Barriers or Bridges

The funeral we went to was a cultural experience but still universal in the sharing of grief. The church was full and nearly everything said was in Russian. I wanted to be there, so it really did not matter that few things were understood. In the sea of people, we were the foreigners, yet accepted and appreciated because of our presence.

Sometimes the only barriers between people are in our own minds. We tend to back away from things we do not understand. This makes insignificant things barriers instead of bridges. I noticed that my desire to be there, and the peace in my heart was all I needed to communicate to these people.

The body of Christ needs a baptism of wanting to be there and peace. If we can't understand something, we should stop drawing back into our safety zones. Building bridges sometimes means stepping out into things we do not understand...culture, language, etc. But what we will find there might surprise us. It surprised me!  I found hungry and hurting people who did not care that we lacked the ability to communicate with words.

We put too much confidence in WORDS to fix things. Funerals bring this home, because our words cannot fix a child's loss of a mother or a husband's loss of his wife.   Anna was 5 years younger than I. Presence and peace, was all I could bring. It's all any of us can bring when dealing with unanswerable questions or the limitations of a language barrier.

Learning to walk by faith, expressing itself in love, will lead the way. It will show us how to make barriers into bridges,  walls into willingness; and even where death abounds (ie funerals) grace will abound all the more.

~Elizabeth Elliot

God never withholds from His child that which His love and wisdom call good. God's refusals are always merciful-”severe mercies” at times but mercies all the same. God never denies us our hearts desire except to give us something better.