Blessing Hearts Ministries

"Malere toujou bouke; gran nèg toujou nan vakans."

("The poor man is always tired; the big shot is always on vacation.)

Though it didn't happen often, there were days when I was living overseas that my coworkers decided we needed a specific type of break.

Sometimes our break simply meant going to the nearest gas station to find a familiar but rare treat (I always chose an apple or chocolate), but sometimes it meant going to the local resort for an afternoon of relaxation on a quiet beach with an ice cold bottle of Coke in hand.

Since the area where we lived contained several such resorts, we always knew almost everyone employed at them.

The first few times we chose this type of rest I dealt with a lot of guilt.

Many of the people serving us were also those we were helping put their kids through school, or providing with a second job, or paying the rent on their homes, or counseling in preparation for marriage, so it wasn't like we were just taking advantage...
..but it still made me feel uncomfortable, knowing I could afford this break, this respite, this time to relax and unwind and most of them couldn't.

To be clear, none of them ever made me feel this way.

In fact, the longer I chose to live there the more I heard that they felt I was one of them in some ways, and they never once insinuated that I was unjust or indulgent for using my time in this way.

The attitude towards rest I experienced on Hispaniola, no matter who was doing the resting or how the resting was done, changed my perspective completely.

It wasn't about "deserving".

It wasn't about "earning".

There it is believed that we all *need* rest and no one shames anyone else for taking the type or length of rest each deems they need.

Also, I was reminded several times of the reality that by spending some of our resources at these places we were still helping the employees.

If their places of work ever ceased to exist then what would they do?

Of course there is a lot of nuance with that mentality, and how they are treated & provided for must also be taken into account, but it is all about the heart.

Sometimes even in helping our mindsets would get skewed and it could be easy to become callous or even arrogant about what we were doing.

These breaks brought us back down to earth and reminded us that we are all the same.

Whether or not we had more material resources didn't matter in the long run.

What mattered was the love that we showed.

What made a difference to the people around us was our attitude towards them, our treatment of them as *people*...people made by God and loved by Him unconditionally, with the same love we ourselves received from Him.

And that is what made whatever break were taking okay.

It wasn't about what we had or what they didn't.

It was about what we did with it.

"Si ou pa t'ap fikse sou syèl la, ou pa ta wè tan kouvè."

(If you were not staring at the sky you would not have seen that it is cloudy.")

Over and over God tells His people in His Word some variation of "Do not fear."

Over 150 times in many translations, actually.

Why does He seem to feel the need to repeat this command so often?

It shouldn't take us very long to determine the reason.

Fear, anxiety, worry...whatever we call it...are typically at the root of many, if not most, of our decisions, struggles, and even beliefs.

But, as I'm sure we have all heard at one time or another, at least 90% of the things we fear never come to pass.

Which means we are expending time and energy on essentially nothing.

We are staring at a sky of clouds assuming they mean rain, when we could simply be thankful for some much needed shade from a hot sun.

While living overseas, in a country where I was surrounded by people who were often in desperate circumstances...
..where I was daily confronted by the realities of material poverty...
..which lacked many conveniences taken for granted by the world in which I had grown up...
..where corruption among leadership was rampant and pressure to provide aid was at every turn...
..I learned how vital to our survival and health was the mindset of actively seeking out hope.

If we allowed ourselves to be constantly bogged down by the clouds (which most days seemed to be far more than the sunshine) we would quickly find ourselves worn out, burnt out, and lacking purpose.

But when we stopped looking for trouble...fearing the worst...seeing only the negative...
..our morale was boosted, we regained motivation and enthusiasm, and our faith was strengthened.

We might feel surrounded by clouds today.

Our minds might be full of fear and anxieties.

In fact it can be really easy to get to that point in today's world with a constant influx of news from every direction.

Maybe it's time to turn off the TV, radio, TikTok, Reels, or podcasts and choose to look right around us for hope.

We may be surprised by what we find in our own neighborhoods and communities.