Let's Stop Pretending

Warning: This post is coming from a very restless momma who's becoming increasingly uncomfortable every day.

I read and posted this blogger's take on what's happening to Christians in North Korea on Facebook last night,

http://loristanleyroeleveld.blogspot.com/2014/03/theyll-be-dead-by-morning-what.html

Her post is in regards to this,

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/6/kim-jong-un-calls-execution-33-christians/

I had trouble sleeping as I couldn't shake these brothers and sisters from my mind.  I told God I don't understand it.  I know this is not our home.  I know how this world's story ends.  Yet, I'm so troubled by the fate of these.  I prayed that their death be remembered.  I prayed that those of us on the other side of the world don't ignore it.

As I laid in my comfortable bed under a pile of blankets while my heater hummed in the background and my kids were tucked snug in their beds, I was overwhelmed with the disparity of the situation.  Here I am stressed about the laundry and cleaning that the next day holds and there are 33 of God's children in a cold cell awaiting their death all because they stood up for the truth.  They looked fear in the face and saw people hurting and dying around them and refused to keep quiet with the hope of Christ.

I cannot feel guilty about where I was born and where God has placed me for this season, but I can change my focus from being comfortable.  It's so hard for us to even comprehend what these Christians across the ocean have faced and the choices they've made on a daily basis when my hardest choice today might be which room to clean first.

It's overwhelming.  I tend to freeze not knowing where to go or what to do when I'm overwhelmed.  I know I'm not alone in this.  I see it happening all the time.  We pretend not to know about these stories.  We pretend not to see the woman standing on the corner.  We pretend we don't know about the lonely man down the street.  Ignorance is bliss, right?  Only one problem, we're not ignorant of the hurts of this world.  We see the hurting all around us.  When we don't, we have an even bigger problem that we are so self-focused and therefore blind.  Usually though we know and we choose to ignore.  We've done it so much that we don't even realize we are doing it anymore.  We justify our actions by our own busyness and we continue to pretend.

I am reminded of Katie Davis and her book Kisses from Katie.  We can be overwhelmed with the hurt around us and do nothing or we can choose to love the ones placed in front of us.  I think loving your family is a high calling and an important one, but I think sometimes we assume it's our only calling.  We are called to get out and love. Some days as a stay-at-home-mom, I may love my family by not complaining about the laundry and doing it because I love them.  That will be my calling some days.  But on this side of the globe, we have become so detached and so used to staying inside our own homes that we don't even realize there might be more. I'm pretty sure other days I am called to leave the laundry basket and get out out my comfort zone.  Could this be one of the reason we are depressed, feeling insignificant, and struggling with purpose?  We were created for more.

Let's not ignore what's happening in North Korea or on our own streets.  He's put you in your part of the world for a reason.  We can pray for the 33 brothers and sisters who probably get meet our Creator sooner than we will.  We can let their deaths not be in vain by letting them change us.  I pray my children do not sit on their couches struggling with the same things I'm struggling with.  I pray that as a family loving the people where we are placed becomes so familiar to them that they never consider the alternative.