Posts Tagged ‘peace’
Posted on August 7, 2009 - by Patrick
Grace in the window, Peace at the door.
With the comforting Southern California sun on our backs, My new friends Joby and Jr. and I walk down the streets of downtown Los Angeles, cameras in hand, enjoying some good coffee and great conversation.
I love moments such as these because for so many, the City of LA is just a city. But to walk down streets that for most will only drive by on the way to an seemingly more important destination, we make our way down the littered reddened streets, it’s hard not to noticed the accidental beauty in it all. What was left on the ground, tagged on the side of a building or stacked by a warehouse is now a perfect subject for our Nikon cameras. It’s almost as if what was meant for garbage, vandalism and junk is now, through the right lens is a work of beauty.
I want to share a story of a six year old girl from Tampa, Florida.
Danielle is a living, walking example of the grace of God breathed into one little girl and her adaptive parents.
Danielle was born into a broken, messed up family in Tampa Florida. Her father was out of the picture, it was her and her mother living in a run down one bedroom, cockroach and vermin infested “house” in a rough part of Tampa. Her mom, struggling with her own brokenness and sin, neglected Danielle from birth. She was never held, talked to or fed properly.
She lived seven years before anyone discovered of her or her neglectful mother. When authorities found her, she was cowered in the corner in the cigarette butt and dead bug littered floor. She weighed 46 pounds. She was malnourished and anemic. In the pediatric intensive care unit they tried to feed the girl, but she couldn’t chew or swallow solid food. So they put her on an IV and let her drink from a bottle.
She wouldn’t make eye contact. She didn’t react to heat or cold — or pain. The insertion of an IV needle elicited no reaction. She never cried. With a nurse holding her hands, she could stand and walk sideways on her toes, like a crab. She couldn’t talk, didn’t know how to nod yes or no. Once in a while she grunted.
She couldn’t tell anyone what had happened, what was wrong, what hurt.
“In the first five years of life, 85 percent of the brain is developed,” said Dr. Armstrong, the psychologist who examined Danielle. “Those early relationships, more than anything else, help wire the brain and provide children with the experience to trust, to develop language, to communicate. They need that system to relate to the world.”
Meet Bernie and Diane Lierow.
Bernie, 48, remodels houses. Diane, 45, cleans homes. They have four grown sons from previous marriages and one together. Diane couldn’t have any more children, and Bernie had always wanted a daughter. So last year, when William, their youngest was 9, they decided to adopt.
Danielle’s caseworker was working very hard to find her a permanent home. A year after her dramatic rescue, living in a special needs foster situation, she was placed in the Heart Gallery. The Heart Gallery — a set of portraits depicting children available for adoption. The Children’s Board displays the pictures in malls and on the Internet in hopes that people will fall in love with the children and take them home.
Around Thanksgiving of 2005, the Lierow’s attended the Heart Gallery Gathering held in Tampa. Diane stepped out of the chaos of the crowds, into an alcove beneath the stairs. That was when she saw it. A little girl’s face on a flier, pale with sunken cheeks and dark hair chopped too short. Her brown eyes seemed to be searching for something.
Diane called Bernie over. He saw the same thing she did. “She just looked like she needed us.”
When they met Danielle at her school, she was drooling. Her tongue hung from her mouth. Her head, which seemed too big for her thin neck, lolled side to side.
She looked at them for an instant, then loped away across the special ed classroom. She rolled onto her back, rocked for a while, then batted at her toes.
Diane walked over and spoke to her softly. Danielle didn’t seem to notice. But when Bernie bent down, Danielle turned toward him and her eyes seemed to focus.
Everyone told them not to do it, neighbors, co-workers, friends. Everyone said they didn’t know what they were getting into.
They brought her home on Easter weekend 2007.
Let’s take a step back shall we.
Let’s go all the way back to the Garden of Eden.
In the beginning God created everything in the world whole, complete, right.
The Garden of Eden represented balance, glory, majesty. A physical representation of the creator.
When God brought Man into picture this completed the painting. God, man walking in perfect relationship, harmony in paradise on earth.
In the Garden of Eden there was peace. Everything was right with the world.
The Hebrews call this special peace “Shalom” (שָׁלוֹם).
When Adam and Eve partook in the forbidden fruit from the tree; something happened. The peace, the Shalom was broken. Man, God separated.
Disconnected. Un-whole. Un-right.
What allows sin to abound on earth is an absence of Shalom, an absence of wholeness.
Why Danielle’s story is so amazing, is because her story, her life is a beautiful, messy work of art painted with the grace and mercy of God.
When Bernie and Diane Lierow decided to adapt Danielle, they became active in bringing about the kingdom of God through restoring wholeness, bringing back the Shalom that was lost by our distant relatives Adam and Eve.
Most see Danielle as a disabled Seven year old who can’t speak, who drools, who has the mentality of an infant.
The Lierow’s just see their daughter. And they love her.
This is grace.
This is restoring shalom in a chaotic and broken world.
What I love about Jesus, is that he can’t help but see great art in ordinary people.
Where lives have been broken, messed up and abused — he repairs, creates and inspires.
Those who have been counted out, dismissed are the very lives Jesus almost calls out to greatness.
Paul’s life is a great example.
Paul (Saul) was a persecutor of the very ones that followed Jesus. He beat them, arrested them and even killed them.
Where most saw Saul as someone to hate, to fear — Jesus saw a canvas with potential.
It’s amazing to me then that when Paul begins to instruct the church, he uses the same two words for every salutation, “Grace and Peace”.
Grace always brings benefits and one of these benefits is reflected in the word “peace” which the Apostle always associates with God’s grace. In fact, the order is significant. First grace and then peace. Perhaps, until we know and appropriate grace, we can’t experience peace.
This is what Paul speaks over and into the church. He speaks wholeness over the church that he once dedicated his career to destroying, he speaks grace over people whom he committed his life to killing.
Grace, pulls us out of the darkness and pushes us into relationship.
Shalom, calls us to wholeness and to bring wholeness to the world.
Restoring Shalom to it’s rightful place in our world is our mission.
Restoring Shalom is sharing hope with the lost.
Restoring Shalom is always voting on the side of peace.
Restoring Shalom is bringing beauty into a ugly world.
Restoring Shalom is opening the eyes of the world to what true art is.
Grace
and
Peace.
Restore.
Whole.
Complete.
