Good People Like You

(Enter office building, ride up elevator, enter office suite, walk into kitchen to brew some decaf and toast a bagel)

Co-worker: Good morning! (smiling)

Me: Good morning!

Co-Worker: How are you?

Me: I’m ok

Co-Worker: Just ok? Sorry to hear that. Everything ok?

Me: Oh, yeah, just a rough morning with my little one having a meltdown

Co-Worker: (chuckles) Yeah…I don’t know how you guys [parents] do it….[more words my non-caffeinated brain cannot remember at the moment]…Why was he upset?

Me: He misses his mom, wants to go home

Co-Worker: (wide eyes, tongue tied) Yeah, that would be hard

…and then he proceeded to tell me about growing up in a family that did foster care until they couldn’t handle the heartbreak anymore while I poured my coffee and nodded along sympathetically. And then he said, “It’s so hard, but good people like you make it easier.”

I, of course, proceeded to brush off the compliment/affirmation/praise (whatever it was) and then we both headed off to our respective desks. And I was deeply unsettled.

What is it that rubs me so wrong about being referred to as good?

I think it must be this:

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus asked him. “Only God is truly good.” (Luke 18:19)

Jesus, good? Yes.

Me, good? No.

You can call me many things. Daughter. Sister. Friend. Wife. Mother.

You could even call me Christian, or advocate, or justice-seeker.

I am all those things.

But I am not good.

I remember in my militant atheist days I used to get so angry when Christians would put themselves down. I remember loathing a religion and/or god (because I didn't believe in one) that could convince a people that they were not worthy. I remember cringing at their humility (real or not).

Yet, what I have found since becoming a Christian is that none of these things I thought about Christians are true. They don’t put themselves down, they simply know their place in the grand scheme of everything. They know they are not worthy, not in the sense that they are not valued or loved, but that they are not worthy of the forgiveness and grace that has been offered to them and paid in full by Jesus. They are not humble for show and because they believe it’s the religious way to be, but instead, having accepted their sin, selfishness and depravity, they have reduced themselves so that Jesus may become more evident in them.

You see, I’m not good. I don’t love God with all my heart, mind, soul and strength. I don’t love my neighbor as myself. I don't forgive my enemies. I don’t even believe what I believe in sometimes.

I am not good.

I am desperate.

Desperate to know and believe and cling to the hope I have in Jesus. Desperate for Him to rescue me, transform me, embolden me and lead me along the narrow path.

What we do, this life as foster parents, is not because we’re good. It’s because we want to see our Savior. We want to glimpse his face in these orphans, in these broken families, in these hard and painful places. That’s where He is.

And so when my babies cry for their mom, or say they want to go home, or hurl insensitive things at us because their hearts are broken and they’re scared and confused, I don’t think to myself, “You are so good to be doing this.”

I think, “Jesus, please help me. Please help me comfort them. Please help their mom get her act together. Please, God, help us.”

Because, after all, only God is truly good.

And we are desperate for Him.