By: Tessa Sentell
Cycles of addiction are hard to watch. Everyone has their own cycle tied to substances, people, power, money...pick your poison. Everything functions out of relationship at the cafe, and this cycle is something everyone is very familiar with, so I have been learning to engage when I see it. I work behind the counter and see several regulars come and go in any number of stages of altered reality, and I never know if or when they will be back. As I enter closer into relationship with hurting people, I’ve had to ask God how to handle this. Something along the lines of “What do I do?” “How can I pray?” “What do I say?” I kept seeing hurting people and wanting to solve the problem while knowing nothing about their situation. I kept stepping up on the cross and tried to make myself the savior. What God has shown me in revealing a deeper view of His gospel is the discipline of daily throwing all the sin and nastiness and hurt back to the cross of Christ, and letting Him say “it is finished.” In this spot of kneeling before the cross, I get to acknowledge Him as the one running the universe. I get to give the weight of my hurt and others' hurt that I’ve been carrying back to Him and see what He will do with them. Because He lives, I can be satisfied praying and interceding from behind the counter since I’m not the one running the room. Because those people belong to Him, I can take my hands off and simply watch what He does, and the development of that every time they walk into the cafe. And because Jesus took the weight of our collective mess, I can engage in relationship and love anyway. What a freeing thing to do nothing but love, step down off the cross, be available for His purposes, and let the God who knows and loves people much better than I ever could run the universe.
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