Hurt

A couple weeks ago, I was reading along as Ann Voskamp went with her husband to Ecuador. All of her posts from that trip with Compassion really convicted me, but one in particular had me tearing up.

As I thought about how little I do in my own life, with the time and resources I have been given, I was struck by something else. There are lots of hurting people the world over. Here I was sad for a young man I am likely to never meet. How many hurting people are there in my community, how many hurting people do I interact with daily, without even noticing? Who is their voice? Who will help them?

There is suffering, there are hurting people all around us. We like to sterilize our lives from it. We like to pretend that there aren't hurting people in close proximity to us. We like to section them off, not drive down those streets. If we pretend they aren't there, we don't have to do something. Doing something generally costs us something. It costs time, finances, emotions. Doing something involves risk and personal sacrifice.

We like to send money, or travel to foreign countries for a week or two to help hurting people. That isn't a bad thing. When we use those trips and that money as an excuse to ignore the hurting people in our backyard though, that is a problem.

I think sometimes it's easier to worry about the hurting people half a world away, and give money, than it is to worry about the hurting people who live in my neighborhood, and get my hands dirty and my heart involved...