Almost every single moment of this last trip to Uganda was my favorite. Each moment superseded the one before it. How could it get better? And then it just would. He was constantly more and more and more. And then it was our last day. The poverty we came face to face with was more than every one of us could bear. People wearing rags, filthy, ravaged by sickness, addicted to substances, sleeping in the dirt, walking around just waiting to die. My heart always ends up at a place of great pain and sorrow for these people. But if I were honest, it does not start there. It usually starts with, "I'm so glad that isn't me".
It wasn't until I was daydreaming in a church pew on that first Sunday back, struggling to engage in worship, that I really started to process. That really IS me. Or more accurately, WAS me. Wasn't the poverty of my soul identical to this? Wasn't I stumbling around in filthy rags, sleeping in stench, addicted to all things evil before I knew Him? Before He came to me, wasn't I walking around just waiting to die?
But in His great mercy, He did come to me. I could have never made it to Him. Like this village, I was miles from anywhere. I would not even have known what direction to walk. That's provided I even had within me the strength or desire to walk. I could have NEVER made it to Him. Even still He came to me in the trenches of my despair and rescued me. HE. Almighty. Righteous. Holy. Magnificent. Pure. Beauty. PERFECTION. Took me out, washed me with perfumed soaps, dressed me in fine robes, fed me with choicest of foods until contentment, laid me in royal bedding and said its all yours and more.
The thought of that is almost more than I can bear. I am so undeserving. Its really no wonder that I sometimes walk around this life fumbling about, making inappropriate comments, completely out of place. Me, this worst of all sinners turned daughter of a King. Oh how often I forget.
