Sarah D. Shearer

Returned from another beautiful week in my sweet Honduras.

For months, everything was big. Big plans, big prayer requests, big financial needs, big problems. Everything loomed over me and I wondered at many junctures if it was all worth it. Is our idea of short term missions God’s idea? Is it worth the trouble to go when what we take just runs out and the gaping need remains? Is my once  a year venture a drop in the bucket?

Sitting on the porch steps in the chapel on the ministry’s property, I pondered these questions and others. As my introspections piled up in my brain, I heard a voice say, you’ll never get anywhere focusing on your own short-comings and performance. Just focus on ME and move and breathe from that place.

So I did, and I saw heaven come, and suddenly, everything became small.

In a smile, in a hug, in a short blessing, in a prayer, in tears shed as sisters embraced. You see, we go out looking for grand things. We have our pen and paper and we are counting,: salvations, clothing items, people reached, but how do we ever count seeds planted? How do we count our interactions at the grocery store, our untapped patience with small children, our quiet knowing glance to the woman who feels unworthy, our strong handshake to the man in need of dignity. While we are busy quantifying, we are missing the moments.

My life in Honduras bleeds into my life in Thomasville. I do not step off the mission field when I step off the plane in Atlanta. I do not take off the ministry hat when I pass through customs. My life at home is where I find the most possibility, the  most opportunity. I travel to see, to experience, to broaden my horizons, but if give all own to the poor, without love, I am nothing. 

Each year I come away with a deeper revelation of who I am, who God is, and what it is I’m supposed to do on this earth.

Each year, it becomes simpler.

Just love them. Just as I have  loved you, so you must love one another. Greater love has no man than he lay down his life for his friends. This is how you will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.

Wherever you are, you can put that into practice.

Love more, till it hurts, till the tears are flowing, till they’ve wounded you  and you have to forgive them.  Love the ones who lie, who push their way to the front, the ones who already took three pairs of shoes, the ones who  won’t even look you in the eye, the ones whose children are dying in front of them, and what in the heck can you possibly say to help?

Love the ones who annoy you, who grate your nerves, the ones who don’t deserve it, the ones who used up their second and third chances.

Just as I have loved you, love one another.

This is how to be a missionary. This is how to be like Jesus. I have so far to go, But this one thing I do, forgetting what is behind, I press on toward the goal to which Christ has called me.