Just look at her. I came across her the other day while out for my lunchtime walk. I love walking and praying through the different streets in town. I especially like walking over by the tree streets. Some days I feel like I could (or should) walk forever. As I was looping around and heading back to the office, I cut across Water Street. I’m hoofing it because I had hung out at the creek too long. I’m moving along and there was some trash laying on the sidewalk. I stepped over it and kept up my steady clip and then turned around and did a doubletake. This gal was laying on the sidewalk. At first I thought some child had lost their doll, then it dawned on me that she hadn’t been lost, she had been tossed. She’d been trashed, discarded, thrown out. With her hair all wild covering her face and no shoes on her feet, I thought, somedays girl, I feel your pain!
Have you ever felt like that? Tossed about? Discarded? Trashed? Like you’d just been through it – whatever your it was? Me too. Sometimes it’s my own doing, over committing, over working, over thinking, over selfing, just over. Sometimes it’s just the way the world is, way over. Sometimes I have felt just like her, broken, beat up, hair all tangled down in my face, and trouble walking because I had no shoes on my feet. Please, tell me I’m not alone!?!
No matter how many times we feel like we’ve hit the pavement, Jesus knows how we feel, doesn’t He? Remember, He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and deep grief? He too was flung, tossed out and trashed, wasn’t He? He was even crucified. That’s tough to think about. Doesn’t seem like something that should happen to someone who came to save, does it? A king brought low so his subjects, his people, could be placed on high? That’s not the kind of king we’re used to, is it?
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: Though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.
2 Corinthians 8:9
But that, my friends, is called amazing grace and it truly does have a sweet sound, doesn’t it? Jesus came to save us from the overs, all we need do is call to him from the concrete. When we’re feeling broken, downtrodden, tossed out and about, hair a muss and barefooted, He is our strength, our healer, our comforter, our deliverer, our only constant.
The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears;
He delivers them from all their troubles.
The LORD is near to the brokenhearted;
He saves the contrite in spirit.
Psalm 34:17-18
When we are low, He bends low to lift us up. He gently combs the tangles from our hair, pushing it off our faces, places new shoes on our feet, and sets us upright. No matter what has thrown us to the sidewalk, He will be there to pick us up. Jesus made that promise to us and Jesus keeps His promises. We only need seek Him and He will find us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For Your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:35-39
PERSIST
Acts17:16-34
Romans Chapter 8
PURSUE
Just a follow up – I again walked the same route yesterday. Standing in front of the house where I saw the doll, was a friend of mine from a few yeas ago. Sharon. I started to say hi and keep truckin but I stopped and showed her the picture. We laughed and then I told her how I knew exactly how that poor girl felt sometimes. We talked about how Jesus can relate to how we feel because of the way He was treated. We also talked about how Jesus can pick us up from our sidewalks, dust us off, and give us hope. Jesus can be seen in our every day, even in the trash on the sidewalk, we just need to look for Him.