Wednesday, May 27, 2015

On Staying Soft

On Saturday night, I got the news that the government would be coming for an inspection of SCH very soon. The requirement that needed to be made for this inspection would be that all of our children with chronic illness need to be grouped together in the same home. What came along with that meant Eloise would need to go back to Ongole where she first was transferred to us and Penny would need to move to another home because they are the only ones in our home without chronic illness. It also meant I would be receiving two new little one year old babies with HIV. In a matter of seconds, I realized that our family and home would abruptly change very quickly. I felt all control slip away from me. I went numb because I knew what this would mean for me and the girls. It would break our hearts to lose two members of our family and replace them with two new ones just like that. I turned my feelings off and I went into business mode, running around trying to prepare our home for the arrival of two new babies. 

The next day, we walked over Eloise and a Penny to rescue home (our main home here at SCH). It took everything in me to look at the whole situation like "what just needed to be done". But I did and every now and then when I felt my feelings creep back in, I pushed them out and turned the light off in my heart. I walked away that evening to the sound of my 4 year old screaming louder than I have ever heard her scream as she watched us walk away from her. I left my baby in the arms of a stranger and chose to accept that they would not even begin to love her the way I do. And I didn't shed a tear. I didn't feel a thing. 

For me, who is naturally a sensitive soul, a deep feeler and a definite cryer, I was surprised (and a little bit disturbed) by the way I became numb so fast. I have seen some real crap here and felt some of the deepest pain I have ever felt by living in this country and being apart of this work. And over time, I have felt myself go into "shutting down" mode more because I'm just tired of seeing it. I'm tired of feeling it. I'm sick of knowing that so much of what happens here is out of my control and I have to just sit back and watch it. I have trained myself to turn my feelings off when I know I just need to be strong and get through it. So often, I have seen my humanity sit across the room and stare at me...reminding me that I can only be so vulnerable until the walls will naturally start to build after I realize how badly I've been hurt. 

Loving these children has been the most heart breaking thing I have ever experienced. Building this home from scratch has been one of the most frustrating things I've ever done. I have seen four children come and go through my house in 8 months. I have watched our family dynamic go from black to white. And just when I think we've settled in and we've truly become a family, the rug gets pulled out from under us and we have to start over. 

I have seen the way this life has attempted to harden me. I have noticed the way it has tried to rob me of the very things that brought me out here in the first place- compassion, sensitivity, empathy. In some of the worst moments, I have feared that the hardening of my heart has actually taken place.

Nothing has scared me more. 

The hardest thing I will ever do is to choose to stay soft. It will not be to have a child ripped away from me- it will be to grieve, weep and mourn over it. The bravest thing I will ever do is fight to keep the door open in my heart, willing to take more punches, even when its already mangled and broken. 

Eventually, I let the tears come. Like a rushing river, I felt my grief bring me back to life. Tear the walls back down. Set me free. 

Courage isn't about being strong. 

Monday, May 11, 2015

On Receiving

This evening. The Indian summer sun setting. My kids, all nine of them, playing. Dancing. Laughing. Fully enveloped in the carefree of childhood. I sit on the sidelines and watch. For a moment, I let myself get caught up with the blissful perfection of the scene in front of me. I take a snapshot and tuck it away into my mental memory box. 

Most moments don't seem as perfect as this one. Most moments I don't feel the way I do like I did tonight. And especially lately, I haven't felt like I've been able to stop and breathe in the simple moments with my children the way I would like to. I have felt burnt out, weak and exhausted in every sense of the word. My honeymoon with India is long over and I have started to notice the way living here has taken its toll. Spiritually and emotionally, I have felt drained beyond my limits. I have struggled to see clearly through what seems like a tornado of dust in my eyes. In summation, it's just been hard. 

This last week, I think my body finally caught up to everything else in me that already felt totally spent and I got really sick. I didn't have much of a fight in me to begin with and after a few days of feeling pretty awful, I was about to check myself into a hospital. Just before I did that though, the group of women who have been volunteering in my home came to pray for me. And you know what? God healed me. He made my physical body well again and He restored my health right then and there. But something more important happened than that. He led me to a place of surrender. He invited me to lay down some things that were never intended for me to carry. He led me beside still waters and He said to me, "I care". And in that, true healing and deliverance was made complete in me. 

I love moments like tonight where I really get to see what God has done. Like an artist displays his proudest piece of artwork so The Lord shows off His greatest, most glorious creation when I get to watch my children happily play in the evening sunlight. All of a sudden, I am overcome with awe as I stand back to look at the picture God is painting in the lives of my girls and I. I can hardly comprehend how far He has taken these kids in such a short amount of time. I sit and remember November 19, 2014 when I took home such fragile, fearful, shattered and broken little girls and then I look at the life and joy that now sparkles out of their eyes. I wonder how my traumatized children possess such pure faith and trust so shortly after the darkest days of their lives. For a second, I find myself trying to take the credit for this. And then I remember how far He has taken me, too, since that day. How much He has changed me, shaped me, stretched me, molded me, broken me and then so gently put me back together through the lives of nine socially outcasted little girls crashing into mine. And I know that what I'm looking at is nothing but a picture, a masterpiece, of His astounding grace.

God knew that I would need them just as much as they need me.

I am learning how to let my children love me with their perfect innocence and deep compassion. I am learning how to lay on the couch with them all afternoon and just enjoy the remarkable little people they are. I am learning how to put the check list away and fully soak in the miraculous relationships that have been birthed between these nine souls and mine. I am learning how to see moments with my girls as if God were letting me peek into a small slice of heaven.

Mostly, I'm learning how to open up a gift that has been sitting there, waiting for me all along. So far, it is well beyond anything I could have ever dreamed up would be inside.