Both big decisions and insignificant events can have a cascading impact on our lives. Our chance decision to listen to a visiting speaker at our church talk about refugees in Australia was the beginning of transformation.
The speaker had been inside a detention centre and had spoken with people who were classified as illegal. This gave him first-hand experience.
For truth to triumph, it must be told. And the teller must be credible.
For years now, we have had both casual and close friendships with those who have come to our country as refugees, and my life has been changed because of it. I have been gut-wrenched on listening to their stories. My sleep patterns have been troubled.
A refugee friend recently remarked, “I think the Shepherd has forgotten his sheep.” I wept over that, because I have had the same unspoken thoughts, even though I know not a sparrow falls without his knowledge.
“For truth to triumph, it must be told.”
We have had refugees with trauma living with us over the years, and our aging lap dogs have played a part in helping to heal their hearts. They would cuddle the dogs because they could not hug another person, and weep into their fur with nicotine breath.
During this time I have had my untidy pantry rearranged so it was ‘tidy’, and the peach and salmon tins placed side-by-side because they were the same size. The intent was helpful, but I felt a little hysterical at the thought of trying to find things. However, I have had my rice-cooking skills improved. I have had the borders of my spiritual and mental garment enlarged, stretched and strained to breaking point—and I am the better for it.
One woman, who stayed with us for about six months, dropped to her knees and kissed my feet when she was leaving. I had images of Paul and Barnabas with the crowds first giving them garlands and then wanting to kill them flash through my mind. So I grabbed her by the collar and said, “get up, get up.” We are still friends.
Our granddaughters were favourites with the men in detention in Brisbane, because they were the only children they had seen in years. The girls would play board games with the detainees, sing Christian songs and recite Bible verses to them. They gave those burdened men memories of family and long-lost normality, while the girls revelled in knowing they were making a difference in their lives.
“Transformation is slow, painful, and entails walking valleys in tears and occasionally striding on the mountain top.”
Weeping is part of the healing, and change comes in different ways. Kindness and truth walk in sync. God is the author of grace and truth. Grace makes truth palatable and enables transformation to begin.
Transformation is slow, painful, and entails walking valleys in tears and occasionally striding on the mountain top when a victory is achieved. Transformation is ploughing, cultivating, weeding and watering, while remembering it is not us who do the miracle of transforming a hurting brother or sister into a vessel of the King. That is God’s job. Our job is to be Jesus with skin on wearing overalls.
Sylvia and her husband Peter are Interservers based in Queensland.
