The Black Family Weblog

This weekend we volunteered time at our local men’s mission here in Charlotte.

If there is just one thing I could say about the men there is that they have been hurt at some point in life. I will have to admit here that we are asked not to speak to the men about the personal stuff in their life. But how can I? I forge ahead and sometimes ask the difficult questions. Overwhelmingly these men have been hurt at some point in their life. More often than not it is from their own parents. Most were raised by a single parent who worked all the time to support them. Some where raised by a relative when the parents did not even want them. Some are despised now that their life has crumbled. I’ve also heard that friends have led them down the wrong road and now they are resentful.

All this scar tissue around their living heart has made them cold, bitter, tired, depressed and sick. “Sick of this life,” is what one told me. One also said that he is just so tired of living “this” life that he is always assuming the defensive position with his hands up protecting himself. He made the reference with his hands and it looked like a boxer who is trying to protect himself.

The only way to break through this years-upon-years of built up scar tissue is for them to hearing the words of the living truth.

In Romans Paul said, “But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? … Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

Jesus Christ said, “…whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Pray for the men there that through the power of the word that their hearts will be jack-hammered down to the flesh and that they will drink from the water of Christ.