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. 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 three 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 the 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 four-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. Five 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.
Thirteen 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. They just want to be heard.
So many hearts to tend to.
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. 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 the 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 meantime, I just ask it—I beg it—that we will 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 will cling to the hope that He’s already won and our only response is adoration and praise.
Eyes on Him.
Because when our love is not enough, His is.
