Worms on the sidewalk

Tonight, I spotted about 10 different worms on our sidewalk and driveway.  They had slithered out of the over-moistened, rain-ridden soil out into a foreign environment just for a breath of fresh air.

Rewind about 10 days and I’m in the car driving up to Cleveland for a week long urban immersion program.  Somewhere in the midst of conversation, I believe God sent me an image of what our students (and myself) were about to enter in to.  The image is none other than worms on a sidewalk.  Worms squirming around out of their home turf.  Worms displaced because of a temporary flood.

End of night 2 of our urban program, an OSU first-year student turns to me and asks in all sincerity ‘is every day going to be this hard?’.  She had reached a breaking point and tears were starting to fill the corners of her eyes. She felt displaced and uncomfortable, wishing that she hadn’t said no to the other spring break trip to the beach.  Worm. On. The. Sidewalk.  Questions swirled in her mind and the minds of other students:

• Why did we come north to freaking freezing Cleveland with a bunch of students who are mostly not our ethnicity? 
• Why did God bring us to this broken city with many rough edges? 
• Why did we have to have all these uncomfortable conversations about injustice and even racial reconciliation? 
• Where is there hope?
• When will we get to rest?  I mean it is spring BREAK right!?!?

The good news is that God didn’t bring our students out onto the sidewalks of Cleveland so they might get stepped on or fried in the sun like a worm.  God is bringing us to a more fertile land where we might be nourished by an even bigger picture of the gospel.  God is able to use painful displacement for the sake of new LIFE and healing.  God is redemptive.  We see it with the Israelites in the desert, we see it with the bumbly Jewish disciple posse Jesus takes to Samaria in John 4, and we see it anytime privileged college folk spend some time with the folks in the neighborhood that they used to avoid by taking the highway.

Burning River Project 2013

Throughout the week, God spoke powerfully to this student and many others about His heart for people.  As it turns out, we saw a very big God at work in many unexpected ways.  We experienced the gospel through the poor in Cleveland.  Stay tuned for more stories in the coming days.

Thank you Jesus for being displaced for the sake of our healing and reconciliation.  Thank you God that you willingly displaced your son so that we might be redeemed.  Thank you Jesus that you are with us even when we are uncomfortable!