Each year the Redman Family ventures down to Panama City Beach, FL for a week in July. We stay together, play together, eat together, and do all kinds of fun activities. One of our favorites is when we take the kids to a water park. Now - it's a little over-priced and they charged us for our 2 year old (unlike Holiday World who did not!) - but we always look forward to it each summer. It's a 'pirate theme' which means Fender is automatically enamored with it and if he's enamored with it, his little sister is enamored with it.
This year was different for a couple of reasons. First - it rained on us the first hour and a half we were there. Granted we were already wet at a water park, but it's way more fun when the sun is shining. But the rain definitely added a new dynamic to the day and certainly made it memorable.
And secondly there was a group of 'burn victims' that were enjoying the day as well. I'm not sure about why they were meeting at this water park that day, or who organized the event, but there was enough of them there that everywhere I went there was a different group there. Man, woman, boy, girl, white, or black: all different, but all united by their circumstances. It was so beautiful to see these people unashamed by the scars that life had dealt them. I kept thinking that that's what 'the church' should be like. Real people with real pain and real scars from their pasts gathering together unashamedly to celebrate the life they have in Jesus Christ. The barriers of race and socio-economic separation banished and all united under the banner of forgiveness. Unfortunately - we often don't take down our defenses and truly join each others team. We don't want to accept others with their faults even if our scars are far worse. We often pretend that we have it all together. That our families are perfect, our finances are in good shape, our marriages are solid. We don't wear the scars of disappointment, divorce, abuse on our sleeves for the world to see. We try to appear to be someone we're not. At least I know I often do…
But what I saw later was almost more than I could take without getting 'misty eyed'. As Lucy and Journey and I were headed toward one of the big family rides that you walked up several stories via a ramp or stairs to get to the top I saw 4 from this group. One was a teenage girl, one was a white guy probably in his mid 30's, one was a well-built black fellow in his mid 20's, and the last was a teenager that was in a wheelchair. He had lost one of his feet and had severe burn scars on the other. I saw them at the bottom of this ride and thought to myself, "How sad that boy has to sit here while his group goes up to the top ride this ride." But that's not what happened! The well built black man picked him up out of the wheel chair and put him on his back. (some of you reading are already getting misty aren't you?) We followed the group all the way up. The line wasn't moving too fast, either. We all had to wait several minutes in line. But he never complained. He never rested. And he never asked anyone else to do only what he could do. They were all part of the group and they were in this together. No one was going to be left behind!
I think what got me the most is quickly we often write off those people that are damaged goods. We may feel sorry for them at first and may even make a little effort to encourage them - but we don't stick with it. We aren't willing to bear the weight that they bring to the table. Jesus called His disciples to love each other and the world would know by that love that they were His disciples. The same is asked of us. We are to go through life together - helping each other up the hills and steps of life - even when our feet have been knocked out from under us. We all have scars, we all have hurts, and we all need each other.
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