2 Corinthians 8

This afternoon at a party for foster families hosted by New Covenant Methodist Church I spent about two hours choking back tears and trying to keep myself composed. Everywhere I looked I just kept catching glimpses of the face of Jesus in the crowd.

Before we even walked in with our five (three plus our two new foster daughters), we ran into the friend that invited us in the parking lot. There He was on her arm all snugged up in an infant carrier. The least of these. A little girl born addicted to meth, cocaine, Xanax, and some other drug I can't recall. Then He was there just inside the door. A whole swarm of volunteers warmly greeting us and scrambling to offer us full stockings and name tags instead of busying themselves on the Saturday before Christmas with shopping and errands. But what really floored me was the whole family that walked in behind us. A mom, a dad, and no I'm not kidding, six elementary-aged foster kids. Most with thick glasses on and all with clean clothes and contented smiles. He was a redhead who proudly showed me the Lego set he was given by some nameless unthanked church member. And in both the dad who gingerly wiped slobber off of a wheelchair-bound boy who could only respond by turning His head toward him and looking into his eyes. And the woman with a big healthy baby on her hip and another dangling from her legs. And an older woman signing to two little boys with cochlear implants over one ear. And a sweet woman who led us in some carols with Rudolph and Jingle Bells thrown in just to put the kids at ease.

Jesus was just everywhere. And it is making me tear up writing it now. His presence was just as tangible and thick as if we were moving through jell-o.

And the part that really shakes me when I then opened up the chapter I was already planning on doing today (I already did 2 Cor 7) is that this passage beckons us to live in a way that this party exemplified. That there be equality. That we realize that we are truly all in this together. As a body. So if we let our right leg get all shriveled up and weak from need, then we should feel it. But unless we allow ourselves to get chin-deep in the need and the pain and the poverty and the hurt, we won't feel it. And things like the 3,000 kids spending Christmas without a family to call their own in my county this year won't even break your heart because you won't know any of their faces. And until you look into their eyes, or those of a million others that are lost and broken, you'll never know the joy of seeing Jesus face to face on this side of heaven.

It's worth it though. He is unimaginably beautiful. He is awesome and majestic and glorious. I believe the Macedonians saw Him too. And it's more than enough reason to give sacrificially.