A Beautiful Love Story

Valentines Day is approaching and love is in the air! Date nights, fancy dinners, roses, chocolate and whispers of I love you. It seems so wonderful and yet at the same time so common and simplistic. 

What if this year we celebrated Valentines Day a little differently? 

Each year I pour out my undying love for my husband, praise him for who he is and what he means to me.  We take the time to celebrate each other and our marriage. In a way, I just let him know that I love him in a little bit bigger of a way than normal, but really, I just give him the love that he is already aware of having on the other 364 days. My husband knows I love him. I tell him and I show him. He knows.

This year my thoughts are drawn to those that may not have or know the love he has. The ones who feel forgotten and undesired and truly believe that they are. What about them? What is their Valentines Day like?  

As an advocate for The Mercy House , a ministry I believe in with my whole heart, I'm choosing to make this Valentines Day about something more.  I'm choosing to make it about the most beautiful LOVE story ever told. The sacrificial love of a Redeemer that knows and loves the broken, the impoverished and even the, dare I say, unlovable. 

As the week goes on I can't wait to tell you more about the love this Redeemer has poured out and the true redemption He has brought forth, but for now, I will share my own story of seeing firsthand this Redeemer's work in the life of a very special young woman.  

A few years ago my heart was broken and immediately lit on fire when I met a precious young woman from Kenya named Maureen. My oldest daughter served in ministry with her over a summer and pleaded with me to meet her. She said "Mom, seriously, she is going to change your life". And my goodness, that she has.  

I came to meet Maureen one day by first seeing her in a parking lot. It was instantly as if we had met many times before and were being reunited.  I vividly remember us running to one another and embracing in the most beautiful hug. She had never seen my face but yet instantly knew who I was. In that moment, I knew I would love her like my own daughter. 

Maureen is a tiny, beautiful girl with a smile bigger than the rest of her body.  Joy abounds from her. I was given the privilege of spending the day with her and hearing her story.  Maureen was once a sponsored Compassion child (another ministry I love). She told many stories of the extreme poverty she lived in.  Barely a roof over her head, a father who left, a mother, a sister, 2 brothers and a nephew all crammed in a house the size of most of our closets. No running water, no food, no plumbing and no money to pay the $3-$4 rent expected of them every month.  I cringed at the mere thoughts of her story, but Maureen didn't. Instead, she spoke of them with great power and triumphant joy. 

There I sat, literally looking poverty in the face and it smiled and gave praise, it was life changing. 

Maureen had been rescued from poverty, BUT, her rescue didn't look like we might expect it to. You see, she still remained in her shoddy home, she still had little food and she still walked in filth and stench every day of her life and yet if you asked her she would tell you she was rescued.

Maureen's rescue was real and it came in the form of love and when love is complete it is enough.

Love healed. Love encouraged. Love restored.  Love redeemed her life.  

I suppose you could say that Maureen was healed by the power of one. There was one sponsor who chose her and wrote letters telling her for the first time that she was loved, but there was also The One who ultimately healed her. The God who came down and humbled himself to death on a cross out of His great love for her, suffered far greater than she ever did or ever would, and Maureen knew that He did it willingly for her. He was her Rescuer. (By the way, He did the exact same thing for you!) This changed her life much as it should ours. It is that kind of love that outweighs any hardship or circumstance, even the deepest poverty. Maureen knew that. 

So, as I sat there during our time together, unable to finish all that was on my lunch plate knowing it was about to go into the trash, my heart broke. It just broke. Images of my pantry and expired food that I would go home and toss, flashes of my closet and my "posh car" as Maureen called it. All of it. I saw it all as loss. What was it worth? What good were all those things? The thought of a little girl never being told she mattered or was loved, this previously un-thought of notion could no longer be denied. That little girl now sat before me. It was in that moment that I knew I also had to become "one".  I had to become one that would make a difference. 

The Mercy House was also established by the power of one. Maureen was one. My friend Kristen Welch of We Are That Family was one and then before you knew it a lot of others decided to become ones. I don't know if this will encourage you to explore and become involved with The Mercy House or not, I hope it does, but more than that I hope it encourages you to become involved in something greater than yourself. After all, if one poverty stricken Kenyan girl and one beautiful Texan mom and wife can come together and create something as wonderful as The Mercy House, then who knows what more God can do with your one. Don't underestimate the power of your one...just don't. 

Check out The Mercy House here... 

     
Mercy House Kenya from The Fellowship at Cinco Ranch on Vimeo.