Romania
But the only letter of recommendation we need is you yourselves! Your lives are a letter written in our hearts, and everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you. Clearly, you are a letter from Christ prepared by us. It is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is carved not on stone, but on human hearts.
– 2nd Corinthians 3: 2-3 (NLT)
As often as I’ve read this scripture, written by Paul to his fledgling church in Corinth, I’m always challenged to think that if my life were reduced to words on a page, would those words inspire the reader to want to know the God who redeemed it?
And what would it look like, anyway? Since I’m a former church-kid, middle child and journalism major, I’m only being honest when I say that, in my mind’s eye, there are not too many smudges, grammatical errors or words crossed out and written again. I tend to spell and do things right the first time, however…
The lines always start out straight, but inevitably begin to bend slightly toward the bottom of the page. Because, no matter how hard I try to “keep my eyes on the prize” (so-to-speak), I get distracted—I look around at what God is doing in this person’s life and that person’s life and compare it to my own. Sometimes the print gets sloppy when I’m in too big of a hurry to pray, or listen to the words that He wants to put down next. Those lines that never got finished because the ink ran out? That’s when I depended on my own strength instead of His. And the times that I poured my heart out to God will forever be between just Him and I, because the words are washed out by my tears.
There may be places where the logic is a little difficult to follow, as I’m prone to straining gnats and swallowing camels. There’s also a bit of redundancy since I usually have to be told more than once what I’m supposed to be doing. “It’s not fair!” is recurring theme. But, despite how much I show up in the narrative, I believe the reader will be taken by surprise, just as I was, at the many times the Lord burst on to the scene and intersected my life with things I could have never authored or imagined “when it was His good pleasure.”
In the Global Hope homes in Arad, Romania, there are 25 little lives being written as we speak. Not by us, but by the Holy Spirit—using Global Hope as His pen; and not on paper, but on their fragile hearts.
Just as Paul told his followers in Corinth that they themselves were his “living letters” of recommendation as he made his missionary journey across Asia, our children are our letters of recommendation to you. Not that we can take any credit for the miraculous ways their stories are unfolding—we give all the glory to God for that!
Jacci Knight, Director of Romanian Operations