To love another person is to see the face of God

So this post isn't about Ukraine, but it's about a profound event that has given me deeper understanding of God's heart and serving people, so it's bound to influence my life in Ukraine. :)

Last week my former housemate and fellow IJM UK intern got married in London, and I had the great blessing of being there for her wedding. While in London, I also got to see Les Miserables (That's a sentence I never thought I'd be able to write! I'm still a little in disbelief that it happened!). Dang. I could go on and on about this phenomenal work, but there were two things that struck me particularly.

Having memorized the soundtrack and seen the film, the story of Les Mis didn't surprise me, but what did surprise me was the experience of seeing the production with a live audience. At any given point in the musical, at least one person was crying. So many people love this story. This production has been translated into 22 different languages, has played in 44 countries, has been seen live by more than 70 million people worldwide, and is the world's longest running musical. There's something special about this story, something that responds to the longing of the human heart. 

Much of our modern society (especially in the western world), from pain, fear, or disillusionment, has rejected absolute truth and left hollow our universal desire for divine justice. Life is chaotic and unfair, as reflected in the lives of Eponine and Cosette in Les Mis. These characters were girls together, both from humble circumstances, both prove to have compassionate hearts; but one is plucked from a life of misery and the other dies in it. Why is one saved and the other not? In life and in the play, we do not get direct answers.

At the end of this particular version of the musical, both Fantine and Eponine come to Jean Valjean as he's dying to guide him to paradise. At first I was confused - why Eponine? But her presence in that scene shifted how I see the whole play. 

I always thought Les Mis was a bit moralistic (even though it presents the parallel stories of Javert who is destroyed by moralism and Valjean who is saved by mercy), because at the end of the story Valjean is ushered to paradise by Fantine for taking care of her daughter. His good deeds in response to the mercy extended to him by the priest redeems his former criminal life and he is rewarded with peace. He gets to see the face of God because he has loved another person.

Nope. The presence of Eponine and her singing along with Fantine the famous line, "to love another person is to see the face of God," made me realize I had it all wrong. 

When Fantine tells Valjean, "You raised my child in love, now you will be with God," he responds, "She's (Cosette) the best of my life." I had thought he meant loving her was the best thing he had done in his life, when really, being able to love her was the greatest gift of his life. 

Eponine helped me to see that. She too knows what it means "to love another person is to see the face of God," and that's why she is the character to appear alongside Fantine. Though her life was tragic it was not a tragedy. She too was given the gift of loving another person, even though Marius never romantically reciprocated her love for him. Being loved is a special gift, but truly, sacrificially loving another person is to literally participate in the greatest attribute of God, love Himself.

The Pace of Nature

As a geologist, my dad did a lot of work in Avon Park; and as home school kids, we often went with him, doing schoolwork in the morning and going out to play by the lake in the afternoon. We spent hours digging up clams and collecting them in buckets just to be thrown back at the end of the day. But I remember my favorite thing to do was lie still on the shore with my body stretched into the lake so that only my head wasn't submerged. After a few minutes, the tiny minnows living in the shallows acclimated to my presence and began swimming around me and gently bumping against my arms and legs.

Some things are only experienced in stillness.

God reminded me of that yesterday. Both of my usual commitments cancelled and I found I had the whole day to myself. Liliya is in the States (hug her for me if you get to see her!) and so I also had our apartment to myself, but the weather was beautiful and warm (finally! This FL girl is ready to sweat.), so I decided to go exploring.

I found a walking path that led to a lake so I sat down and started to journal. I had many questions I wanted to get out. Though my life in Ukraine has been truly wonderful, it's also not been what I expected. It's honestly pretty simple. I study Ukrainian, teach English, meet new people, occasionally help HfO with outreaches and preparing for summer camps. Guilt and worry attack in waves -- I'm not doing enough, I should be more assertive, I should study harder, I should have a ministry plan by now, build more partners, be more involved at my church... the list goes on. And while none of these things are bad and I do want to find specific ministry work to dive into, God reminded me today that waiting is a verb. I might feel directionless at times and worry that I'm standing still, but there are some things that are only experienced in stillness. As I sat by the lake, I looked at the nature around me. It too seemed motionless at first glance, but the longer you look the more you realize everything is in motion at the perfect pace. "Oaks of righteousness" do not sprout up in a day (or in the 6 months I've been in Ukraine). In the perceptive words of Emerson, "Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience." Patience is indeed a virtue necessary to build anything strong. 

I will continue teaching English and studying Ukrainian through the end of the month, and then I will be in 4 camps with HfO throughout June and July. In August I will be in FL for 3 weeks (and would love to see you!), and then back to Ukraine for Lily and Matt's wedding. At this point, I'm not sure what my life will look like come September, and I have many decisions to make - where to live, where and how to give my time, what ministries to partner with, what my role should be as an American supporting Ukrainians serving Ukrainians, to continue raising support or to find work in Ukraine, to serve as a layman and connect professional counselors and therapists to orphan ministries or to go back to school for counseling or trauma therapy. Please pray with me for guidance over those decisions. Your comfort and encouragement help keep me going and I am so grateful! 

My visit to London last week for a dear friend's wedding inspired me to get back into The Valley of Vision. These words have been my prayer, 

Fill me with an over-flowing ocean of compassion,

     the reign of love my motive

     the law of love my rule.

Cement my oneness with my blessed Lord,

     that faith may adhere to him more immovably,

     that love may entwine itself round him more tightly,

     that his spirit may pervade every fiber of my being.

Then send me out to make him known to my fellow-men.

I'll be real with you, I'm an idealist and theorist. This is helpful in giving me perspective to see bigger pictures at work through the details and to be intentional, but it's also dangerous because I can so easily get lost in the abstract and not bring these ideals into living, breathing actuality. It scares me, the potential to learn and understand and perceive but then to do nothing with it. Even now the fear claws at me since I've literally spent the whole day writing two blog posts (no joke! That's why they're so few and far between) and haven't interacted with a single person face-to-face. Please pray that God will give me the courage and strength to take these gifts given to me in solitude and stillness and use them to serve and love people and honor Him. 

Thank you for entering into this with me.