Estella has a gentle, quiet way of loving. She is shy, but strong. She has known heartache, yet there is a sparkle in her eye and sunshine in her smile. While her love whispers, her acts of service pierce my heart, scream to the very core of me, and deafeningly teach me what it really means to possess a servant’s heart.
I had returned to what was home at the time feeling defeated by the result of the day. I was frustrated, angry, and exhausted. I had been up and down Port au Prince trying to accomplish something and in a very typical manor had been let down. I was marching through an unwelcoming market carrying a sick baby when it began to rain and I thought, “How appropriate.” If it hadn’t been for the hundreds of dark eyes already staring at me, I would have started crying then. The rain is powerful; it kills and it saves. We usually welcome the rain for it provides life-giving water. It also has a way of washing away the dirt and renewing the soul. Today all it seemed to do was create mud. The rain made the thick, sticky type of mud that sprays up your legs with every flick of a flip flop. A woman gave me a cloth to cover the baby with and gave me a look that said, “That stupid child, doesn’t she know the rain could kill a baby?” When you are from a place that watches children die as fast as the rain comes, you start to form your own superstitions. I barged through the large blue gates and plopped the baby down in the first lap I found and headed back to the well. I couldn’t stop the tears from coming. Haiti often makes one feel helpless and all efforts pointless. I avoided making contact with questioning eyes as I found the bucket and began hauling up water. Someone handed me a small yellow tub to fill and curiously said “Sissy?” as if to prompt me to explain. I said nothing, not sure how to explain my reaction to the frustration these women are accustomed to. I sat down and stared at my feet and thought about how incredibly blessed I am when I noticed that Estella had planted herself in a chair in front of me and informed me that she was going to wash my feet. I told her she didn’t have to do that, but she just grabbed the soap and began anyway. The mud was all the way up to my thighs and she gingerly washed it all away. It was late in the afternoon and time for her to go home to her own family and her own chores, yet she took her time. I began to cry again at the beautiful parallel of this moment and the moment shared between Christ and his disciples. Washing someone’s feet is intimate, humbling and selfless. This is the relationship Christ had with his disciples. I was filthy, but Estella was not afraid to get her hands dirty in order to make me clean. I was filthy, but Jesus was not afraid to die pierced, bloodied, bruised, and betrayed on a cross in order to make me clean.
"You saw no form of any kind the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below. And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars—all the heavenly array—do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the LORD your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven. But as for you, the LORD took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you now are." Deuteronomy 4: 15-20
"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts." Deuteronomy 6:4-6
As a young Christian (and even as a child), it was very obvious what things were "good" and what things were "bad." I knew not to be consumed by anger, lust, envy, pride, or selfishness. As a new Christian we are very much controlled by emotions. Everything is exciting and new and we're pumped up about our new found salvation. We become passionate about missions, evangilizing, youth group, bible study, worship, tithing and such. I have recently realized that this should be just a phase and that our passion/excitement should change as we grow. Our passion and excitement should be in Him alone.
I have come to realize that if we are consumed by anything other than God himself, no matter how good of a thing it may be, it is not right. I have been consumed by my friends, family, church, work, school, and missions. These things are not bad things, but they ended up getting more attention than my relationship with God. Jesus shows how important it is for God alone to be thing that consumes when he says to cut off your hand if it causes you to sin (Matthew 5:30; 18:8; Mark 9:43; this is also an example of how we must treat sin). If these seemingly good things are causing us to sin or are being put above the Lord our God, we must get rid of them and/or dirasctically change our priorities.
When you put things or ideas or people above God, are you loving him "with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength"? If you are consumed by your marriage, your problems, your current situation, your adoption, your finances, your children, your church, your ministry, are your eyes fixed on Him alone? We are instructed to not make idols; what is your idol?
God gives us blessings, passion, and direction not for us to be consumed by them, but to draw us to Him.
I challenge you to evaluate your own priorities, your own heart, your own thoughts and ask the Lord to show you what you have been consumed with. And then ask for the courage and strength and guidance is takes to change those things.
