♥ Break My Heart ♥

Richard and I rented Slumdog Millionaire last night. I really wasn't even sure what it was, but Josh Folliart kept recommending it at the Link. So, I figured I would give it a shot. The movie was great. It was all about a boy in the slums of India, and what he goes through just to survive. While watching the movie, you really feel compassion for the main character, Jamal. But while I was watching it, I couldn’t help but feel something else… something really saddening.

Those of you who really know me would know that I have a big heart for people. If I can help someone in some way, I jump up at the first word. It’s just the way God formed my heart.

So I realized this sad feeling was my heart, breaking for the kids in India. I had never seen a real depiction of life in India until the team from the Link went to India and showed their videos. Then to see this major motion picture showing the awful things Jamal went through, it really just breaks my heart. I can’t even imagine living a life in the way that so many thousands of kids live in India, and other slums in the world.

One of my most favorite songs is Hillsong’s Hosanna. There is just something about that song that is so truthful to me. Out of the entire song, though, the bridge is my favorite part:

“Heal my heart and make it clean, open up my eyes to the things unseen. Show me how to love like you have loved me. Break my heart for what breaks yours. Everything I have for your kingdom’s cause, as I walk from earth into eternity.”

Every since I first heard that song I prayed that those words would become evident in my life. Break my heart for what breaks yours. Open up my eyes to the things unseen. Show me how to love like you have loved me. If only everyone could think that way; to take off their blindfold and open their eyes and see the need in the world. I think so many people just turn the other cheek and choose not to see what is going on in the world. They don’t want to feel compassion because it means they will possibly feel sadness. I don’t want to be one of those people. I want my heart to break at the sight of starving kids, orphans in the slums, or a mother who can’t even afford decent clothing for her children. Getting your heart broken is the last thing most people want. Not me. I want my heart to break and feel at least a glimpse of what people who are really suffering feel. Not people who think they are suffering because they have to eat a can of soup that day because they don’t get paid until tomorrow, but people who don’t even get paid and would kill for that one can of soup.

I want to see what God sees. Not what the media shows us, blindfolded to reality. A full 20/20 vision of the truth, and not just so I can see it and know. But so I can do something about it. So I can give everything I have for the kingdom’s cause, for the cause of righteousness.

Lord, don’t just open my eyes and break my heart for your children. Give me the opportunity to change their lives, even if it’s in the smallest way.

2 Corinthians 1:3-7

3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 6If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

Pink Elephant PJs

So, I have noticed that I have developed a pattern I follow almost every day. The first thing I do when I get home, whether it be from school or work or just hanging out, is go into my room, dig out my comfy pajamas and put on my sock booties. If you don’t know what sock booties are, you are really missing out. Anyway, I have this great pair of pajamas that my sister got me for my birthday this year. They are your traditional idea of a good pair of pajamas. They are the kind that button all the way down the front, are really loose all over, and even have pockets on either side of the row of buttons. You know the ones I mean; the perfect pair of pajamas. The best part is that the pattern is a bunch of pink elephants ice skating in the snow. I love these pjs. There is just something comforting about them when I put them on. After a good day or a bad day, I can slip into my pink elephant pjs and relax, care free. And they are so funny that I just can’t help but smile when I see myself in the mirror. My evenings just aren’t the same when those pink elephant pajamas are in the wash, instead of making me comfy.

In a very similar fashion, after an awesome day or after one I thought would never end, there is something beautifully comforting about slipping into the presence of God. I can go home, put on my favorite worship CD, open my Bible and instantly be comforted by the joys of the Lord. Just being humbled in the presence of our Father and giving up your burdens to Him is like coming home and taking off those pinching heels or that frumpy outfit and slipping into your most comfortable pair of pjs. All the stresses of that day just fall to the floor. So at the end of the day, why keep on those scratchy clothes when you could easily trade them in for something much more comforting. After all, the pink elephant pajamas have never failed to comfort me, and something tells me the presence of the Lord won’t let me down either. ;-)