Phillip Yancy tells a story about an experience he had while visiting a rehabilitation center for victims of leprosy in Nepal.
As they were taking a tour of the hospital, he noticed one of the ugliest human beings he had ever seen. Her hands were bandaged in gauze, she had deformed stumps where most people have feet and her face showed the worst ravages of that cruel disease. Her eyes, mottled and covered with callus, let in no light; she was totally blind. Scars covered patches of skin on her arms.
He said, “We toured a unit of the hospital and returned along the same corridor. In the meantime this creature had crawled across the courtyard to the very edge of the walkway, pulling herself along the ground by planting her elbows and dragging her body like a wounded animal. I’m ashamed to say my first thought was, she’s a beggar. She wants money. My wife, who has worked among the down-and-out, had a much more holy reaction. Without hesitation she bent down to the woman and put her arm around her. The old woman rested her head against Janet’s shoulder and began singing a song in the Nepali dialect, a tune we all instantly recognized: ‘Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so for the Bible tells me so.’”
The physical therapist told Yancy, “Danmaya is one of our most devoted church members,” “Most of our patients are Hindus, but we have a little Christian chapel here and Danmaya comes every time the door opens. She’s a prayer warrior. She loves to greet and welcome every visitor who comes to the hospital.”
A few months later Yancey heard Damaya had died. He said, “Close to my desk I keep a photo I snapped just as she was singing to Janet. Whenever I feel polluted by this beauty — obsessed celebrity culture I live in — a culture in which people pay exorbitant sums to shorten their noses or plump up their breast to achieve some impossible of beauty while nine thousand people die daily from AIDS from lack of treatment and leprosarium’s scrape by on charity crumbs—I pull out that photo. I see two beautiful women: my wife, smiling sweetly, wearing a brightly colored Nepali outfit she had bought the day before, holding in her arms an old crone who would flunk any beauty test ever except the one which matters most. Out of that deformed, hollow shell of a body, the light of God’s presence shines out. The Holy Spirit found a home.”
In 2022 God wants to make himself fully at home in your life. He wants to finish the construction. He may want to put in some windows so the light of his love and grace can shine through. He may want to clean up the library so you will be able to spend some quality time, studying his word and other helpful books which will enrich your soul. He may want to build a prayer closet so you can get alone with Him and pray with a broken, repentant heart.
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