Priorities

If your life is a painting, your priorities are the paint. They determine the quality of the painting. Your legacy can be written through pale water colors or with richly deep artists brush strokes. Each day unfolds through the choices we make--determined by the priorities we keep.

If I lose my life jumping in front of a bus because I was pushing a child out of the way who would have been hit, my priority is that child's safety over my own. The world would call me a hero. Why? Because despite the fact that our culture denies the existence of absolute truth, it can't deny the implications. Life holds incalulable value.

At 5:24am this morning I was hesitating to step into the coldest shower in the history of mankind. After sleeping on and off for 5 hours on a gym floor through a deflating air mattress (At midnight I fell asleep on air, in the morning it was more like a plastic floor covering), the awakening I was dealing with in this shivering moment was beyond rude.

Our girls are sleeping in the short term missions (STM) dorms, as our entire team did last year, but this year our guys are being called on to "rough it" on the gym floor with about 50 other guys. The missions dorms are a very nice setup. Bunkbeds and shower rooms with warm water, clean accomadations,etc. As for the guys, our situation is a bit more adverse. At about 10pm we set up our beds in the gym (last night it was more like 10:30 becuase there was a basketball game going on); and we have to be packed up (beds and any luggage we brought in) by breakfast--at 7am. We carry our stuff (including bedding) up several flights of stairs to the vehicles where we keep it during the days. If you come on a missions trip with the entitlement that you deserve a more "permanent" residence to lay your head in--you're out of luck.

It was in this context that I, the first of 50 men greeting the dark morning, stood testing the ice-cold water with the faint (and fleeting) hope that eventually luke-warm would meet me. I finally took the plunge, realizing that holding out hope of heat was vain, and that I still had to drag my 6 guys out of their beds and get things going before too long.

Have you ever taken a cold shower? No, trust me, you haven't. If you've ever taken a comparably cold shower you know that it's crisis management. You don't take a whole lot of time to reflect and think. But for some reason this shower was different for me. In the midst of my arctic awakening I began to think about priorities.

The Dream Center has their priorities straight--that's why our guys (and the guys from 12 other short term missions team) are sleeping on the gym floor this week. You see, the 4th floor has been changed from STM dorms to housing. The conference room has been transformed into a play room. The rooms have been changed from bunkbeds that house thousands of teenagers every year to living rooms and bedrooms that house single moms and families that were sleeping on the streets last Christmas. 11 families are living on the floor we stayed on last year, down from 12 a week ago, because the Dream Center just got their first family in this ministry into a home of their own last week.

One story: A woman who works here at the DC told us this one today. A few months ago, a young woman in her early 20's was a few days from being homeless. She had a little baby and was about to give birth to a second, but she was loosing her apartment because her boyfriend was just put in prison. She didn't have anywhere to turn. She walked into a church looking for answers. The woman telling us the story met her, and because there was no options for her at that point, took her into her own home. A few weeks later the DC opened this "family housing" ministry, and this young woman was hooked up with a place to live. In the months she has been living there she has finished her GED, and is currently enrolled in college classes to get her degree so that she can provide for her babies--who don't have a Daddy to take care of them. Those little ones are sleeping where my bunkbed sat last year at this time. They are playing in the room where we had our team meetings. They are taking baths in the warm water that we had the privilege of experiencing last year on our trip here.

So there I stood--skin now numb to the ice cubes pelting my body through the shower head. I began to pray. I began to thank God that the DC has there priorities straight. I began to thank God for the opportunity of sleeping on a gym floor so that parents and children can have a roof over their heads and carpet under their feet. I began to think about home. I began to wonder about God's kingdom in Olympia and Lacey and Tumwater. I began to ask God if it was possible for me to take a cold shower every day so that single moms and hurting kids could experience some hope and love. I began to seek God and ask for the wisdom and ability to sacrifice so that those who no one else loves could experience the love of Jesus Christ.

It was at this moment that I realized--the water was getting warm. But I turned the shower off anyway, I was already done.