Most of the refugees I work with speak very little English. Communication is often difficult and awkward. The most wonderful moments for me are when they can just laugh. Last week, a refugee family piled in my car, and I tried to get them to put on their seatbelts. Just this small task, which seems so basic at first glance, felt like a monumental challenge. I mimed it, I re-buckled my own seatbelt, I broke it down into the most basic words possible....and eventually, the father of the family picked it up and started to help his daughters. When they all finally realized what I had been trying to say, they just busted up laughing. It took me by surprise so much that I had to just start laugh too. In that situation, it would be so easy to feel embarrassed or dumb, to close up and sit silently, but instead they chose to find humor in the moment....and laughter is a universal language.
Today was another surprising moment of joy in this line of work which can so often be emotionally draining. I had the rare opportunity to be with a refugee who spoke great English. She was a young wife and mother who had spent almost her entire life in a refugee camp. I asked her about life in America, and her eyes lit up. She said she could not believe how wonderful her life was here and what amazing opportunities she had now. She was so happy just to be here. I've heard this from so many refugees, and it always blows me away. Even in America, these people lead lives that most people would consider a far cry from the American dream. They often have to work minimum wage jobs for many years, live in apartments and neighborhoods that I don't think I could live in myself, and struggle just to survive and learn English. They humble me so much and redefine my definition of success.
As I talked with this young woman and she learned I was a volunteer, not an employee, she turned to me and said, "God will bless you for what you do. You have shown a great kindness to people who need you and you will be blessed." I just wanted to cry. She showed me more kindness in those words than anything I could ever do. I told her, "God does bless me, He blesses me through you. You show me strength and courage." When I get scared about my future, these precious people show me what true hope and endurance looks like.
I have not written since Spring Break, and I think it's been because of my subconscious need to savor and use every single moment of these final weeks of school. Most of my fellow seniors are thrilled to graduate, and I've had multiple younger students tell me they're incredibly jealous. I have to admit it: it's hard for me to understand how they feel. I have been incredibly blessed in my college years. I have met the dearest, most incredible friends a person could ever have. I have found a uniquely amazing, beautiful church body that really feels like home. I am fortunate to be studying two of my greatest passions in life, literature and dance, so even most of my academics are enjoyable. I get to volunteer with an organization that does really meaningful, valuable work to help the needy in my city. I have gotten to travel to some of the most breathtaking places on earth. And let's face it...college students may complain about their schedule, but in my opinion, classes and homework allow way more freedom and flexibility than a 9 to 5 job. But my university life is coming to an end, and it scares me to think that all my rhythms of life and all the familiar people and places may soon be gone. I start to feel desperate to cling on to everything that is safe and comfortable. It scares me to have a blank future after graduation day....as of now, I have no job, no plans, and no idea where I'll be living.
Here's the thing, though....God is good, and my future is not blank to Him. A lot of my recent days have been consumed by trying to figure out the right balance/tension between being proactive and being patient about my life. On one of the recent sunny days, as I was feeling anxious about figuring things out, I sat outside in the grass and watched a sparrow fluttering around me for a long time. I was reminded of when Jesus says that not a single sparrow falls to the ground apart from the Father's will. This sounds silly, but I suddenly realized that the little sparrow I was watching could DO absolutely nothing to be "useful" in the sense I often try to be....she could not get a meaningful job, she could not be an amazing friend, she could not communicate the gospel to anyone, she could not help the poor and the needy....yet God watches over her and knows her every wing flutter.
I can't do anything to make Him love me more or care more about me than He already does. I can't save the world; in fact, I have realized over the past week that I can't save even one person, no matter how much I want to do it on my own. And I certainly can't save myself. I can't justify my existence through a good job or good works or a good marriage. All I have to do is rest, trust, and live my life one day at a time, as the sparrow lives hers. That's grace, in all its mysterious and difficult-to-accept beauty. Grace to live and to move and to just simply be.
I'm taking a Literary Study of the Bible class this semester, and the past couple of weeks we've been studying the Mosaic Law of the Torah. Rabbis have identified 613 mitzvot (commandments) in those first five books of the Bible. 613!! The sheer burden of it all is staggering, as are the epic failures to obey it by the "heroes" of the faith such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Solomon, Moses, and David. I think we often gloss over their faults, but in re-reading all their stories again, I have been struck by the fact that I probably wouldn't even want to be friends with these individuals if they were in my neighborhood. They had some serious, destructive character flaws: pologamy, adultery, murder, favoritism, passivity, arrogance, and cowardice, to name a few.
Then Jesus steps on the scene, and provides the most stark contrast in all of literature. If you read the Bible like a literary text, all of these Old Testament characters have been foils to the protagonist... after this crew of lying, sexually promiscuous, cowardly men, Jesus is incredibly refreshing and shockingly different. He sums up all those 613 mitzvot in just two commandments, "And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
613 down to 2 seems like a seriously lightened load. But I've been thinking a lot recently about love and how intensely difficult it is. The love between two friends, the love for a stranger, love for your neighbor, love for your family, love for the suffering....the kind of love I want to have for other people. This past Sunday, my pastor talked about the absolutely urgent necessity of true, authentic, deep community in the Christian life, about how we were made to love and be loved. If we were created in the image of a triune (not isolated or singular) God, then we were formed to both be loved and to pour out other-centered love. Tim Keller describes the relationship within the Trinity, "Each voluntarily circles the other two, pouring love, delight, and adoration into them. Each person of the Trinity adores, defers to, and rejoices in the others. This creates a dynamic, pulsating dance of joy and love." Because God is triune in nature, love is not an additional quality, but a necessary, innate quality of who He is....as John says simply, "God is love."
Sometimes I am afraid that I rarely...if ever....truly love anyone more than myself. Other-centered love is difficult, and sometimes feels impossible. I am so quick to meet my own needs for approval, acceptance, affirmation, and my desire to be right often trumps my desire to affirm and encourage other people.
Funnily enough, watching the Olympics over the past couple of weeks made me one of the ways I wish I could show love. When I watched those athletes, I feel incredibly joyful and excited on their behalf. I don't feel competitive, I don't feel bitter, I don't wish that was me out on the ice and snow....I just felt thrilled and proud to see someone reach that level of excellence. I want to feel that way when my friends are successful, when they reach a milestone I have not reached, when they look beautiful, when they win an argument, when they are smarter or more witty than I could be, when they get a new job, when they get married, when they show a greater strength of character, when they are right and I am wrong....I want to rejoice in those things for them and find joy in their joy. In essence, I want (against everything that comes naturally to me) to be humble as Christ was humble.
C.S. Lewis' words keep coming back to me as a resounding reminder and challenge this week: "Christian humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less." What would it look like to think of yourself less?
