The Garbage Dump

June 24, 2008

As we walked down the familiar path to the woods, I observed my surroundings. It was the same path I traveled during my first week in Vapnyarka but it looked very different. Trees that had been stick figures had become full with green leaves. Cherry trees were scattered throughout the clumps of trees. Big smiles painted were painted red across the faces of the children as they picked and ate the cherries. They searched through tall grass to find small wild berries, similar to wild strawberries, to delight their taste buds. Flowers of purples, blues, pinks, yellow, and reds garnished the earth where there was just dirt and a few sprigs of grass. It was a beautiful sight. And then I smelled it… The smell of rotting trash. After taking a closer look at the lovely landscape one could see the trash scattered throughout. Under the green trees lay heaps of garbage. It was definitely the same place.

As I took all this in it occurred to me that this is a lot like my life. I often think that just by allowing God to plant and grow new things in my life, the beauty produced will cover all the garbage that lies beneath it. Why is it that I have no problem receiving the blessings of God but I am unwilling to let him remove the garbage that lies beneath it? The forest was a truly beautiful place but a dangerous one for those who go there to enjoy it. They are constantly looking out for shards of glass. The smells limit the areas in which they can enjoy. And yet no one does anything about it. Like me they ignore the trash. They step around it. They may comment about how gross it smells but they do nothing about it.

I believe the problem we have as Christians, is that we are afraid to let our hands be empty. The thing we forget is that when we give our lives to God is that he wants to take our trash and give us something else, something beautiful and clean. The scripture says, he will give us more than we could even ask or imagine. The trash stinks, it is the remnants of our past. And no matter what kind of flowers are planted over it, the smell will rise out of nowhere when we least expect it and we will be exposed. We can ignore it. Our friends may even ignore it. But that doesn’t do anything to improve our lives. The pain brought on you either by your own decisions or the torment that others have heaped on you will not just disappear in the brush. The trash must be removed, completely and forever. With this removal there is freedom. The smell is gone. We remember the trash but it has no hold on our lives. How much more beautiful the woods would have been without the trash, how much more enjoyable. As I turned these thoughts over in my head, the surfacing of trash became a reality.

The boys were playing soccer. We watched. I was removing critters from crawling on my arms when I heard the care taker next to me start yelling toward the field. During soccer there is always a lot of yelling back and forth as the teams work together to get the ball in the goal. I often do not understand what is being said. At the sound of her voice I looked up. There on the field was the trash of one of the oldest boys past. Two of the boys had a disagreement about something that happened on the field. One of them was becoming more and more intense in his yelling and body movements as he made advancements toward the other boy, who is significantly smaller. The other boys were trying to pull the aggressive boy back. The caretaker was trying to diffuse it before it became worse. And then he struck, even though the other boy had continued to back down. He cornered him and struck him several times as the caretaker and children tried to pull him off. He stopped and eventually helped his friend up off the ground. Where does this anger come from? Where did he learn that this is the way to settle disagreements?

My heart broke. With all my might I held back tears as my eyes swelled. My heart was heavy. I felt angry, not at the boy but because I felt his pain. It was the same feeling I felt as I looked through the picture albums of the children. Between the pages of joyous times in the children’s center and holiday greeting cards were pictures of their parents. As I looked through the album of one of the boys whose parents I know could be taking care of he and his brothers, I became angry. Why? Why had they done this to their children? Why weren’t they raising them? Why weren’t they valuing them? Instead of helping their children find their way in the world, they had piled mounds of trash on their children. Trash that unless removed by God, will bury them to the point that they cannot even function. This is not what God intended for any of these children and it is not what he intended for us.

Now if you would allow me, I would like to take you to another side of the story. My tears, my heavy heart, the emotions I felt- I didn’t understand them or where they were coming from. Yes, the things I see are heartbreaking but the pain that goes with them belong to someone else and they aren’t crying about it. So, why am I? During my reading time I found the answer in the pages of Kay Warren’s book, Dangerous Surrender. Chapter 8, ‘A Deliberate Choice’, discusses the fact that Jesus took on our pain. When he was nailed on the cross, he felt it. He chose to carry a burden that was not his to bear. We also are called to help carry the burdens of others. I think Lewis Smedes puts it best when he says, “In suffering with somebody, we take it into our own hands to suffer. We choose to do what we do not have to do, or even want to do; we walk, eyes wide open into the pain of another human being and claim it as our own.” My love for these children is over flowing and ever growing. Every day, as I hold them, play with them, and just sit with them their suffering becomes more and more my own. Please pray for these children. Pray that God will take the trash given to them by their earthly parents and make it into something beautiful. Ask yourself what trash you are trying to hide? What in your own life needs to be removed? How can you help carry the burden of another as Christ has done for you? Maybe you have heaped trash on others. How can you stop? I challenge you with this, just as God has challenged me. Please pray with me for the children of Ukraine and the children of the world. Pray for all who are suffering. May they find the God who can remove their trash and may we all come to a place where let go of the garbage in our lives and allow God to remove it.