Confessions of a Latte Club Card: It Is Not Just Time That Heals All Wounds

I'm sipping on my iced cappuccino waiting for a youtube video of Donald Miller to load. A couple just walked in the door. The girl looks normal enough, the guy has hair that resembles a matted rat with dreadlocks. A woman in her fifties, who is trying to dress like she is thirty two, keeps cupping her hand to the window pane in the door looking for someone. A man who I assume is her husband, whom I also assume she is looking for, comes up behind her and taps her on the shoulder. She just about head buts the door in surprise, then laughs as she realizes it was him. Some music resembling Aretha Franklin drones in the background. Just another day at the Electric Brew. If your ever in Downtown Goshen, Indiana I recommend their chai, but only if Michelle is working. She makes a good chai.

There is a ragged tan business card in my wallet with little holes punched all along the side. I am one little coffee cup punch away from a free mixed drink of some sort. I've been working on this card for a while.

I need to start taking notes on my card, just a line or two. Something to record what happened with that cup of coffee. I really wish I would have thought of this from the beginning. This card has seen a lot.

Last night my card was present for something beautiful. Three friends, laughing at Leonard's house while watching Sabrina. It may never happen again, I don't know; but it was beautiful. I'm not really going to describe why other than this: It represented healing in something previously broken.

It takes a lot of punched holes in a Latte Club Card to bring healing. Some require tears, others anger, others forgiveness, most of them confusion, all of them prayer.

No friendship broken, no marriage hurting, no wound is beyond healing. If we find the humility. Many passionately pray for physical healing, but lack the fervor in praying for broken hearts or arthritic compassion that have plagued them and others for years. In some sense, physical healing is easier. Physical healing brings wholeness without me needing to confront my selfishness, or admit that I was wrong. Physical healing is easy to talk about "God healed my arthritis!" but to say the same about relational healing, even my rejoicing points out that I was dysfunctional.

C.S. Lewis said that no one can love in any form without being hurt. Because of death, because of selfishness, because of sin I will at some point be let down in some way by the ones I love. I know that someday if I marry, I or my spouse will day, causing pain, yet I invest in love.

Invest in Love today, even towards those who may now be your enemies, even though they may not respond to that love. Jesus said "as much as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." Committed love may not always see the healing result, but without it there is no chance.

There is no greater representation of the heart of God than healed relationships. The more you experience them, the more you experience the heart of the Father.

Called to Love

I just stopped in to visit a friend from Maple City Chapel. The guy is in a wheelchair because he had his leg amputated above the knee due to issues with circulation. More recently he almost lost his left foot as well. Besides the fact that all of this has caused increased stress in an already stressful family situation, his medical conditions are background information.

Over the last few months I've had the opportunity to work with their son (16yrs) who has some pretty interesting views towards life and an amazing ability to bring the topic of girls he finds attractive into almost any genre of discussion. God has done some awesome things in the life of this guy and his family in the last few months, things I wouldn't have expected to find. Frankly, things I don't think God expected me to try to accomplish.

Lately I've had reaffirmed in my mind the idea that God doesn't call us to change people (that's His job); but he does call us to drastically love and serve people. I have to think about a few specific people that I've tried to change over the years. I think I have spent too much time trying to change them, and not enough time simply loving them as Jesus loved them. Had I done that I probably would actually have seen more results and less frustration on my part.

I was reading through Mark this morning. Jesus called people to a changed life, but He seemed more concerned with loving them first, simply having compassion. Ok so he did yell at some people, but he ended up yelling at the important, well to do, leaders of the time. I think I've flipped the example around.

It's easy to get frustrated and try to yell some common sense into people. Unfortunately common sense doesn't change a heart, just some actions. God is interested in changing hearts, he does that through our love for others.

I need to learn to love. No I take that back, I need to learn to love others. I already tend to do too good of a job at loving myself.

Did I fail to be Jesus?

I am faced with the aftermath of my actions, both giving and heartless.

When I first saw Fred I realized it was a pretty interesting situation. Not just because his dress was definitely more concerned with comfort than it was with appearance; but because his fingernails were yellow and cracked. The guy was definitely malnourished. I took Fred over to Lux cafe where he ordered as quickly as he could, and got it to go. I took him down to Best Western where the church was going to put him up for the night. We talked a bit here and there but he seemed cold and indifferent... no that's not the right word. I could tell he was deeply hurting, but he tried to hide behind what seemed like indifference. Only when I asked him what he thought about the buggies around Goshen did he seem like more than a shell of a man. He laughed and said it seemed a little back in time. We went to CVS and picked him up some pepto Bismal and Advil.

The next day Fred came by the church again, asking for another night at the hotel. Mel offered him a bus ticket to New York. Strangely he didn't take it. Mel tried to get him to New York; but for whatever reason, he turned it down. He came back again today asking for another night at the hotel.

Long story short we said "too bad buddy, you had your chance." (Not in those words but in the end it's all the same right?) Oh such a wonderful example of Christ I am. I can't say I feel convicted, I just wonder. Mel did offer spiritual help, He said that we are here and available to minister to his spiritual needs. And to an extent we did minister to his physical needs (about $200 worth). I prayed with him and spent a measly $8 on advil and pepto. So now I sit here and wonder if we did enough.

I like how Greg Boyd says it. He talks about service. Showing God's love in little ways, giving of ourselves, bleeding for others; all of these things are not done to create a utopia here on earth, they are done to give a glimpse of something greater that is to come. God has compassion for the hurting, so we should too. Even if we know we're pouring money time and energy into a hole, it shouldn't stop us from doing so.

I'm not sure I have anywhere near a good answer as to whether I gave enough of myself. I guess that's not the point. This just goes to show me that my love is limited, my ability to give is limited; God's is unlimited. He never has said to me "sorry buddy, you had your chance" he gave until it hurt, then He gave more. Maybe, one day I'll get to be just like him.... one day.