Someone asked me tonight to share how I started FOUND. I have been too burned out for awhile to even tell that story but something shifted recently and I’m energized again.
I told her about my pivotal moment in 2016 when I was sitting in a Bible study and just got so sick of it. Not the Bible. And not studying the Bible. But stuffing the Bible into my head and heart rather than doing something with the wisdom and knowledge and principles I’d been taught.
I started calling them “Bible Stuffies.”
And I quit.
That’s when I decided to spend all my free time volunteering. I wanted to get close to the broken. The lonely. The lost. The marginalized. The ones who I thought Jesus would go out of His way to meet.
When I told her about my time sitting with kids in foster care who had no parent or sibling or even caregiver and were in the HOSPITAL… I started crying. I’ve told this story so many times that I can usually just explain that part and keep going. But something about it touched me deeply tonight. Lonely kids in hospital beds with no one who has their back … like a parent. Obviously the state is systematically walking with them because they find people like me who want to sit with them. But they don’t have stability. Or family.
I sat with infants dependent on the dozens of tubes connected to their bodies to keep them alive.
I sat with a 17 year old who had diabetes and hated the world. He was skin and bones. So neglected. So lonely. For a week, I’d go up there and work beside him. He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t trust me. I didn’t blame him.
There were so many opportunities to serve in Lubbock. I did as much as I could.
It got me out of bed.
It got me out of my head.
It reminded me that I was not the only one suffering.
And it kept me free from getting caught up in things I couldn’t control. Like politics.
I’ve never felt closer to God than when I’m sitting with the broken.
That season changed me.
Ultimately I fell in love with the work I was doing in the schools and, long story short, it’s now my full time job. I’ve been doing the work for ten years and regardless of who’s in power locally or nationally, the needs remain the same… and the joy I get from helping is what keeps me going.
It’s the expressed love of who I know Jesus to be. I want a life full of that.
There are so many distractions and magnets that draw us away from the one thing that never fails. Love.
What if we put down the remotes and the devices and the constant pursuit of more pleasure and got our hands dirty?
Trust me, I’m not saying be like me.
I’m saying I want everyone to experience the pure joy of giving instead of the exhausting vacuum of taking. Consuming. Digesting all the fearful posts and stories and ideas that the end is near.
If so, then let the end find me loving.
Not fearing.
Life is way too short.
Shea, Founder, Executive Director
