Pain and suffering.

Pain and suffering are all too real in this broken and lost world we live in. Just drive down the streets in Managua, Nicaragua past the posh shopping centers, and movie theaters into the trash filled streets leading towards the Managua dump. Through the entrance look left and you’ll see a brown and scummy pond. Straight ahead you can see mountains of rubbish. People and cattle rummage through the piles looking for anything worth surviving on. Let the overwhelming stench of burning trash nearly suffocate you, see the small naked children peeping out of the cardboard and tin shacks. What hope is there in a life like this?
Walk down the streets of Seattle and look into the faces of the homeless bums and passerby’s. Look into their eyes and you’ll see the hurt and confusion that fills their eyes. It’s the same in the bum as it is in the wealthy businessman. Each person can find a time in their life when pain has gripped its icy claws into their backs. What are we doing as people who have been given the greatest cure for pain and suffering, Christ’s love and sacrifice, doing to help these desperate and needy people? Not much. How hard is it to smile as we walk by, or befriend a bum? You’d think that after being given so much grace and love from our Heavenly Father we would be chomping at the bit to have a chance at loving the lost and broken people who surround us every day. Why not try it next time you’re walking down the street take out your headphones, slip your cell phone back in that pocket, look up and say hello to someone new. Walk over to that bum on the sidewalk and start a conversation. Be a friendly face in the sea of masks.