesus. I don't know how it will all play out. But I know it is good. He gives beauty for ashes. he makes all things beautiful in his time.
Allow me to start at the beginning.
For me this week, I began many new things. Classes are in full swing, with hundreds of pages each week on macro planning, adult psychopathology, research, racism, youth-led movements, ethnic cleansing/genocide, social statistics, normalcy/relativism, and the list goes on and on...and I sit on my bed and read and read. I am highly caffeinated these days.
I have left many past commitments this week. I have begun my work/study position with a professor studying HIV and sexual/social networks and IV drug use and asian americans. I have busted ass to prepare for the 10k this weekend that I thought was next weekend. Needless to say, it has been a long hard week.
But. This week, I think I may have found part of my place in the world. I LOVE survivors of torture. I LOVE refugees and asylum seekers. I LOVE political and social outcasts. I LOVE THEM.
I began my internship at a huge teaching hospital, in my little corner community organization (The Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human Rights, google it, seriously).
I am also totally overwhelmed. I sit in my office and read articles about what is legally "torture" and what is just torturous. I read about conflicts spanning the globe. When I am not filling my head with whatever I can get my hands on, I am sitting in meetings, talking about how to help this person get an affidavit for and asylum case, or how to navigate MassHealth for a family of 9. Sometimes I'll just be in my little corner of the center with my door closed and I am reading and suddenly I feel so sick to my stomach that I get up and walk around in little circles and pray, ask Jesus to come to my office, this organization, this issue, right now, and bring his healing with him. I think he does. At least my stomach ache goes away.
Tonight I was laying on my bed worshiping the Lord and I asked Him, "Why do I care so much about this? Why is this in my soul so deeply, so quickly?" and I sensed Him reply "I am a torture survivor, and I am one on your behalf. I could have fled, sought refuge in another place away from the Jerusalem (and by the US legal standard, he would have a good asylum claim...) but I chose it because it meant choosing you. And you love them because you love me."
I was floored. Absolutely. It made sense. Jesus is in many areas of social justice because he became like us in our suffering. We see him in the homeless, we see him in the dying, we see him in the foreigner waiting to be welcomed, we see him in our friends and often in our advisories, we see him in the neglected, rejected, persecuted, humiliated and tortured. I see him there, at least for tonight.
I know there will be hard clients, bureaucracy and exhaustion. I know there will be frustration and pain, both looking at myself, the system, and the histories of my clients. Those things are real. But so is the blood of Jesus. I don't know how it will all play out. But I know it is good. He gives beauty for ashes. he makes all things beautiful in his time.