“Hole” thoughts

For the past few weeks I’ve been reading “The Hole in Our Gospel” as part of a series we are doing at our church. Whether you consider yourself “religious”, “spiritual” or none of the above, I believe this book and others like it is important to read. Poverty, most especially the challenges that Africa as a whole continues to face, is a human problem, not a problem that only particular churches or governments or celebrities should be doing something about.

The older I get (and yes, I really can say that, trust me), the more I am surprised at the things I thought “always were” when it comes to our world. Growing up in the 70s and 80s, it was quite common to see the poor on my television screen as part of the campaigns to fight hunger and poverty in third-world countries. Graphic photos of starving children or families living in nothing but cardboard were disturbing but even as a child I just don’t remember the images shaking me to the core.

The summer before my sophomore year of high school I had the opportunity to spend a week in Mexico as part of a youth mission trip. It was the first time I had seen with my own eyes an entire community of people literally living in cardboard houses. No running water. No electricity. Hot. Dirty. Smiles. That’s what I remember about that trip, for the most part. Not a lot of dark, dreadful feelings but rather being surprised at the way these people lived and acted about their living situation. Again, I did not come away from that experience with a surging “I need to DO something!” feeling about how drastically different they were living in comparison to my life.

The hole in my perspective

I left something out of yesterday’s post in regards to being sick. Well, two things actually.

First is that I am not a “good” sick person. By that I mean, after about 4 hours, I’m ready to do myself in. Obviously not too seriously as I’m still here…but mentally, I’m done. I’m begging, pleading, crying out to God to end my “misery.” I’m mentally able to continue on in my illness because I know there will be an end to it, usually within the day if not sooner.

Just ask any of my former roommates (and there’s about 10 of them, so take your pick!) If the cold or the flu went longer than a day or two, I was fairly emphatic that I would forever be in this state of illness, regardless of how terribly unrealistic that view was. It was all about how I felt in the moment. I would be abundantly thankful that God had not chosen me to be one who dealt with chronic pain of any kind because I just could not see myself managing a life around something like that. I lived with friends who had chronic pains of one kind or another and I still do not know how they did it!

However, and this is the second thing I left out, Friday I experienced illness with a completely different perspective. I was still miserable, don’t get me wrong. But my thoughts went to far different places than they typically do. I could no longer allow myself to think that my world should end because of the pains in my gut or the pounding in my head.

That’s because of a woman named Rachel and a book called “The Hole in Our Gospel”.