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April 14, 2008

There is a woman who is like no other who visits the Women’s Drop In Centre every so often. She comes in for a coffee and a meal. I have known her for about 6 months now, and have seen a dramatic change in her as I have built a friendship with her. She is an outcast, not because she chooses to be, but due to a mental illness which cannot be cured, she has been misunderstood and undervalued.The first few times I met her, I couldn’t understand her. She has only 3 teeth, and her sentences are fragmented and do not make any sense. But after a while I began to hear what she was saying. She started to trust me and told me that being a woman in her late 70s with no family to support her is so difficult, especially because she has lived in the downtown eastside for years.

She says that she is harassed and mocked everywhere she goes and has been banned from pretty much all the services here. One day long ago, she tells me that she used to be alright. She was a mother to a beautiful girl that is now a Canadian Olympic Gold Medalist. But they don’t talk anymore. She thanks me for not harassing her every time she comes in.

Then one day as I am sitting with her I notice her hands. They are scarred with spots that continue up her arms to her neck. And as I look closely at her face, I realize she is scarred all over her body. When I ask her what happened to her she said that she was almost killed in a fire. It changed her life she says.

She knows that she has not been normal since. She asks me if God thinks she deserved it. My heart breaks seeing a quivering lip and a tear forming on the brim of one eyelid. Absolutely not, I say. “Then why would he let me suffer like this?” she asks.

How do you answer to that? I don’t know. But as she is telling me this, another woman is listening at the same table. This woman has struggled with addiction, homelessness, and illness, but through it all she has a growing relationship with Jesus. She turns to this woman, and says, “You know Jesus, He had suffering far more than you or I ever will. It was his love that sent him to the cross, and he has scars on his hands and feet just like you and me.”

This woman is wearing sandals and she points down to her feet, which have sores all over them. “You have scarred hands, I have wounded feet, but Jesus had both.”

I don’t know how this impacted either of them, but for me it was a huge realization. Jesus suffered far more than you or I ever will.

Be blessed in your suffering and celebrate your persecution. It’s all for the Glory of the King.