In our center in the south Bronx, there is a backroom that has been converted into a chapel. Stained glass window hangings, wooden floors, a crucifix as the centerpiece. Though the exhaust sounds and noisy chattering of people below still seep in from the street, this room is moment of peace and refuge from the draining intensity of our work.
Today one of the saddest girls I have ever met came in, and after she left I returned once more to the chapel for a bit of solace. Afterward I was talking to one of our directors, who has been at this work for nearly ten years, asking her how she could continue, how she could bear the weight of sorrow and tears she sees every day.
She told me a story about when she just started, about how the work did start to pile up and she wondered why God had placed her here, in the south Bronx, in one of the worst neighborhoods in New York City. And then the realization came to her that it is *because* this neighborhood is so bad, so broken, so despondent, that God has placed her here. "If Jesus were alive today," she said, "He would walk these streets. He would minister to these people." Christ came to suffer with those who are so downcast they could not even lift their head, and in this work we see those same people.
The worst part is we cannot always help, we cannot always make things better. But what we can do, what we are called to do here and what every Christian is called for, is to walk with them as they suffer.
It's all we can do, and sometimes it doesn't feel like much, but at least when I walk back into the chapel I remember that we are not alone either.
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