How Nashville, TN changed my life…
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I scribble city upon city on my bucket list. I am wild at heart, a soul never at rest, so naturally traveling is one of my favorite outlets to release my untamed urge to see the world. I mean how else can you see the spectacles that even desktop screensavers can never do justice.
At twenty years of age, spending nearly two decades living in two towns (South Boston and Harrisonburg), I have been very fortunate to see the sights and cityscapes I have. I love traveling, there is something about it so freeing, so limitless.
So, the moment I found out my college, small group had the opportunity to travel to a new city, a new environment, to simply serve others, helping out in any way we felt so led, I fell in love with the idea of seeing a brand-new city on my list and experiencing it first-hand through a week-long immersion.
There are situations few and far between in our lives where we can truly behold something so big that it truly changes everything. Situations so extravagant that our only appropriate reaction is to simply smile in agreement with the sights we are completely in awe of.
What I experienced in my short week in Nashville, TN was bigger than the visceral experience of temporarily inhabiting the country-music Mecca and far grander than any Old Opry…
My week in Nashville changed my life forever because the incredible love of God felt in that city follows me everywhere I go.
Faces are all the difference
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What makes a city great? Even those of us (I definitely include myself) that are not exactly seasoned travelers, we all have our favorite locations, but what makes that location surpass the rest?
As I lay my memories down on paper, reminiscing more and more as I type, I have concluded that I could go on for days telling you every anecdote about my experience in Nashville, or I could tell you about the one story that means the world, the story about how a loving God spoke, smiled, and guided us through a city whose heart is bigger than I could of ever imagined.
What made Nashville, TN my hands-down favorite US city was deeper than my love for country music, cowboy boots, and good BBQ, it was the story of city told through the eyes of those who know its roads, alleys, and main-drags better than any other Tennessee, city resident.
Hearing the heart-break, hunger, and unsheltered perspective of the city’s forgotten citizens, the citizens without food, shelter, and sometimes even faith in the human heart. The humans with real beating hearts, with riveting stories bigger than any silver-screen adaptation, and with outstretched arms that we all to often avoid embracing at all costs.
What about me changed in Nashville? The more appropriate question raised is…
What perspective of life was not turned upside down by the new look into the hearts and eyes of the broken, the hunger, the homeless?
More than statistics do justice
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In our current day and age I am determined that statisticians are the hardest working men alive because it seems like everyday I click on my television set, pull up my internet browser, or give an occasional glance to the weekly, dead-tree publication I read a new, alarming statistic.
“This just in, according to the national board of whatever…” and with that intro the clauses that follow those prepositional phrases demand our attention. This mindset and quite honestly desensitization to these ever-present statistics was the exact state of mind that I entered the beautiful city of Nashville dwelling on.
What I learned, however, more important than any calculation can do justice is what the alarming statistics dominating our media cannot show and cannot prove. The true fact behind our habitual number crunching is that there is heartbreak behind every group we report on. We usually turn a blind eye and deaf ear to these unfortunate groups because there are just that, groups.
For the majority of our week-long mission trip, our group of 19 college kids worked at the Nashville Rescue Mission, a homeless mission that not only fed, clothed, and provided a shelter for a countless number of Nashville citizens without homes, food, and basic necessities, but the mission also offered a 7-month discipleship program targeted towards turning lives around for God’s purpose.
The stories I heard were magnificent. I heard stories of upper-level managers at this mission coming from nothing to returning their blessing upon others to guys that had just that day decided that they needed to turn their lives around and get off the streets that have no sympathy.
These stories weren’t captivating just because they make a great, sensational piece of literature, these stories have faces and the faces have hearts, and these hearts are breaking.
What do statistics not show?
Statistics can’t show the hearts of the broken, only gazing into a human’s eyes can do that. Only listening to every word of a testimony ridden with countless roadblocks creating new all-time lows can do that. Only hearing how God transformed the lives of everyone involved in this work, from the kind volunteer serving hot meals to the grateful recipient enjoying lunch, from the hundreds that still roam the streets of Nashville with no where to turn to the college kids who were able to hear their stories for the first time…
God is more real than ever in these moments and in these places.
The ever-changing effect
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What changed about me in Nashville over that short-time serving?
Was it newly gained muscles from lifting boxes in a mission warehouse, was it a new pair of cowboy boots to pride, or was it a glimpse into the life of a country-music hopeful that played me a tune or two on Broadway St.?
The answer is no. What changed about me in Nashville is that I walked into the week with a spark, a tiny longing to lend a hand in anyway I could, and the miraculous thing that happened was that that flame became a wild fire. What fed this flame you may ask?
The love of a God that is constantly pursuing me even when I run away from him at full-speed, the forgiveness of a Savior that never stops forgiving me even though I will never stop screwing up while I’m alive, and a Spirit that listened to our requests to see Him work and showed up more extravagant than I could of ever imagined.
And what’s even more amazing is that my mission trip didn’t end upon our arrival back home in Harrisonburg. The fire is roaring and spreading out of control. The work of God is unmistakable, and when it is seen it is impossible to not believe.
Nashville, TN changed my life because God showed up and showed us all through the lives that touched us more than we could of ever touched theirs that he’s never left his people, we just might not always be looking hard enough…
-Jeremy
[...] already read all about my amazing spring-break, mission trip to Nashville, TN (if not check it out here and here), but I have one more blog you should check [...]