the heart connection

It's easy to ignore or rattle off the criticisms of someone you don't know...until you not only can put a face to this person who's so different from you, but your heart also connected with his.

I was just waiting for the bus one night and this guy sitting next to me asked me for the time. He had been scribbling notes on a scrap of paper and then tucked it away into his bag. He was dressed in a very neat and proper way. It's kind of Southern. He was waiting for his friend who was late.

We were both going to ask each other a question but somehow I got to ask my question, "So where are you from?" We realized that we had lived in the same state. Of all places in the world! He was the first American I met outside of the US who was from there. He still is.

We started chatting and he said he had been in the region for just a few years already and was looking forward to going back home soon. He said it felt very good to hear someone speak in a way he was familiar with. He sounded maybe more than a little homesick.

It was a really good five-ten minute chat. But when I asked him for his name, his face changed. It was just a short pause and his smile was gone in a quick hesitation. He showed me this plastic tag he had on his neatly pressed shirt that told me he was a Mormon. That would make sense, he was here for a pretty long mission trip.

I told him my name and I talked in a good way about some Mormon missionaries I met who wanted to reach deaf people. Soon after my bus came so I had to go.

I felt sooo overwhelmed on the bus. It was strange but I felt very strongly a flow of compassion coming out from me. It could only be Jesus doing it in my heart like the Bible's records of him feeling immediate love for strangers he met (Mark 6:34, 10:21).

I felt his pain strongly when he had to tell me his name since I asked. It wasn't really a name, just a last name that would typically be all the more generic in the polygamous family structure I think Mormons have. It was a faceless name that had no meaning to the personhood and wonderful personality God had given to this man.

I sensed that he was very lonely in his time here in a foreign country. He was thirsting for a friend who would appreciate him as a person, not as a faceless follower of a belief system. And religion seemed more of a big rock of burden than devotion for him. It seemed like we couldn't be friends now that he told me his name and thus his religious identity. He had to put on his missionary role now..after all, he is here as a missionary.

Now when I think of Mormons, I think of him. This charming man whom I feel pain for because he is defaced and caged in by religion. I was like that once...through my teenage years till I was 20 under the Christian religion.

Jesus, set him free with your truth! He's precious and charming just the way God has created him to be. He has unsurpassable value that you actually already died for him before he was born. Give him courage to find the real Jesus, break all the deceptions that has been bound onto him by Satan and others. Use your people to change his heart as he seeks you. Give him courage to leave his community when the time is right...into your arms and the love of your true followers!