HIS Heart

I feel an overwhelming weight on my heart each day. It is a bit difficult to depict and write about, so bear with me. I am first going to start back to my life a few months ago in order to paint the full picture of what haunts me now.

I often received emails or newsletters from other countries; from friends or organizations that were working there. They were exciting and inspirational, and I would often try to remember to pray for these different things. But some of the time I got annoyed at how often I got a request for prayer or money from different people or groups. And most of the time I only remembered to pray for them for a day or two. It touched my heart, but it didn’t penetrate deeper than the surface. I knew that I was a part of something bigger than myself, but I was lacking in vision for what that was. I hadn’t seen it personally, so the effect it had on my time, money, and energy was minimal. It was easier for me to care about the “need” for a new shirt, a good dinner, a fun movie, etc. Those things were tangible and they were a very real part of my life.

So, here I sit: your friend working in a different country, being funded by many of you, and completely at a loss as what to write. I don’t know how to make the things I see and experience come to life and be real to you. I realize that only God can do that, but as I pray about that, I struggle as to what my role is in all this. All I have is simple words on a computer screen, written by a desperately flawed human whose thoughts and feelings are often vastly far from holy.

I don’t know how to paint the need; the raw desperation I now feel for this world. Reading about a child who never has been loved is immeasurably different that seeing them every day and having them watch you walk inside your front door, away from them. Hearing someone talk about the number of lost souls is a lot different that interacting with mobs of them daily. Seeing a picture of a family who is barely surviving is infinitely different than being in their house while they try to give you the best they have because you are a treasured visitor. Watching a movie on civil wars and the treachery that comes as part of that is incalculably different from being a part of the aftermath and trying to know what to say.

God has ripped open my heart and changed so much of who I am, and I feel sad because I don’t know how to talk about it in a way that is more than just words on a page. I feel so inadequate to be here and to know and see God in this way. I want so much to package you all up and bring you here with me! But God has called me to relay what I am seeing and experiencing…and I don’t know where to start. So, bear with me over these next months as I wrestle and struggle through learning to be open and sensitive to what God puts on my heart to share. Thanks!