Learning How to Let Go

As of today, it has been exactly one month since I left Seattle to begin my journey back to India. As I look back on the month here, I can’t believe how fast it has flown by! At the same time, so much has happened in this short month from watching Cedar take his first steps on a walker to going on random weekend adventures to the beach to meeting and serving alongside so many other volunteers who have come to work with SCH. It has been a great month! This week is the last week of ability camp for our 4 kids, which means at the end of this week we will be saying goodbye to Nikki and Sarah who have been running the camp everyday for the past month. I will miss them so much as they both have become an amazing source of friendship and laughter while they have been here. On the same morning that Nikki and Sarah will be leaving, my friend from SPU, Will, will be joining us here for a month! I am so excited to see another familiar face and have him become apart of the SCH family. I expect and hope for great things in this next month. I’m looking forward to all of the adventures that still lie ahead!

Lately, I’ve been reading two blogs of two North American women who have moved overseas to Uganda and Nepal to become mothers of abandoned and orphaned children. You can read about them too by clicking HERE and HERE. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve sort of become obsessed with their blogs, reading them from the minute I get home until late into the night. Just reading their stories of how their lives have turned into this amazing dedication to loving the orphaned children in their communities completely inspires me. Especially while I am overseas serving orphans, there isn’t a better time to be inspired by that kind of thing. However, at the same time, I’ve been deeply discouraged by it as well. I see what they have done for these kids, taken them off the streets, given them an education and provided them a loving and healthy home where they can call someone “mom”. I read about that and feel like I’m not doing enough. I’m not serving enough. I’m not sacrificing enough. I’m not giving enough of my life. I’m not giving it all that I’ve got so that I can ensure that these kids are getting the very best of my time here. Lately, I’ve been walking into SCH feeling so completely overwhelmed by all the needs in front of me. I have this urge every time I walk in to want to fix everything and to see the fruit of my labor in the least amount of time. I am impatient and wanting to control everything around me. I don’t want kids to have to sit a minute in their dirty diaper. I want the kids to always have a clean outfit on with no food or dirt on their face. I want to fan every fly out of the building and make sure and give each child hours and hours of physical therapy so that they can reach their full potential physically. I want to spy on the school kids while they are at school and make sure that they are making friends and their teachers are being patient and kind to them. I want to snap my fingers or say a magic word and make all the things that aren’t as they should be made right. I want their childhoods to look like mine, where I was given every opportunity in the world to thrive and grow. I make mental list after mental list of more things I can do to make sure that the home is running in tip-top condition. And still, after all that, I stand there not knowing what to do with myself. I don’t know what baby to go hold first, or what child I should go sit up, or what cerebral palsy stricken legs and arms to stretch out. By the end of the day, I still feel so overwhelmed and unaccomplished.

But that’s because I’ve been comparing myself to these women I read about. I’ve been looking at all that they have done and seeing all that I have yet to do. I’m not trusting Jesus to do this work, to serve these kids, to take care of them, to love them. I am not being faithful with the little things that God has placed in front of me. I am relying on my own strength to ensure a good life for these kids. I’m not humbling myself and stepping aside to let God do the work. I’m looking all that I could potentially do for these kids and ignoring God’s grace and power to accomplish the impossible. What if I chose to see that the hug I gave that child, the rocking to sleep I gave that baby, the kiss on the forehead, the story read aloud, the one-on-one time spent with a child coloring or playing legos as a day of success? What if I just stopped myself, retreated to the foot of the cross and took a real rest in the sufficiency of my Savior? What if I actually trusted God to take care of these children? What if I chose to be faithful with the little things and allowed God to be faithful with the big things?

            And then I go to the place where my heart knows I will find rest. My human heart will often fight this place, but deep down it knows that this is where it will find true peace. I retreat to the cross, where all of my sin and incomplete, broken parts lay, and I ask my “Papa” to come be with me. I ask him to take the burden of trying to fix and control and save. I lay more of my sin down- my lack of faith, my unwillingness to trust, my comparison to others, my pride, my feelings of accomplishment over my works instead of the work of Jesus. And then he holds me, in all of his glory and perfection and sufficiency, and he washes me clean. He re-fixes my limited perspective and reminds me why I am here- to simply love and to make myself invisible so that he can be visible. I’m here to love and care and show compassion to one child at a time. I’m here to pray and believe and watch God work on behalf of these children and assist if necessary. And then, and only then, can I walk into the gates of SCH and be truly free to love as the spirit leads me. I'm falling more in love with Jesus as I fix my gaze on all that He is and all that He can do. Praise the Lord that He is God and I am not. 

"Do not despise the day of small things” Zechariah 4: 10

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”
- Leo F. Buscaglia