Stories for the Sharing

Sunday night my momma heart was broken for a little boy that I just met. On our after church drive to dinner down a winding and busy street, I spotted him out of the corner of my eye. He was willfully fighting his bicycle up a hill with brown hair flapping in the wind and exhaustion winning with every turn of the pedals. We passed him quickly but as my stomach dropped to the floor I knew we had to turn back. After approaching him, finding him scared, and running away we finally coerced him off of this too busy street and into a nearby parking lot. There, along with another passing-by tender hearted momma, we learned his name, part of his story, and through the tears he was fighting with all of his might we learned of the desperation that filled his eight-year-old days.

On the side of a busy street my heart broke into pieces as I felt more than helpless to impact his story, to truly help him. My eyes filled with tears and locked into the gaze of my husband and daughter in the car a few feet away; together, witnessing the heartbreak of a real life story that we knew we couldn’t mend.

Tears, the kind that well up in the corners of your eyes and then pour at high speeds down your face, soaked every inch of his olive skin as he unsuccessfully shook to fight them back.

Over the next hour, through the kindness and patience of a police officer, he began to let down his guard and trust us all a bit more. Her shining badge caught his attention as she knelt to the ground to share her broken story with him. Her story, like his, contained heartbreak, loss of trust, and fear…but with each word she shared he began to breathe a bit slower and lock eyes a bit more.

Then as the sun began to set, after phone calls and weighty decisions, he was off in the police car returning to the home he so desperately rode his bike away from. And all we could really do was pray…and trust that the God of the universe has His gaze locked on that brown haired, brown eyed boy that He loves more than we can imagine.

His eight-year-old face has filled my thoughts the past few days. The shared story of the police officer has filled my head. The brokenness that connected them has ached in my bones.

Our stories, the ones that make us cry and then somehow hold us together, are what connect us to one another. The stories that we would rather not share are often the ones that God brings out of our souls in the simple moments where relationship overrides self-preservation.   

His story, his face, his tears, and his quaking voice have shaken me hard while forcing me to accept even more that our broken and aching world is in desperate need of HOPE. A hope that, as followers of Christ, we possess for the sharing.

We are called to know Jesus and make Him known, which just might happen through the vulnerable sharing of stories that show how He has transformed our lives. And other times, in the midst of unseized opportunities or stories we didn’t possess, lifting prayers to our Jesus will bridge a gap that our words never could.

So dear friends, will WE be willing to share the story of our soul, the story of our once carried shame, when the ache of another spills out in front of us?

Will WE be willing to set aside our pride and need to be seen as “whole” and instead display the beautifully broken mess that connects us to another?

Will WE set aside our dinner plans or our appointments to come alongside someone in need, sharing with them the HOPE that we possess?

Will WE make space and time to show our desperately turning world that WE are willing to stop just for them, in the same way that Jesus stepped out of Heaven and into time for each of us?

What will WE do to make a difference in the world that we have been graced to reside?

Jesus spoke clearly when He said “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

Therefore, let us be intentional to go to Him for our rest and diligent to come alongside others to help them find THE WAY to theirs.

© Dani Hardy, April 17, 2019

References

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) (Holy Bible, NIV)