When T-Shirts Aren’t Worth Dying For

We pass him along the gravel road in the middle of Dominican Republic. “He is going to kill me,” he says walking fast in the opposite direction.  His eyes fixed. Not darting to look at anyone.

But I knew he was talking to us.

“I am going to kill him first.” He mutters. Robotic. Long strides still carrying him away from us.

I remember when we first met him. I see coconuts, while doing construction.  Unprompted, he takes off his boots, and climbs barefoot up high, throwing some down for us to try.

He hurt his foot, had no restraint, dangling from stories above, just to give us something from his country…something from him. And it seemed natural for him to give…giving didn’t take time, or thought, or weighing the cost of what he might sacrifice to give…like it does for us, too often.

Our church did a basketball clinic that night; three boys rolled up, one pants low, another, hat turned sideways. But our friend left from where they plopped long across the grass…coming over to the dirt where I sat instead.

He pulls out a knife.  He starts cutting away at a cocoa, nearby me. Little kids run and reach hands for a token of the slimy seeds he’s eating.  He digs deep for mushy seeds, offering all there is willingly…though there are not many left for him.

We talk using my best Spanish, along with some silly, charade demonstrations.  I learn, he has no family.  Just five friends he usually hangs with.

I try to share information, describing my kids.  But I can see his eyes darting…the same look our foster child had when she couldn’t concentrate on someone else’s life…because she was so caught up in surviving her own. 

Still it was there, on that dirty floor of our own existence, two of the most opposite people became friends.  Through languages barriers, cultures, generations, and different skin tones.

God has a way of bringing strangers together.

The day he passed us on the gravel road, we found him returning and he shares about the baseball clinic.  The one he sat through because he only had a white t-shirt on and he didn’t want it to get dirty….

Later that same night another guy his age intentionally comes up to him and wipes his dirty hands all over his once clean shirt.  

And when someone is trying to stay clean, why is it always another insists to stain you with the filth of their own doing?

They get into a fist fight.  The other guy pulls out a machete.  Then, my friend points his gun to defend himself.

The other guy leaves, but promises to find him later and kill him.  Our friend said he must kill him first. 

I prayed when we passed him on that gravel road that day. I woke the same night of the fight, hearing loud gunshots (though it might have been only in my dream).

Instantly, I feared someone was in trouble, and I knew I had to pray.

After he stormed past us on the gravel that day, he returns later, leaping off a motorcycle, coming to talk to us, visibly calmer than earlier.

Did he have a gun? Was the plan to kill the shirt wrecker, before He killed him, only moments from us?

I pray again silent for words that stop suffering, to a Jesus who conquered death, speaking life, trying to listen to the words that He might give me….

I first thank God my friend is still alive. Praying silently asking why, in his culture, it is better to die with honor than live with shame.

My husband and I join him in his journey.  I won’t leave him, until I know that I know the Lord deposits that peace that everything is going to be o.k.

I am convicted.  He promises he won’t kill the dirt smear-er and I try explaining…

People are more important than dirty shirts.

I point to his heart and tell him God cares more about what’s on the inside than some shirt that might be ruined on the outside. God loves Him.  And although we understand the willingness to die because of disrespect….His life is of value, and God has a special plan for him…that we know in this moment, doesn’t include dying.

And oh how this lesson sinks deeper.  How many times have I let the pain of other people’s problems destroy who and what God was calling me to do? 

We are no different…my new friend and I….really.  

I share how man looks at our outward appearance, seeing only what we see with our eyes…but God looks at our heart.  He cares about what’s really going on, deep inside all of us.

I share how t-shirts are just pieces of cloth…and are never something we should die for.  Even if they are white.

He finds us the next day.  He is still alive.  I ask him if he did anything about the shirt wrecker last night.  He says, “no”.  

The next day he brings to us a battling rooster.  And the thought and sorrow strikes me…A rooster…born, raised simply for the purpose of fighting to its death.  

How sad.

And yet, our culture is not exempt from this mentality.  We may not use guns and machetes, but we kill with our words, our condemnation.  We attack

through silence or rejection.  We fight like the disciples, to see who is greater among us….claiming others lives are dirtier than our purity and perfection. 

The day before we leave, our friend comes to find us.  He tells us he is leaving also to be a border patrol nearby the next day.  I see hope in his eyes.

Our friend having the same desire we all have….a desire for purpose and simply something to live for.

And maybe we (or just I) am blind to the reality of other peoples stories.  I worry about coffee, or image, or getting my kids to school on time….when the reality is…people are getting shot over t-shirts every day.

And, we all have white t-shirts we prize.  We all have some goodness in us that we want to protect, when darkness tries to come and plague us endless times….

And it’s not the shirt that matters, or the attackers we must focus on….but where and to who we will run? Will we run to the Cornerstone?  Will we let Christ come and change us?  Will we give him all in our times of crisis…even our reputations?

For t-shirts aren’t worth dying for.

Death was already paid.  Our righteousness not in anything we may carry or contain.  It’s in Him.  Yes, oh that my friend might soon see this….

Will you take some time right now an join me in praying for the safety, security, and salvation of our friend?

(Linking with Lyli)