This story actually comes from over a year ago, when I was (Shock!) at church camp. We had watched a documentary about the persecuted church overseas and it was immensely powerful. The group gathered in our spot in the warmly lit gazebo, some crying, some talking quietly, others silent, staring into the middle distance at something the rest of us couldn't see. As our youth pastor started the discussion and people shared their opinions, this nervous ache in my stomach materialized and got continually worse as time passed. The conversation became heated, people raging against the injustice done to our brothers and sisters in other countries. Many of my friends were crying, unable to contain the horror they felt after seeing what was happening. Kids talked about how this film should be shown everywhere, how people needed to know, how they needed to stop it, and stop it now! Anyone who didn't feel need to change this was messed up and wrong.
And I felt more and more sick. Why didn't I feel angry? Why wasn't I raging? Why didn't I feel anything? I knew I had a problem with empathy, but this seemed wrong. There had to be something deeply wrong with me that I wasn't about to jump on a plane and die for the cause of Christ in Iran or China.
The final straw was when someone made a comment about the funds our church back home was raising to build a new church, as we had seriously outgrown our current one. He said it was selfish of us to be spending money on ourselves when we could be doing things overseas. That made me angry. I didn't even have time to process why that comment made me more angry and more fired up than the documentary did before someone else spoke. Ironically, it was the missionary's kid, who had grown up in Taiwan, who spoke up in our churches defense. He talked about how overseas missions was important, but people in the U.S. often lost sight of what was important in their own homes. The mission field of our own country, our own people.
That's where it began to click. I had felt God's lead to music ministry in my life less than a year before that night.I mulled this over in my mind, the stomach ache dissipating, and my heart lifting as my youth pastor reiterated what our friend had said. I made some comment after him, I don't remember what exactly, it doesn't seem important. I realized completely, that I wanted to help people in the American church. I wanted to bring the broken to healing in the same way God had used music to change my own life. I wanted to hear the stories like my own, stories that maybe no one else thinks are important, but can still change lives. My heart is here. My heart is for the American people. I feel for the needs of the people overseas! I want to be part of supporting those brothers and sisters in their fight for our Savior!
But my fight? My fight is close. My fight is here. My fight is for the children of Atlanta and Houston who have been forced into prostitution. My fight is for the fatherless generation of our country, who don't know what it means to be loved and cherished by a father. My fight is for the teenagers who lost themselves in the world, lost themselves in loneliness, self-pity, self-destruction, and depression. My fight is for the people of this country who don't know what it means to be truly loved by a masterful, all-consuming, all-knowing, wonderful God.
My fight is here, and it is now.
Where is yours?
