Confessions of a Discriminatory Giver -UNITE Link-Up – (5)

“You were supposed to chew it, for a long time.” He turns back to look at me, suitcase in hand….gnawing like a cow on his cud, on his own leathery leaf.

Pride made me gulp it down…

That thick, dark texture, the one the colorfully decorated Incan gave to me, in the airport.

“I just couldn’t keep chewing on it. It tastes gross.” I tell him, undisguising words in an airport filled with people from all nations.

I look sheepishly outward, but inwardly question, if I even really needed to follow the historical ways of local Incans.

“Dyspnea? No, I should be just fine, even 11,200 feet up here in Cusco”, I justified.

“We should go get some more leaves”, he warns me. This man owning the same blood the Incans carry. This world traveler, the father of my children, with dna from literally every continent on the planet.

He was wiser. But, I didn’t listen.

My own temporary tastes and inward feelings outweighed the logic behind a cultures wisdom, a people surviving thousands of years, way up in the Andes.

And oh how feeling can deceive us. Pride can actually disguise itself as wisdom. Self-esteem can bend towards ignorance, if we don’t keep ourselves in check…

Check to keep our own hearts bowed low in humility…especially when things are new, insecurities rise, and we are tempted to mask ourselves in pride…so others can see our fear.

The baskets of leaves lay free and open, like the Incan people sitting high and harmless in a culture seemingly untouched by our American sky-scrapers and materialism.

Their mountainous regions? Truly the closest thing to the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen on this earth.

And I must confess…while palms lay wide open with leaves in their hands free for the taking…

My hands have often clenched gripping, firmly shut to the wisdom and understanding of others. Rigid plans. Stiff, well-orchestrated ideas that may seem proud and popous, looking back after my hearts been humbled, in retrospect…

How have I been so blind to my own ingnorance?

There was a child in me, ever so long ago. She would float her way to school. Staring up at the heavens.

She would dream of distant lands. Sing to herself, talk to God, and imagine she had tongues that other people couldn’t understand.

Little did she know Her spirit was whole, alive, free. Something in her was calling out to her, on the way to school, regarding her own destiny and heart mission.

Open handed, this little girl sung freely, swinging, laughing…until life came a pounding. Knowledge, education, rules and logic made better sense, and were more socially accepted.

It was then, I realized power and greed paralize true freedom.

And why is it, somewhere along the way, we can subtitute our own prophetic destinies with our own thoughts in our heads of what we are or should be?

And for me, I now know, I needed to die to my own will and ego, before I could rise in Him.

I took those leaves, swallowed some of them. Others I slipped, half-chewed, into my hands and dropped them in the trash…

Like the spinach my mother gave me as a grade-schooler I slipped into my napkin and threw away. It made me strong, helped me to thrive and last. These leaves also were for my benefit…a cultural way of preparing my body for the sudden high altitude.

But, I failed to eat them, humble myself, so God was about to humble me…

See, before this trip, I had descriminated against poverty. Not overtly, but in my heart of heart, I know I deemed some caused worthy, others irrelevent. Some demographics desititute, others less needy.

Some lands, in my own mind, were high priority, others unequally impoverished.

Still God said, “I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink”, “Whatever you do for the least of these, you do as if unto me.”

And what I have come to realize is, we are all poor and needy, even the richest and most elite amongst us are desperate for a gospel of the saving grace of Jesus.

It is not us vs. them. It’s all of us, sinners. There is only one perfect Savior who came to redeem us all.

Before this, in my own American mindset, I had become an expert at compartmentalizing and catagorizing poverty.

In my own head, I had some twelve-step plan that if others followed, would eliminate hunger, eradicate poverty, save and rescue every orphan, heal disease or distress…

But reality is, I was the one blind, needy. I had a Messianic complex that required a slow bending, a wake up to the harsh reality that it is only Him who gives us each and every breath.

I needed to remember Him speaking, “The poor will always be with us.” To make it a priority, what He said…

Instead of following roads in my own head that lead to dead ends. The ones I plan and justified, deeming worthy to go.

Outside the doors of the airport, I would find my cobblestone path…the one that led me out of darkness, once I listened to the light.

And what I find is…Eyes closed, see clearest. Bodies suffering, can be the ones most gifted with His presence. Complete weakness is the gift that helps us to embrace fully, His power, life, and purpose.

There on the threshing floor of my own reality, I would wake to the call that would soon help people I once deemed unworthy….

And after this experience, I would no longer descriminate against the poor, deem some causes time worthy, others useless…

I would learn how to follow in obedience, as a terrifying experience would remind me…He owns every breath…

I am just beggar, just like everyone else…an empty vessel…desperate for grace.

(We are in the middle of a series of posts about the trip to Peru, my husband and I took last fall. It was a trip that lead to a shoe campaign where we purchased shoes for nearly three-hundred children, at a school in the mountains of Carahuasi)

Read more about this journey HERE.

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