Like the broken

I see this picture of this girl dressed up in a really nice dress and she's in the middle of the slums trying to hand out sandwiches and the homeless people come and eat. But they laugh at her. Who does she think she is? She comes and goes once a week into our lives. How could she ever understand?

And then I see a girl who's dressed with jeans and wearing a pony tail. And she's tired and she's been through alot personally. And she comes to visit the homeless people once a week and brings them sandwiches. And she eats with them. And she laughs with them. And she cries with them. And the homeless people love her. And she tells them about Jesus.

You can witness in both situations. You can witness wearing a church dress. You can witness showing your best, showing your trophies, your accomplishments, witnessing with a smile.

And yet sometimes I think the more powerful witness is the one who is willing to share his/her own personal brokenness. Who is willing to dive into the dumpster with a homeless person. Who is willing to get in the dirt and get dirty and personal and messy.

Like when people are at the end of their road, they are tired of the talk.
They are tired of seeing "perfect lives". They want to see something real, something deep, something good in the midst of pain, light in the midst of darkness.

And how can someone who's not willing to enter the dark personally be able to help someone else out of the dark? Can we really help people when we've never been where they are at?

And so the question is like "If we want to help the broken are we willing to be broke?"

If we want to be a missionary are we willing to live poor?

Are we willing to get uncomfortable to experience what it's like to be broken, so we can have the joy of sharing what it's like to be healed.