I love this project. I went to El Salvador and worked with our missionary and his wife this summer encouraging women, and I have to say the orphanage broke my heart. It was all I could do to not to burst into tears and pack two of them away in my luggage to bring home. I looked down into their faces and saw my son's who is Mexican not Salvadoran, but the coloring is similar.
When my son Pearce saw this photo that went out on postcards to all our members, he saw something I hadn 't seen before and unfortunately this photo cuts it off. In the right portion of this picture is a little boy dressed in shorts and some stars have been placed around him. Pearce studied the picture and said, "Mom, this is me!" Sunni was there and told him those were children from the orphanage in El Salvador. Pearce's next question -- "Then why am I there?"
I tried to explain that it wasn't him, but he didn't want to be confused with the facts, so I told him the stars around him was fairy dust. Sunni piped in saying Pearce went to El Salvador when he slept at night. My children aren't warped for no reason!
Have you ever heard that everyone has a twin somewhere? When I was in high school there was another teen with dark, big hair (it was the 80s after all), fair complexion, and pencil thin who attended church with me. My dad one time walked up from behind put his arm around her shoulder and started walking with her. It wasn't until he looked down into her face that he realized it wasn't me. Fortunately, she knew how goofy my daddy was and thought it was quite funny. During college, I was told there was a waitress at Clancy's (A restaurant that use to be on Youree that I loved!) that was my twin. I never spotted her.
Pearce's mistakenly identifying himself in the picture and my memories got me to thinking about mistaken identities. Peter was hoping that people wouldn't identify him as being a follower of Christ, but it was undeniable. Even though he tried three times. Have you ever been identified when you were in a moment in the flesh? What do you do? Do you back out of it and act like it never happened? Do you pretend what you did was okay?
I make my children go back and apologize when they have acted in a way that is not appropriate or respectful. Should I go back and apologize to the person who saw me acting in the flesh or when I was acting too big for my britches like my momma use to say? How humbling that would be if we practiced that. To humble means to lower ourselves. When was the last time you lowered yourself, humbled yourself before the Lord so that others could see Christ's identity in you? When was the last time you acted in the flesh and God did the humbling? I would much rather humble myself than have anyone humble me.
See here's the thing, we can't live like Christ is the center of our world, the Rock of our foundation and others not know it. Are Christians perfect? ABSOLUTELY NOT! If they were perfect they wouldn't need a Saviour! But when we mess things up, we should handle it differently. We shouldn't wish and hope that people don't identify us as a Christian when we get all up in someone's business. We should do our best to act in a manner pleasing to God, and when we mess up, own up. Take possession of it. Humble ourselves. Apologize for not being the example we need to be.
Let me encourage you to wear the title of Christian with humility. Serve in humility, and when we royally screw things up like I am proned to do (After all, if you do something, do it well!), apologize and show there is a difference between being a growing, active Christian than others in the world. People are watching to see if we are going to be Christ-like. We may be the only Jesus they will ever see. Who will others identify you with?
Just some questions to ponder.
His Daughter,
Kristy Mullins
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