It is Friday!
It was Friday when “Jane” wrote to me. I had never met her in person. I did not even have her on my friends’ contacts on Facebook, we had no common friends, but she had found me. Her message caught me by surprise. She was part of the same FB group I was on and wrote with a question that was weighing heavy on her heart.
“I am part of the AKC group as you are -she wrote- I looked up your profile and saw that you are a Christian. This loss has shaken my faith she said. I don’t want to put you on a spot, but I am trying to find an answer and you seem to have a stronger faith than I…” And her letter continued.
When I read Jane’s message, I was caught by surprise. I could not remember what I might have written that made her think that I was a strong believer. But something in me made her think that I might be a person with whom she could open her heart and ask a question, without fearing that I would judge her or dismiss her question as non-important. I thought about how God might have led me to that FB group just to meet “Jane” and minister to her in the midst of her loss.
As a blogger, I always say that it is a great risk when we decide to be vulnerable and share our journey online, but I have always seen that God uses that to touch someone in a similar situation, whom you would never be able to meet or minister to in person.
Since my first year in online ministry back in 2001, I have met several women whom I will never forget, who were desperately seeking answers and help. Some of them were on the brink of suicide. I will never forget a young lady whose nickname was “The Broken”. She wrote in the comment sections of one of our most popular articles on love. She had found out that the guy she was dating and dreaming to marry was a married man. She was devastated and felt lost. She asked for advice. I replied to her comment and after that, a nagging feeling was troubling my heart. It was very strange but I had this thought that she might be thinking of suicide and even though I felt that was crazy, I decided to reach out and write to her on her personal email. To my surprise, she responded immediately. It was true! She was indeed thinking to take her life that afternoon.
I did not have a degree in counseling, but I did what I knew: I offered to listen to her, pray with her, and share the love of God and his forgiveness through Christ. The first days we would write back and forth, several times during the day. For two months I ministered to that lady daily. I did not know her real name or where she lived. She was “The Broken”, until one day she introduced herself to me. The Broken prayed to receive Jesus, she broke from that harmful relationship, she went to college and graduated in law. At one point she joined politics and held an important position. I met her in person and was part of one of her events. She refound joy and later on met a man who loves and respects her and they have built a stable family. It has been 14 years since that first message we exchanged and we still keep in touch. At times she would call me her angel to which I would reply that I was just a vessel that God used to tell her that she was not forgotten or hopeless but He loved her and had not given up on her. I had just done my job. He deserved the praise and thanksgiving.
This is how I was to “Jane” too, a vessel that Jesus used to bring comfort and hope in a season of deep grief. I did not plan for it, I did not make a special strategy or use special techniques. I did not decide to show up as the strong believer or the one who had the answers to her questions. I was simply there, a child of God on whom He had poured love, care and comfort not just for myself but to bless others too. It is then when we are most useful when we live out our identity in Him.
Jesus too served out of His identity. He was not serving people because of being strategic and he did not choose certain ways to make them follow Him. He lived out who he was: The Son of God full of love and compassion. He healed and comforted not to grow his followers’ list, but because this is how God would answer to the human pain: He would heal, he would comfort, He would bring back to life, He would restore back to honor and purpose.
His example is a significant moment of a paradigm shift for me. We often say love God and love people. But that is not just a cliche or good wish. I do believe that in that lies the secret of the Kingdom. As you can not fabricate love for a long time. So many people would be drawn to Christian meetings or activities at first, and they notice that they find love and acceptance. And then later on you might see the same people who came at the beginning because they saw love, leave because of the lack of it.
It is like they are saying that the love they found was not genuine. It was like a marketing love, appealing enough to make them join but not genuine enough to make them stay. That happens when we try to fabricate love and care when those acts of service do not flow from our identity in Christ but are part of a strategy we made, thus can not be sustainable.
But only when we live out who we truly are in Christ and let His love transform and fill us, we will be able to pour that love into the lives of others around us, so they can notice that we truly are different.
In the end, either offline or online, we are left with the same challenge: grow to be those that Christ has redeemed, to live and serve out of His love that is poured on us and through us.
Only then, God will use us to touch people like “The Broken” or “Jane”.
Our disciples and communities online or offline will thrive only when the redeemed people of God will live and serve out of the love that Christ has poured on them!
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.” John 13:35
What would it take for you to live out the call to love God and love others genuinely?
Rudina Bakalli
