Seeing things differently now...

I have seen her before walking in this neighborhood. I have seen her sitting outside of Starbucks nursing a tall cup of coffee. Still, I have no idea who she is.

Up until now, I barely paused long enough to get my own grande extra hot chai latte much less seek to encounter a stranger enjoying hers. Life has a way of keeping you busy. Leaving you distracted.

But since my Haiti trip, I have been seeing things differently and pausing more along the way.

This morning I see her again but this time it is different. What I saw was neither what I expected nor something I could walk away from.

On this morning, she is rustling through the trash can outside of a store, until she found a treasure in a crumpled Chick-fil-A bag. The remnants of someone’s feast are now becoming her breakfast.

Here, in one of the sleepy suburbs surrounding the nation’s capital a meal is gathered from a garbage can. I know this isn’t the first meal she has collected this way and that mere fact breaks my heart.

Where have I been? Why haven’t I had the eyes to see?

I am grateful, for what my mission trip to Haiti has done for me. It has given me a new perspective. I see life a bit differently – scratch that – a lot differently. Life was much more “comfortable” for me before March…now, I long to be uncomfortable.

When I consider things like two billion people in this world live on less than $2 dollars a day. Less than half of what a grande chai latte costs me. I am challenged. When I think of the sheer numbers of people who are being trafficked – not just overseas but here in our own backyard – I am confronted. When I read the scriptures, I am disturbed. I should be disturbed. We all should be. For in the Word we will find verse after verse that calls us out of our comfort and into a life of compassion and service. Not an infrequent trip to the homeless shelter or once in a lifetime mission trip overseas but rather a daily, minute by minute living out the suffering of those around us.

Challenged, confronted and disturbed all in the name of change. I have been asking God what He expects of me now that I have seen. He has been speaking.

He is causing a revolution in my heart, my friends, a radical change of perspective and new direction. To God be the glory.

© A Sacred Longing 2009-2010