Checkered Reality

It is one thing to visit poor people with donations or advice, or visit a sick person with a get-well card and a potted flower. It is another thing to stay and walk with them, to be willing to show our own needs and brokenness, and to take on a piece of their sorrows and troubles. We will never fully know what another human being goes through. Just as we cannot—and need not—try on the pain of a friend facing chemotherapy or depression, we will never know what it feels like to grow up in Haiti or Malawi… But unless we make an attempt to imagine—even going as far trying to experience—what life is like for someone else with fewer advantages in life, we are missing a beautiful piece of how God loves people…

It means letting go of our naive illustrations of our own benevolence and facing our own great need for grace. It means exchanging smiles with people of other cultures and economic levels and knowing we need to receive a smile as much as they do.