I woke up at 4:00 this morning and couldn’t go back to
sleep. Just had a heaviness in my heart
for the afternoon I knew was ahead. Our
tradition on Sundays in Guatemala is to attend church at Vida Real, Dr. Hermann’s
home church. THAT was awesome. The sanctuary was filled to overflowing, the
praise and worship TUNES were familiar so we just belted them out in English
right along with the Spanish crowd.
Braxton stood in the aisle at one point to RECORD one song in particular…
Mighty to Save – his Daddy’s favorite!
It wasn’t as good as Shea sings it Honey, but it was still awfully good! Know that we were thinking of you the whole
time!
After church, we had lunch in Antigua and then headed to
the Orphanage. THAT was the source of my
heavy heart this morning. Last year, the
orphanage trip was emotionally the most difficult part of the week for me. It’s hard to see row after row of cribs, and
literally hundreds of kids in one compound that the world has labeled as “unwanted.” The mother in me struggles with that.
Given that my day started pretty early, I grabbed my
Bible and started reading in the Psalms.
Not really knowing where to start, I just turned to the place I always
turn when I’m feeling blue. Psalm 42: “Why are you
downcast O my soul? Why so disturbed
within me? Put your hope in God, for I
will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” A little further down in that passage, it
says “My soul IS downcast within me,” I’ve always appreciated that
inclusion by the Psalmist, because sometimes – even though we are COMMANDED to
rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS – sometimes a person’s soul is just dad-blamed
downcast ANYWAY. It just IS. The Psalms are FULL of our real human
condition.
The passage goes on to say, “therefore I will remember you from the land of
the Jordan, the heights of Hermon…” For
reasons I can’t explain, I never really made it past that phrase. I meditated on the fact that the scripture is
urging us to remember God’s PAST faithfulness to us, and to be ENCOURAGED by
that. I thought about “the land of the Jordan”
– all those GREAT Bible Stories about God parting the waters of the Jordan
River so the Israelites could cross over into the Promised Land on dry ground. I recalled how the Israelites
took 12 stones from the bottom of the Jordan to make a monument to God’s
faithfulness. Who could forget the
battle of Jericho, right after they crossed the River? Amazing stories of God’s power flooded my
mind just from the mere mention of the words “the land of the Jordan.”
I paused in my Spirit and just thanked God that He has a
plan and a Promised Land for each and every orphan that I would meet and hug
today. I stood up from my spot in the
dining area of the Ministry Center – which was obviously not crowded in the wee
hours of the morning – to go get another cup of coffee. I sat back down, ready to move on to another
Psalm. But my eyes kept coming back to
that one phrase listed above. Can’t say
that I’d ever paid much attention to what came AFTER the words “the land of the
Jordan.” Maybe it’s because I had no
idea what “the heights of Hermon” even MEANT.
But today it drew my attention over and over again, - I could NOT seem
to turn the page, despite my desire to do so.
I finally relented and followed the cross-references to Deuteronomy
3. After backing up a couple of chapters
and reading, I learned a few interesting things. Remember how God gave the Israelites SOME
land “East of the Jordan?” That’s really
what “the heights of Hermon” is talking about in Psalm 42. But some of the specific wording really
caught my attention.
“At that time, we took all his cities. There was not one of the sixty cities that we
did not take from them. All these cities were fortified with high
walls and with gates and bars.” As soon as I read that
sentence in Deuteronomy 3, I had a flashback to last year’s orphanage
visit. See if you can figure out WHY my
mind flashed back to that picture…
This picture is the view from INSIDE the Baby/Toddler area of the Orphanage. The gates and bars and walls keep the little guys segregated from the other areas of the compound.
God is busy showing me this week that He is BIGGER than
the things that worry me. He is BIGGER
than the things that make my soul “downcast.”
He is BIGGER than the hopelessness of orphanages. I think He was making a point to me with that scripture about the high walls and gates and bars that He is working a plan right NOW for those orphans... not just for their FUTURE "Promised Land." We heard a cool story today from one of the orphanage workers. She's an American in her late 50's - recently divorced. Lived her whole life in Alabama. Now she's devoting HER life to making life better for these orphans every single day. - God is BIGGER, and He's working NOW. Gates and Bars and Walls are nothing to Him.
He is BIGGER than the things back home that
tug at my heart this week while I am in Guatemala ( a beloved mentor with a
cancer recurrence, a best friend caring for aging parents with health
challenges, a nephew with some scary symptoms that require neurologists and too
many ambulance rides.) OUR job is to
invite Him into those places with our prayers, and to RESPOND in obedience when
He gives us marching orders. Today my
orders were to get off the bus in the heaviest rainfall I have ever experienced
in my entire life.
We couldn’t play outside like we did last year – so we just
took the party inside. We were NOT going
to be deterred. It was SO worth it. I think these pictures will attest to that.
Tomorrow we depart for three days in the villages. Please step up the prayers for this part of
our journey. We won’t be back to the
Ministry Center until late Wednesday night, so it’ll be Thursday before I get
to post another update.
He’s BIGGER. He
IS.
