Enough:

If I had a magical power, I’d take away suffering from the world for just a day.  Deeply empathetic, there are days when I get overwhelmed by all the pain in the world.  This is partly why I left teaching in the South Bronx.  I saw so much poverty, violence and hopelessness there that my heart didn’t know how to process it all.  Eventually, it broke my faith. 

While God has put my faith back together, questions still remain unanswered.  If Jesus really loved this world, wouldn’t He fix it - the institutions and the structures that prevent people from being equal and free?   Being unable to reconcile the concept of a loving God with suffering has been difficult.  I find that I can’t trust God fully, even though on most days I not only need to, but want to…

So, today, I sat on a hard wooden bench in the back row of the Inglesia Bautista Church, listening to the worship of people who live on less than $2/day.  Hungry for the gospel, they walk miles just to come to church not once, but twice on Sunday.  They sing like their hearts are going to burst, so loud that the wooden walls of their old church quiver each time the chorus is sung.   I’ve never heard worship so pure and beautiful.

Then Jesus begins to whisper: 

I have not abandoned the poor.  In fact, I never left.  Can’t you see that I dwell here among them?  They are my people and I am their God.  I wept with them in their suffering and pain.  I know their struggles intimately.  I rejoiced in their joys.  I have loved them always.

That’s when I begin to cry. 

Tears stream down my face and I just can’t stop, because these people who have so little, believe that Jesus is enough.  He is for them, not against them.  There is much struggle in their lives, but knowing Jesus, the suffering God who redeems and makes all things anew, makes all the difference.  He is what gives them hope and joy.

It reminded me of that song,

He is the one we have waited for…

He is the one we have waited for…

He is the one we have waited for….

-Esther