Being a Christian in a dark world

As a teenager, I used to imagine fondly what it would be like to marry a pastor. I thought the pastor’s wife package came with everything I could possibly desire: endless opportunities for hospitality, rigorous intellectual conversations, and—best of all—the chance to go to church all the time. In real life, I married a musician-writer-scholar employed by a church, which turned out even better than my preconceived notions of marrying into the cloth. The bulkiest parts of my dream came true, with considerably less drama than that required of the pastorate.

I get to go to church all the time. On Thursday nights while my husband Jonathan prepares music for Sunday, I hide out in the empty infant nursery reading a great find from the church lobby shelf: a fat Martyn Lloyd-Jones commentary on the book of Philippians. I turn the lamp on and rock in the rocker, or lie down flat on the floor. Sometimes I just read Lloyd-Jones. On particular days when I feel indulgent, I bring along The New York Times and read it from front to back.

This routine isn’t precisely what I envisioned in my teenage dreams. When I imagined “going to church all the time,” the prospect felt somehow flashier and more full of people-centered good works. My Thursday night habits, on the other hand, remain solitary, except for when the cleaning lady stumbles upon me by accident.

One night in September, I sat in the nursery with The New York Times spread over my lap. All week I had been writing for WORLDkids about the immigration crisis, a topic featured prominently in that issue of the Times. As I read, I couldn’t help feeling the weight of the suffering described on the pages of the paper—not just the suffering of migrants and those dealing with them, but the suffering captured in almost every subject the paper covered that day. I don’t blame the Times for the suffering, of course. Quite the opposite. I felt a sudden swelling gratitude to the handsome rag for opening my eyes.

“There are so many desperate people in the world,” I said to myself. “Does it make any sense that I am not helping at least one of them?”

I started to think about the things I had: my bank account, the house I live in that has two bathrooms, the job I hold, the language I speak, the peaceful neighborhood God chose for me to live in. I knew my imagination was pursuing a holy track. What can I give? Who can I give it to? How soon can I do it?

It is a beautiful thing to be a Christian in a dark world. How many kindnesses I have seen doled out quietly by the people who share Christ’s compassion! We take Him with us wherever we go—be it into the pulpit, into the mission field, or even into the quiet abandoned church nursery on a Thursday night.