I hate to be that girl who writes about a scary experience on this blog. Believe me, L4L is not scary and 98% of people down there are incredibly nice, faithful, genuine, and inspiring. I have never felt unsafe there--and even with this experinece I'm about to share I felt safe and never felt like I was personally in danger. Promise. I met and talked with 4 people on Friday. 3/4 were incredible faithful, inspiring, and so amazing. I could write (and still may) blogs and blogs about the stories these 3 shared and the love they passed to me. But right now, I'm writing about the one I met who showed me what evil looks like. Guys, we have to take the good with the bad. We learn from it. So, take a breath cause here's a sad story but it's one that I feel needs to be told.
I was sitting at the bus stop on Lancaster chatting with new friends Dirty Red and Slamm'n (Darryl) when I saw Evil.
I've known I guess forever that the Devil exists and that there is an adversary at work to keep us from Christ. I have always heard that there are "bad" people in this world, but honestly I've never really believed that. And, even now after seeing evil- I still believe that we are not a race designed to be evil, but rather it is a symptom of our weakness. Up until last Friday I can honestly say I've lived a sheltered (blessed?) enough life to be relatively shielded from bad stuff. I see truely horrible events on TV. I've read about the holocaust in History books. I've cried during testimonies of unjustice, but on Friday I finally saw unabashed evil with my own eyes. right in front of me. and honestly, it's still haunting me.
Background: Dirty Red and Slamm'n and I are talking away-- awesome guys. telling me about their lives, their outlooks on Lancaster, and their situations. Dirty Red is a 61 yr old skinny black man originally from New Orleans. He picked up the changed chunked out a window of a passing car like a pro. Darryl is a well-fed, better-humored teddy bear from Oklahoma City. He's a resident at UGM and working thorugh the program there. He's a truck driver who told me he loves cooking soul food. They are super friendly and pleasant, but then Ashley came and the whole mood plummetted.
Ashley looked like she was in her 20's and had two precious daughters with her. She was waiting on the bus. The girls were being loud and fussy-one of them-the older one-more so. It was like we weren't even there, Ashley just cussed out her 4-5 yr old daughters. "fuck you". "shut up and stop that whining". "y'all are going to grandmas" "I can't handle this". Dirty Red, Slamm'n, and the other 2 TCU friends with me all kinda looked around uncomfortable.
Then I saw something that broke my heart and I will never forget.
The younger of the two girls shoved her older sister down completely on the ground, her head landed inches from the busy street of lancaster, and she wailed at the pain--and the mom, Ashley, just stared blank faced at her daughter. "get up you whiny bitch" something along those lines came from her blank face.
She didn't reach for her child, she didn't wipe the dust, didn't reprimand the other whatsoever. Cold hard hate. the girl just wailed and wailed with her mom staring cooly off into space.
I'm not the greatest writer, so maybe this account doesn't do the situation justice, but let me tell you it was cruel and evil. I-and the other TCU friends and slamm'n-wanted to embrace the girl and tell her it was going to be ok, but our "don't get sued" instincts kicked in and we too withheld our affection. Slamm'n reached out to her, and I walked over, but it was like an instinctually breaks went off-who were we to embrace this stranger's child when obvuously she wouldn't herself? I look back and sort of wish I had had the courage. Everything I know about Jesus tells me that he would have. That's what the cross was about, right? reaching out in love to his hurt children even though it meant punishment.
I know that Ashley isn't evil.We all fall short of the glory of God, and she is a sinner just like I am. No different. But the devil was in her when she left her baby crying on the ground like that. no doubt in my mind.
When they got on the bus, I asked Slamm'n what we should have done, or what can we do now? he said Just Prayer. So we prayed, right there. I prayed that they stop their fighting and that even though the little girl's life may be headed in a bad direction-that Jesus intercede. Right then and there. Pick up your child and show her what love is.
Jesus-please watch over this family and save your child.
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There is true power in stories like this. The hardest truth to accept sometimes is that we can't fix this world. In L4L, we love and we love and we love even more because each of us wants to believe that there is this inherent good in everyone. We choose to see the best in the people that the world has pushed aside.
ReplyDeleteI think the important thing to realize is that we can't take situations like this in our own hands. We are completely inept at mending brokenness, hate, pain, and injustice but our creator is here for that very purpose. The only thing we have control over is how much we love every single person we come into contact with and as we work on loving, God works on all those things we can't fix.
Evil exists. But the real power lies within our God. He is so good.
So I just encourage everyone to pray about the people you meet, the people you read about, and that our God will help this woman overcome her Satan. Pray that her heart will become softened, that her children will not succumb to the hatred and pain and evil that they are exposed to. Above all, just pray that they will feel the grace and mercy and love of Jesus in a way that will completely change their lives.
And keep on loving!