I watch the tears roll down her cheeks and am devastated
for her. I know she must be crying because of the pain of her burns or because
of the pain in her heart at the thought of her husband pushing her into the
fire. I place my hand on her shoulder and my eyes beckon her to share.
“My stomach is hurting,” she says, and that’s not what I
was expecting, “This is the first time I have eaten this week.”
It’s Thursday.
I pray because I don’t know what else to do. Sure, I can feed this woman lunch but after a
week of an empty stomach that may just hurt more than it helps, and I can’t do
much to change her situation, to relieve her of her abusive husband or her job
picking scrap metal out of the garbage heap. I can feed her now but she goes
home to 3 starving children and a future that seems utterly hopeless. We
pray.
I get a middle of the night text from a dear friend who has
been more of an encouragement to me than she will ever know. Her mom’s biopsy
results have come back and the tumor on her brain is cancerous. I can barely
choke out words to say that my heart is so heavy for her, that we will carry
this burden with them in prayer. I am blown away by her strength and feel
completely un-encouraging. We pray.
The hurt doesn’t stop. A teenager needs his leg amputated
because an infection that could have been preventable is now out of control. A
4-year-old’s arm is permanently damaged because his mom didn’t have enough money
to have it casted when he broke it a few months ago. My friend carries the
unborn child of her late husband but confides in me that she would rather not. 5
children in our program watch their mother fight HIV which is rapidly sucking
the life right out of her. Another friend threatens to abandon her children
(again) because she just can’t make enough money to make ends meet and she would
rather be apart from them than watch them suffer.
We move them into that little house in the back and we ask
for miracles.
13 hearts are growing into women under my roof and need
more and more of Mom, more and more of His truth. I sit, erase the to-do list
from my mind and will myself to be present, to be available. The gate opens
again and again and the phone rings and all these people, they just want to know
that they are not alone in their hurt, just want to be heard.
So many hearts to tend.
Who is God on the days when love just doesn’t feel like
enough?
I have been reading through the book of Revelation. I’ll be
honest, even after reading several commentaries and looking up lots of Greek
words, there are parts of it that I just can’t quite wrap my mind around. I
think this is ok. How marvelous to serve a God who is so much more magnificent
than I can even comprehend! What I have noticed though is that through all of
it, a few things remain constant regardless of tribulation and
destruction.
God is on the throne. All the angels and all elders and all
the saints and all the believers are gathered at His feet. And they can’t stop
worshiping Him. They can’t stop
worshiping Him. Forever.
And so this week life is hard and it is heavy. Because I
love so many and I want them to know
Him and I want Him to heal them. I want the hurt to be over, but I know that one
day, it will be. And in the mean time I just ask it, I beg it, that we would be
people who cannot stop worshiping the Lamb who is worthy. That through the hard
and the struggle and the moments that just seem so hopeless we would cling to
the hope that He’s already won and our only response would be adoration and
praise.
Eyes on Him.
Because when our love is not enough, His was. His is.
After this I
looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every
nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne
and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands,
and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the
throne, and to the Lamb!” And the angels were standing around the throne and
around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces
before the throne and worshiped God saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!
Amen.” –Revelation 5:9-12
-Katie Davis, http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/
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