This year, we’ve focused on stories inspired by our We Are the World Race Campaign. This month, we’re sharing stories inspired by women on the mission field. (Don’t worry guys, your turn is coming next month!) Our experiences with women worldwide have taught us what womanhood really means. Women are wired for intimate relationships and deep, abiding love. And even when that “love” is used to take advantage of them—things like human trafficking, prostitution, and exploitation, to name a few—women teach us about beauty, femininity, joy, and God’s love for each one of his daughters. This month we want to celebrate all things women-in-missions related, and give you a chance to share your story as well.
Madeline Holden, a participant of 2013 World Race Gap Year, travelled with her squad to Honduras. While working at a rehabilitation center, Madeline learned that we don’t always need words to love the hurt, sometimes we just need to understand.
As we walk into the women’s alcohol rehabilitation center, I am exhausted from the Honduran heat.
We gather on the torn couches of the small meeting room and wait while the women fill the space.
The women who live here used to live on the street, most of them involved in drugs, alcohol, prostitution, or gangs. Many of the women are pregnant or are single mothers, reaping the consequences of a life of drugs.
After worship, the women line up to share how God is transforming their lives on the streets to lives of recovery and redemption.
One girl, around the age of 18, wore a red long sleeve sweater. She raised her hand and shuffled to the front.
She spoke about living on the streets, how she had joined a gang and began sniffing glue. After giving up her baby, she started cutting herself and ended up at the rehab center.
Then she sat back on the couch and the other women continued their testimonies.
But something kept drawing me towards this girl in the red sweater, toward her story and her timidity.
After we finished praying for the women, some dispersed and others stayed to socialize. I walked toward the girl in the red sweater.
I held out my arms and displayed the evident scars that line my skin from 3 years ago when I took a razor blade to my wrists.
She delicately touched them with no words and peeled back the sleeves of her sweater to reveal deep scars from her cuts. I touched them lightly and hugged her.
Words were not needed, for hurt transcends language, but love does too.
My friend Cesar, who speaks English and Spanish, approached us and motioned that it is time to leave. But before we do, I look her in the eyes, blessed with the opportunity to speak to her through translation.
“Do not be ashamed of your scars, they are now proof of God’s love for you.”
I give her another hug and tell her that I would see her on Saturday when our team spends the night at the center to have “girls night.”
The corners of her mouth perk upward in a faint smile and I wave goodbye.
I have always known that my scars were a reminder of God’s goodness and grace in my life. And tonight I was able to see the direct fruit of God’s work.
God used my greatest weakness for His glory. What a beautiful thing that is.
Words can be useful, but it is not needed to meet someone in their pain. It is enough to be present in a simple act of love and understanding; this is what God revealed to me today.
Everyone has a story. Some have it written on their arms others have it written deep beneath their skin. Search for what it is, understand their scars, and point them to love and to Jesus.
Scars may transcend language, but love transcends scars, and God is love.
Sometimes God speaks in the silence of understanding another’s pain. When we share our stories with the lost and broken, we are letting them know they are not alone, and that we understand their hurt.
You could be the one to answer the Lord’s call to be a voice for the voiceless. Your hands could hold the hurting. Your voice could spread the name of Jesus. Will you go? Click here see all the places you could go this year!
*Photos by Emily Tuttle, @geraelfo, and @hduke87
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