I walked in fast and hard to work on Saturday....I prayed the long on the way in......committing my trust to the king......wanting so badly to die to self.
I didn't notice the rooms I was assigned.....unsure of how I missed it after all it was just last week when I couldn't take it in those particular rooms the anymore...................it wasn't until everyone was rushing past me to their assignment saying, "So you drew the short straw today?"
"How did that happen to you again after last week?"
It was then I looked up and realized...............that I was back to the same assignment that I had myself removed from the week before.
I smiled a faint kind of smile and slid into my seat and took a deep breath. Mumbled quietly to the others that I could do anything for 12 hours because I would be the gone tomorrow headed to the beach for a week.
As I got report the nurse described the mom as "hanging the Dr's by their toes," which was putting it lightly.......the other nurses said, "this is a one-day assignment only" so how did you get so unlucky?
I cringed at the thought of what I would have to endure for the day knowing that it would be far from easy.
I just kept breathing trying to breath in grace....I wanted some kind of super-natural solution to run, or escape the assignment. I sat there in silence for what seemed like eternity...........with the no words.......and with the desire to run.
It was then that I could hear Him whisper to my heart:
"Robbie, do you LOVE me?"
I am thinking to myself of course I love you.
I kept telling myself to bend the lower................if I don't bend the lower then how? how can he come in?
If I don't give the all of me how? how can he be magnified?
We have a Saviour who came to be a servant............and it's the me who claims that I want to see His face.....seeing His face is only seen when I BEND even lower.
Bending the lower to wipe the vomit from the floor.
bending the lower to wipe the feces that is all over the patient and the bed.
bending the lower to put my arm around a women (the mom) who talks the mean to everyone...
telling her it's the OK to the one who screams and cusses at all medical staff. I keep looking to see if I can see the Him in her......I mumble under my breath, "help me Jesus."
help me to bend a little lower to surrender.........surrender my pride...........surrender my need to be the right............and allow her CONTROL........realizing that control is the only thing she has left..........her child who was born with multiple handicaps..........the mom who has sacrificed the everything........the child who has been well cared for. The mom whose wounds are the deep.........the bleeding kind.........she is the broken............ Her problems seem the unsolvable..........and I realize that it is this LIFE that sometimes can pierce us the hard.....make us seem unreachable........it is God himself that has to place His love in us. I can't solve the world's problems although wanting to....she has been dealt the hard...........but I have to keep trying not giving up......trying to bring the ones to heaven who are the hardened.... from the life that has not been the kind.
I whisper it again..............'help me please.................help me father show your badge of love."
We can't give up even when everybody else has washed their hands.....this women is a person and God loves her as much as He loves me. And He doesn't want anyone to perish. And when I stand before Him what is it that He will ask me? Did I try harder? Did I love the unlovable? Did I talk to the one no-one wanted to be around? Did I show her His badge? His badge of LOVE?
Dying to self ....opens you up to be the vulnerable..........to be the hated but also giving us the opportunity to be the servant. Isn't that what Jesus himself came to be? He who washed the feet of His disciples the night before He gave His very own life? Even washing the feet of Judas the very one who would protray Him. He came to this Earth to SERVE. So how much more should we bend to serve even the ones who want to hate us?
Humbling ourselves gives us the opportunity to wear HIS badge of love that only comes from God. What an honor to bend the lower..........to spend a little of thy self on the others for the one who bent the lowest to die hanging on a cross for the all of us.
It is was me who asked my kids to bend the lower to step out of their Babylon world for a few weeks to share their everything with a girl who has the nothing.
So why is it that I am having the hard swallowing my pride and to act like I don't know the anything just to give this mom a last chance to CONTROL!!!!! To control the only thing she has left to tell us the staff what to do.
All the while;
Jesus is whispering to me..............."Robbie daughter of the King of the Most High," Do you LOVE me?
and I humbly answer with my eyes squinted tight praying that it doesn't hurt saying, "yes father I love you,"
and He so gently speaks to my heart and says....."then feed my sheep!"
Jesus our God who loved us enough to became fully man who came to earth only to be a servant.
He who asked the Father to take this cup from him "not my will but your will." He who drew the short straw but was not allowed to change His assignment so He bent the lowest of the low. He who sweat blood to humbly give up His everything for us and our messy lives..........so how much can we give up of ourselves for others? For the ones who are not the pretty? For the ones that don't know God? For the ones who can sometimes be the really mean? How much can we give of ourselves? For the one who gave US his all.
Jesus is asking us all; "DO YOU LOVE ME?" "THEN GO AND FEED MY SHEEP!" (wear His badge of LOVE) it is the only thing that shows this lost and dying world that Jesus is real.
Praying to be bent even lower...........longing for the presence of the King....wanting so badly to see His face.
Knowing that the lower I bend the more I am going to see His face.
all of grace,
Robbie
