Be the miracle

The girls have a karaoke microphone, which they usually use to put on plays and sing whatever music they happen to be into at the moment (Matt recently introduced them to opera and they've been belting out "O Sole Mio," yeah, it's as obnoxious lovely as you're imagining.  Thanks for that, babe.  But the other day I overheard Isabel giving a speech about Safe Families to an imaginary audience.  She described each child that has stayed in our home over the past year or so (there have been 9!).  She talked about homelessness and friendship and helping someone in need.  And at the end she gave a rallying call to "please sign up in the back if you haven't already or go online to safefamilies.com and sign up there."  Not to be outdone, Sofi joined her on the imaginary stage and gave a speech of her own.  She said that Safe Families changes peoples' lives and it was a miracle for God.    

Webster defines "miracle" as an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs.  Let me tell you the story of a miracle...

Imagine a child with no home.  No bed, only the clothes on her back, her few belongings dropped in an alley because they're too heavy for her to carry.  She holds her brother's tiny hand and the weight of the world as she follows behind her mama, who’s trying to soothe a hungry baby. Her mother knows this feeling all too well - she may have lived a thousand moments like this as a child, scared and cold and hungry and hopeless.  Maybe she promised she'd never let it happen to her children.  But the apartment flooded, or she lost her job, or her abusive boyfriend has left her running with nowhere to go.  She's broken and desperate and so she makes broken and desperate choices.  They end up in a homeless shelter, full of other men and women and children who have nowhere else to go.  Some fill her with fear, the kind that makes you hold tight to little hands and lay awake until morning finally comes.  There are rumors that the shelter has bed bugs or mice or cockroaches.  So they start walking again, with nowhere to go.  

Until someone reaches out - offers a home for the children, a chance for mom to pull things together and make a better life.  Now imagine this child in a home, not her own, but a home nonetheless.  She has a bed and a drawer full of clothes.  A family welcomes her, loves her, and for a moment the weight on her shoulders feels lighter.  Her heart aches for her mom, but she is safe.  And her mom, no longer hopeless and worried for her children, finds a job, secures a home, and looks forward to a fresh start.  

People have all sorts of opinions about the "poor."  Why they're poor, who should (or shouldn't) help them.  Most of us live our lives across the tracks, the river, or the county line from them.  When they're nameless and faceless, it's easier to write them off as someone else's problem or pretend they don't exist, or worse, judge them and accuse them of being lazy or pathetic or whatever.  That's much harder to do when you've rocked these children to sleep, or packed their backpack, or placed them back in their mother's arms.  Soapbox moment: it's not fair to judge someone who's shoes you wouldn't touch - not with a 10 foot pole - let alone walk in.  There are children out there, not as far away as you might think, who live in hopeless and desperate situations, waiting for help that may never come.  I have listened to a 2 year old tell me about the cockroaches that climb in her bed, the mean man that yells at her mom and makes her cry, the grandmother that gets angry and pushes her down (she has the scars to prove it.)  You can't look a child like that in the eye and not be compelled to do something.  We could have heated debates on who's to blame for these families' broken condition, but it would be a waste of time and energy.      

The truth is, the system is broken.  The government is failing these families, and it's not entirely their fault.  God's plan for the lost didn't include tax dollars or DCFS.  You won't find Medicare or Welfare in the Bible.  God set up a very simple system for caring for the needy, and it's called the church.  Please don't make The Church out to be a building or a room full of board members or a pious group of clergy.  The church is you and it's me.  We are God's system for caring for those in need.  Sure, God could step in and solve the world's problems - oh how I sometimes wish He would.  Then I would be relieved of the responsibility to act in His name.  But instead He chooses to work through us, broken and sinful people that we are.  He blesses us with resources and asks us to use them for His purposes.

We tend to think of Divine intervention as being grandiose and supernatural.  But sometimes miracles are cloaked in humanity, wrapped up in flesh and bone, carried out by a fellow human being.  When we listen carefully to God’s voice and obey what He asks of us, we can have this amazing opportunity to not just hear about a miracle, but be a part of its unfolding.  

As Christ followers, caring for the needy isn't an option.  We all have a role to play in this delicate web of divine intervention.  Not all of us are called to open our homes to hurting children.  But all of us are called to something.  There are food pantries to stock, shelters to serve food at, orphans to sponsor.  There are children in need of coats, elderly in need of companionship, families in need of basic toiletries.  There will never be a shortage people in need of a miracle and we all have a role to play.  

What's yours?