Outrageously Loved - Color Outside The Lines

One of the scariest things about living in Haiti is not that I feel unsafe, it is the stuff that happens in your heart.
It is the thought of losing my passion, my vision, my joy.

More than once I have over heard someone talking and thought, wow, they need a break. The thing is they didn't know they needed a break and telling someone they need a break can be tricky. They didn't just go to bed one night and wake up the next morning a jerk. It happened gradually and they got used to the person in the mirror.
You don't just move here because you think it will be "fun", you believe it is a "calling", not a vacation. They too, packed up all their junk and came here to do something good, just like you did. They even thought it was a "God thing" just like you did.

My fear is that one day I will hear myself talking and wonder how on earth did I get to be the scary jerk?

Let me give you a picture....
Pretend with me that you are at a shrinks office, he holds up those cards in front of you that really just look like big ink spots. He is holding them up to see what you are gonna say to evaluate your responses. Then he decides if you are or could be crazy based on your answers.

Card # 1 - Woman has HIV and stands in front of the mans house who she thinks gave it to her telling everyone he and his family are all positive. He sends a letter to you that says, "Please tell her to stop bothering me, I can be violent. God Bless You." Now you must confront her. She says, she knows this man wasn't the little girls father, but still wants him to take her because she can't take care of her anymore.

Card # 2 - Every single car, truck or tap-tap that breaks down in the middle of the street holds up dozens of cars for hours rather than moving to the side of the road because "where God breaks it, we fix it".

Card # 3 - You can be so hungry that you are willing to eat mud pies but you won't eat "free" rice with protein powder creating a complete meal because you don't like the kind of rice they use.

Card # 4 - A HIV positive woman can have five children who live in the village with her family, but she has to sell her body to send money to help take care of them while she is pregnant with number six.

Day after day you see the cards and most of the things on the cards don't fit in your mind. They are unfair and honestly, the injustice could drive you to drink if you didn't have something bigger to hold on to.
That's how it happens....the cards keep flashing and your mind and heart can't handle it.
Pretty soon you have built really big thick walls so you don't see the cards anymore and you have quickly become the jerk. You now justify your actions pretending "THEY" don't have anything to do with the fact that you lost your passion and joy a really long time ago. You now have your own version of normal and are unable to see that you are doing more damage than good.

I say all that to say this.....

I was listening to my new favorite singer, Jonathan David Helser when these words came through the air like a hammer breaking through to my heart keeping me from hopefully becoming the scary jerk. They reminded me that He created me to be loved.....loved outrageously.
It was a good thing to be a person with passion and a person who colors outside the lines.
After hearing these words I cried for two days.
The crazy ink spot cards had nothing to do with who I was and it wasn't my job to change the things I saw on the cards, it was HIS.
My job was to live with passion, live with joy, be loved and to love.......

It is your job to be outrageously loved, that is why I chose you.
That you would live as one who is outrageously loved.
That you would receive a radical love, so radical that it would blow all paradigms of what you think love is.
Know this says the Lord, that I will love you outrageously all the days of your life because I don't know how to be any different.
This is who I am.

Jonathan David Helser
Inheritance
The Awakening