We never cry alone

Last week the Doors home turned into a bit of a hospital. We had many patients from Namuwongo slum staying with us, and one of them was a six year old little boy who had been badly burned five days before. He’s in top class (kindergarden) about to go into Primary one, but had been in the village over the weekend.  His whole wrist was covered in a nasty scab, packed with herbs and local medicine when he was brought to school. 

I took him to the clinic with a lot of uneasiness in my stomach. I do not have a good reputation in taking kids to the clinic. There has been some fainting in the past, some severe wooziness, and even the occasional day when I have tossed my cookies. 

We sat in the waiting room waiting for the nurse to come and clean the wound, knowing that she was going to have to scrub off all the herbs and the scabs, and I’m sure that I was more nervous than he was. The nurse came and got him, and looked at me and said, “You don’t have to come in if you don’t want to.” (they know me there). 

I went in. I held down a screaming, thrashing, bleeding child as the nurse cleaned his burn. At the end, with his arm wrapped up and tears still streaming down his face, he looked at me and whispered “thank you.” 

We celebrated that it was over with juice and a mandazi (think doughnut) and I thought about how painful it would have been for me to sit outside that room and listen to him scream and wail while I just sat there. Even though I wanted to vomit, and he poured blood all over one of my favorite shirts, and I felt like possibly the most cruel person in the world pinning him down to have his burn cleaned....It would have been worse if I had sent him alone. 

God doesn’t send us in to cry alone. He doesn’t wait outside the hospital room. He holds us in His arms even when we are thrashing and screaming and the world has burned us. 

He doesn’t send us into this world and think to himself “Ohh this is gonna hurt....." and then simply leave us to bear the pain.

He came down with us. He got our blood all over Him. 

He’s in the present. He can’t bear the thought of watching and listening to us suffer without holding us with all the strength that He has. When unbelief and sin entered the world, He knew it was going to hurt. 

He holds us in His arms until that day comes when the pain is over, and even though we may have suffered, and even though this life hurts, and even though there are days where we don’t understand the pain or why something has happened to us -- I know when my earthly body fades I will look my Daddy in the eyes and say “Thank you” and all my tears will be washed away. 

There are days when my heart feels like a hot mess, literally sweating over everything good and bad inside of it. And there's not many feelings to me that are worse than being clean and getting sweaty.  I can feel like my heart is burned or infected and days like this I feel like I am a job to God, one that never gets done. 

Sometimes it’s hard for people to love one another. We can’t imagine having such a Holy love that we don’t have to work hard at loving somebody. Usually, when I am ‘working hard’ at loving somebody, it’s not the actual work of making that phone call, or surprising that friend, or cleaning up their mess... it is that I am praying for my own heart to be changed. For me to be selfless, for me to not grow angry, for me to hold my tongue - for the Spirit to live in me in such a way that PURE love bursts forth out of my heart. 

The Holy Spirit is God. His love is untouched by selfishness, anger, or any other sin that stems from unbelief. Such a pure love that NEVER considers it work to love us. It is not His job to love us - It’s His desire, the deepest longing in His heart to love His children, such an intense desire that He would send His Son to die to be able to love us freely. 

I think it brings joy to God's heart when we see things the way that He sees them, with Kingdom eyes. How humbling it is to know that our God doesn't call us a job He has to do, and how honoring it is to Him when we don't see ourselves that way either! 

We are His delight. 

-Mal