Be Extraordinarily Loving

I was moved by this story told by Michael Frost in his book The Shaping of Things to Come. Read it last night before my eyes got to heavy. Context "...Another way to whisper into the hearts of non-Christians in order to activate a search for God is by being, like Christ, extraordinary loving..." Setting - an evangelistic rally in Sydney:

"...After the evangelist had addressed the audience, he agreed to take questions from anyone who had any queries about the Christian faith. The audience was asked to scribble their questions on the back of feedback cards and hand them to an usher to be delivered to the evangelist on stage. While a good number of the queries were typical of the questions asked at these forums, one of the feedback cards created quite a stir that night. The speaker stood to one side of the platform while a convenor read the questions from the other side. Her voice was clear but hesitant as she read, "Where was God when I was raped?" You could have heard a pin drop.

The evangelist paused, then attempted to reply. All his other answers had been smoothly recited ithout a note of hesitancy. This time he was clearly shaken. Each time he leaned toward the microphone to answer, he couldn't bring himself to speak. Then big salty tears began to stream down his face. He couldn't speak because of a lump in his throat. He wept openly on the platform that night."

"Michael can't remember any of his answers that night, no matter how clever or well presented they had been. Only one answer stood out - the evangelist's compassion for the member of his audience who had been raped. When later he composed himself, he raged against a patriarchal society that gives men the assumed permission to see woman as objects. Where was God when I was raped? He was epitomized in those salty tears and that anger at violence and oppression." (p. 104)

Comments

[David]

Thanks for sharing...great story!

[Mike]

Very powerful. Thanks.