Whatever is Honorable

“Honey, why have you set the timer?” “When the timer rings it will be time for Mommy to come for me.” The grandmother’s eyes stung with tears, her heart stung with the knowledge that this precious child had been abandoned. Gently she explained his mother was not coming back. “Oh, you mean I am like Moses, adopted by a princess and raised in a palace?” The grandmother had cast a vision for her grandson teaching him that one day he would grow to be a mighty man of God. She had bound his broken heart with honor and taught him to see his life through the lens of God’s love.

There is a village in Paraguay called Cateura it is a town perched on top of a mountain of garbage. Everyday 1,500 tons of solid waste is dumped in a landfill in Cateura, where 2,500 families live. The children living among the piles of garage had little hope until one day Favio Chaves came. He looked beyond their dirty faces and the stigma of their filth. He taught the children how to recycle the garbage and make musical instruments. He recognized the beauty of their souls. He cast a vision for them and bound their broken lives with beauty. He said, “The world sends us garbage, and we send back music.”

She was in the attic when she found the notebook. The notebook contained the pictures of the Jewish children Nicholas Winton had rescued from the Nazis during World War ll. Winton found homes for 669 children, many of whose parents perished in Auschwitz. It all began just before Christmas 1938 when Winton chose to cancel his skiing trip to Switzerland and go to Prague, Czechoslovakia, to help a friend who was involved in Jewish rescue work.  He was honor bound to look beyond his comfort and recognize the value of a child’s soul.

It is a different way of seeing things. To look at others through the lens of honor, to recognize what is noble in the outcast. To look past the packages that have been torn and broken by the world and be filled with awe at the majesty of the soul that is within. I am filled with a since of wonder that I too can cast a vision for the broken hearted and bind their wounds with honor.

Father, You have taught me that I am to fill my mind with “whatever is honorable.” Please show me how to look at those around me through this noble lens.