Dear Francine,
This morning I am sitting at a coffee shop on the Southside preparing my own heart to sit with a gentleman who is a wealth advisor from Orlando, Florida. We met at a conference where we were hosting a booth and he was curious about the work of The SoulCare Project.
He walked into our our booth and asked what we are all about. It was an interesting interaction as he asked questions but he asked them in such a way that was invasive and aggressive, as if he were interviewing us or testing us. I simply shared that we provide uninterrupted time and space for people to be with God to listen to the Father and to experience being unavailable away from need.
Within a few moments of our initial introduction, he pointedly told me that our mission and vision was a terrible business model. My heart in that moment wanted to run away and write him off as arrogant narcissist. He is precisely the type of person who ends up on our ministry doorstep.
“My heart in that moment wanted to run away…”
He is obviously a businessman who has never been alone, never been unavailable and never left need. Therefore offering him a space to not be in charge ruffled his feathers. The more I sit curiously considering what led him into our booth, I am confronted with the truth that this man is an image bearer, God’s dearly beloved. And I want to know his story.
Dear Hutch,
I remember you sharing your initial experience with this gentleman many months ago. We laughed many times about how true his observation was yet we both knew it was possibly his own way of hiding.
What a gift to have been contacted by someone who expressed such strong resistance to our message. It doesn’t surprise me that he finally made contact with you. Your comfort as God’s beloved made him awfully uncomfortable. In turn, you seem to offer others direction from that place.
One of the things I continue to appreciate about you is your ability to gently love people through all of the many defenses they might try to put up to sabotage being loved by us. The paradox of SoulCare work is that so many of the souls that we work with come with so much anger, hurt, fear, loneliness and shame. The very things that are so desperate for the touch of God are the very things that might keep them from embracing their truest identity. Our ability to see and treat them as you have you described, “as God’s Beloved,” will be the key to doing more good work with them.
Loved hearing from you,
Francine