the moments his scars bleed...

Its crazy how we look at a person and see what we want to see. The beautiful, the smart, the good, the bad, the survivor, the lost, the hopeless...It's easy to turn away from the bad and embrace the beautiful.

I know this guy from around Regina whose reputation is one that he himself won't deny. He's a drunk, and most often commented on as "typical." Yeah, he's native and yeah, he drinks...but have you ever asked him why? He told a story about when he was in the army and was ordered to "take out" any threats - this is where he was changed forever. He and some other men turned a street corner and found themselves face to face with a group of kids holding machine guns ready to fire. He was forced to shoot and kill them, and he watched as their little bodies lay lifeless on the ground. He still dreams about that day...He still sees the faces of the children whose lives he ended. And now he drinks because every part of him aches to forget, or even better, take it back. Im not making excuses, and Im not encouraging drunkenness, but I am saying that more often than not, there is more to the story. And more often than not, we forget about relationship and we forget about compassion.

My reality is that I dont really know what a hard life feels like. I have never fought or killed. I have never needed an excuse to forget my life. Like some of the people I know, I have never felt fear - the kind that makes you sick to your stomach - the type that makes you reach for the knife you have hidden in your coat. I have never stood on a street corner selling a fake smile and an abused body so that my boyfriend can make a few bucks. I have never been raped, I have never been abused. I have never been that 13 year old who is beat into unconciousnous as initiation into a gang - cause hey, i've got to survive these streets too. I have never been invisible, never been told im nothing, never been abandonned. My reality is that I never been unloved.

A lot of the kids I know and see each week understand and live this kind of life. They are from single parent families, they have parents who do and/or deal drugs. Some kids have great homes, while others run from them. Some have been to Joovie, some do drugs, some deal drugs, some are alcoholics, some fight, some join gangs, and some are just caught in the middle of it all and dont know what to do or which way to go.

God has allowed me to connect and have relationships with lots of different people, and to see what's underneath so many of the faces they (we...) put on to disguise whats really there. A smile to deflect the abuse. A tough exterior, to compensate for a broken heart.

Ive been thinking a lot lately of how easy it is to dismiss people from our lives and how I see it all too often. Our reality; We give up on people, or we never even give them a chance in the first place. It is in these moments where I think Jesus' scars must bleed. We dont get it. We have forgotten how to love.

We are surrounded by a world full of people who are hurting, and who are reaching out in hopes that someday, someone will reach back. Our problem is that sometimes we just dont recognize the call...it is in the tears of a broken hearted girl who misses her dad; it is in the actions of an angry teen who offers nothing but resentment and frustration, it is in the argument of a non believer. If you think about it, these are the people Jesus came for. Its not the healthy who need a doctor...it's the sick and Jesus doesn't teach a kind of love that walks away.