Someone Else's Shoes

April weather in Kentucky has been ridiculous.  In the last week alone I have seen worse storms and more funnel clouds than I have in my entire life combined.

As I've said before, they don't really scare me -- these storms.  Even this morning, I slept straight through three tornado warnings.

This makes me think of the apartment Liza and I had over off Centre Parkway a few years ago.  The fourplex backed up to the Tates Creek Country Club (so ironic)... and the neighborhood's storm warning system was located (what sounded like) right outside my window.  The first night I was awoken from a dead sleep by the sound of a loud man's voice echoing in my room... well, to say I was terrified is an understatement.

But I just got a phone call from my sweet Olivia.  Who is home by herself.  She just had to go to the basement... alone.  I also got text messages from a few teachers who are hunkered down in hallways and basements with dozens of scared children.  And even one from my mom, also a teacher: "That was wild, huh?"

What in the world?  I am sitting on the couch, listening to Ben Rector, drinking coffee, and working on my last assignment for the semester.  No sirens.  No thunder.  Just rain and gray skies.  The storms the others are experiencing are not a reality for me.  It is hard for me to understand their fear.

And I'm thinking this morning about how this is how most of us operate.  We are not being intentionally selfish.  Or maliciously self-interested.  I don't think most of us assume the world revolves around us.  As a matter of fact, some of us are painfully aware of the rest of the world.

But I wonder if sometimes this is how it works: I am here.  In my house.  In America.  And I just did a load of laundry and made a pot of coffee and ate an apple out of a refrigerator.  While my sister about forty miles away is crying in a basement by herself because a storm is quickly overtaking my hometown.

How easily I could forget that she's scared.  How easily I could look outside my window and see the skies clearing up and just curse all the puddles and mud.  And not let my mind wander to those who are being besieged by a dangerous flood.

Not because I don't care about them.  But because it's not my reality.  It takes a great deal of intentionality to be truly empathetic and aware of something -- of the someones, of the circumstances -- which are not directly in front of you.

Remember the saying -- something about walking in someone else's shoes?  It's the same concept.

If you aren't poor.

If you aren't sick.

If you have a home.

If you have clean drinking water.

If you have a family.

If you have a job.

If you have Jesus.

It is so easy to forget there are people who,

Cannot feed their children.

Who can't get out of bed.

Who have been laid off work.

Who are hiding in basements, seeking refuge from the storm.

Who have no idea what hope even is.

And so I'm wondering this morning... what this looks like for us.  Because I don't think the point is to assume the fear.  Returning to fear, returning to desperation, returning to hunger usually doesn't do anything to help the fearful, the despairing, or the hungry.

But I do think we are called to go find them.

I am not afraid.  But I see that you are.  And I love you enough to reach my hand down into the very mess that is your fear, your storm, and help you.  


I don't know what that looks like for you.  Maybe it's about sacrifice.  Maybe it's time you stepped foot outside of your own little world.    Maybe it's about sharing what you have.  Maybe it's about using your gifts and your talents and your excess to reach out.

Because it's tempting once you get to that safe place to stay there.

Don't stay there.

Please.

Now that you know where it is... this place of safety, of refuge... please go get others.  Now that you know the way, go show those who still don't.

You will be better for it.  Because those who are in the middle of the storm, whatever storm it is, know something about the grace and protection and provision of God that you might not know.  That you might have forgotten.

And on the way to go find them -- whoever they are -- you just might find yourself running next to the Savior.

Who knows fear, but is no longer afraid.  Who knows hunger, but is no longer hungry.  Who knows death, but is alive.

Who is carrying a flashlight and rope and calling the names of the children who are lost.