A Confession

I had been in Bolivia for a week and a half when I saw her. It was past dusk, and she sat on the side of the road, weaving on a small hand-held loom. She couldn’t have been more than ten years old.

I walked past. I’d seen this before, in Guatemala, in Mexico, in Bolivia. I knew she would probably sleep on the street, but so would a lot of other kids. There wasn’t anything I could do.

It wasn’t until later that it hit me. I’d become calloused. Things that used to shock me no longer shocked me. I prayed for forgiveness, and I prayed that God would protect her.

It’s hard, when you see things like this on a regular basis, to continue to care. We get used to suffering. To protect ourselves, to be able to keep living our normal lives, we stop letting it bother us.

I decided that night that I never want to become calloused again. I never want to let other people’s pain stop bothering me. With Bob Pierce, the founder of World Vision, I pray, “Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.”

We have a God who did not just walk past when he saw us alone, sitting in our brokenness and pain. We have a God who came to us in our poverty and need, who made himself one of us in order to save us. I am so glad that he did not just walk on by.