Confrontation

Personally, for me it's much more natural to avoid confrontation at any cost, even if it means letting myself or something I believe in be trampled on. The negative effects of confrontation far out weigh the good in my mind. Oh yeah, I can get into a debate or argument over things, even important 'big' things. But when it comes to actually getting into the face of a problem or someone who needs to take a step or two back, I'm ready to run and hide. If it takes more than some words or a few minutes of heart felt effort I'm not so into it. I think we're all a bit like that, even the most obnoxious, 'tough' people have their certain things they avoid confronting. Why? Why are we so afraid to face up to certain things? Because we either fear or, more often than fearing, know that we don't have what it takes to face that thing and at least come out some what whole.

That's how it was for me the first time I faced something really big, I'd thought and talked about this for a long time and all the words and phrases and verses were in my mind. I went into it thinking I had this under control, oh it was going to be so hard but I was ready for it, I was going to wear my stoic "I'm so strong and brave in the midst of this" face and walk right in and out of this situation. Then I got sick on my flight, I mean the kind of sick where I was starting to try and figure out which people looked like they could best handle being puked on around me. Suddenly all the phrases and words I'd memorized were gone, and I was left with basically one, "God help me." As waves of nausea and feeling like I was going to pass out kept taking their turns crashing on me, I was ready to get off that plane and be in my hotel bed. As we flew over the beautiful and very needy country of Guatemala, I wasn't quite ready to meet the reality waiting the second our plane touched the ground. To be honest I was like a bowl of jello dropped in a big mess on the floor. After finally making it through customs or whatever all that mad passport stamping was, and don't even get me started on how they dump your luggage out of the plane, we were on our way outside to be picked up by our hotel. So I thought.

Then it happened, confrontation.

Not a normal kind of confrontation, but the kind that confronts and challenges or up sets everything in your life. I saw poverty, poverty I could never end even if I completely emptied the wallet I was clinging too in fear that 'those people' might take the paper stashed inside. It was so hectic, the fumes and smoke from the vehicles, the smells of too many people and too few showers, all the suitcases and business people, the traditional dress of the natives, and the language I couldn't understand all spinning around my already spinning head. Then there she was, the spinning stopped and she looked me straight in the eye and begged me to buy a pack of gum so her children could eat. Confrontation. Everything I'd ever known collided into a parallel world that just happened to be a few hours flight from where I live every day in my perfect little life. The heart break for this woman, what ever her situation was, screamed to open my purse right there amongst the crowd and madness even though it wasn't smart, hey this woman was in need. But to my self the fear screamed much louder, 'someone might steal from you if you loosen your grip, they might even hurt you if they see you pulling out money, for all you know she's a drug addict or an alcoholic, she might not even have kids.' The spinning started again and there was our ride to the hotel, I dismissed her with the excuses that I had to go and technically I didn't have anything right in my hands to give her, but not before I saw the look in her eyes. That look still haunts me, the look of fear and disappointment, a struggle to hold to some sense of worth and hope as she turned to find some one else.

I was in Guatemala with my mom to adopt two kids into our family, adoption was something I'd prayed for our family my whole life. For the first bit of our drive I quickly found that looking into the streets of that city meant looking into the reality of the poverty there, and I was ready to get back on that plane and leave the country. So I tried basically staring a hole into the van floor, "God help me," I prayed, I didn't want to be there and I didn't want to see this over whelming need that I knew I couldn't fix no matter how many packs of bubble gum I bought from these people. Then I heard the voice of God probably the most clearly I've ever heard, "Don't look away." That simple, but it changed my life completely. Confrontation is what I was made for.

I was born again into a life of love and grace through the Savior who walked this earth confronting sickness with healing, the bound with freedom, the sinful with forgiveness, the hungry with food, the broken with restoration. We've let this idea of confrontation become something negative with us, we take phrases like 'everybody love everybody' and 'peace' and then think that means just sitting back and taking it easy. I thing it's time we wake up and shake off the dust of self and realize that to love some one you've gotta get up in their face and love them even if that's hard for you or them to take at the time. Loving someone doesn't mean staying out of their life and giving them space all the time, love confronts the hurts and anger and fears and does something about it. And peace? Oh sure, this isn't the real world, if we sit back and are polite then all the jerks out there are going to magically leave us alone and no one will hurt anyone. There is wrong in this world, there is evil that would deny peace and freedom to innocent people. So what, we sit back and don't fight that which tears peace and denies justice in the name of 'peace'? It's time we stand up and confront every situation and wrong with the love and strength we don't have in our selves but in God.

We were not made for a life of just getting by or our own pleasures, we were made to be an army of people united in belief that the love of our Father is what this hurting world needs. Let's confront the bitterness, pain, grief, hate, poverty, fear, complacency, anger, addictions, selfishness, orphaned, slavery, injustice and every wrong we meet with the perfect love of our Father.