This statement by Joel Jakubowski, a speaker at Esperanza Health Center this week, perfectly sums up my heart over these past two weeks of SMI. Pain is the greatest blessing. How can that be? In these weeks we are have heard heartbreaking stories of dangerous neighborhoods, broken homes, violence, drugs, abuse, abandonment and death. How do you hold the hand of a person trapped in bad circumstance and tell them that that is the most beautiful blessing that God could give them? And how do you do it as a privileged, educated, 22 year old?
There have been so many stories of pain to share but the story that has hit my heart the deepest was in a small interaction with a group of women on the door stoop of a house. We asked if they wanted medical screening and although they seemed genuinely bothered by our presence, one woman begrudgingly told us we could take her blood pressure. We introduced ourselves to the other women on the stoop and finished the screening. Then I asked one simple question: “Who is your support system?” She looked down at her feet, paused and grabbed the woman’s hand next to her. She told us that her friend had been there with her through everything and was her source of strength. All of the women inched a little closer together to appreciate that moment. It was clear that the bond of these women was not something taken lightly. I asked if we could pray for them and if there was anything in particular they wanted us to pray about. The women all were silent for a minute with their heads down before the first woman whispered, “Pray for women in domestic violence.”
It was a powerful moment. I tried to push back my tears, and I grabbed their hands to pray. I don’t even remember the words that came out of my mouth in that prayer, but I remember hearing the sobs of the women on that stoop. I remember finishing the prayer and watching the women hug me, wipe their tears, put on a good face and continue on with their day. But there was a difference: they were stronger than they were before. That circle of hands clasped together was a fortress, not made by man but made by God. They recognized their pain, they knew they couldn’t handle it alone and they saw that God had placed them together to support one another. They weren’t embarrassed by their struggle, they weren’t fearful of what others would think, they weren’t so proud that they thought they could handle it on their own. They saw their pain and brokenness and recognized that the Lord was in it.
In the suburbs, we are individuals. We are strong. We each control our own destiny. We mind our own business. We hide our pain and brokenness. We have more sophisticated idols that are easier to hide… and in that, we are missing some of the most beautiful things the world has to offer. There is something beautiful about a pain that reveals our brokenness and our desperate need for a Savior. Another one of our speakers, Coz Coscombe, put it eloquently when he said that he felt his family was safer living in North Philly than in the suburbs because here he can plainly see pain in drug dealers on the corner or the violence breaking out in the streets whereas in the suburbs, pain is hidden in the captain of the football team or in the suffocating pressure of success.
Pain is rampant here. And yet through it… somehow we have experienced the greatest beauty the world can offer. Communities stand together and support one another in a way I have never experienced before. I have never been to a place that is so weak that they are actually strong. Why? Because they see pain, they recognize it and they let God work through it.
I challenge our churches to recognize that brokenness and pain does not make us weak… it makes us stronger.
One of my favorite verses in the bible is 2 Corinthians 12:9: “My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness”
Let us be weak, broken, and vulnerable and let God show us His power in the blessing of pain.