my heart

my heart is heavy lately... life has been good here in Clemson, so i don't mean heavy like that - but heavy in the sense that i want to do something, make some kind of difference in the mess that is our world.

i've had images of big, brown-eyed orphans in tattered clothing in my head for a few weeks (if not more) - they're just looking at me.

i've never thought more about africa than i have this past week - i see pictures of orphans, of war-torn women and families, i see teenage girls who are now mothers as a result of rape.

i get emails from invisible children, and to be honest most of the time i don't read them, but i read this one and i ended up on the site looking at bracelets. Each bracelet has a story - the one that touched my heart was the green for grace. The story was about a teenage girl who'd been raped and is now a mom. In my heart there was this overwhelming sense of heartbreak and fear.

i take Susan to physical therapy twice a week, later that week we went and i was flipping through the magazines they have - i landed on this one with a brown-eyed boy in tattered clothing, the cover was about poverty. Of course, I read it - flabbergasted that once again, these faces and this emotion had found me again. The week before I had read an article in some "SELF" magazine about a celebrity working with Oxfam - working with AIDS orphans and children in Uganda... this had been the 3rd time these faces had found mine.

I had this "dream"/idea last year of a school/home/clinic for girls. Actually, I did a project on it for a nursing course. The goal was to have a free place for women - especially teenage girls and moms - to be able to come and live, to be educated and taught skills that would equip them to get a job, to give them free medical care - especially when it came to working with pregnant women and infants. I wanted it to be in a place where women weren't treated well - in a place where they weren't given many options if they were single or widowed or abandoned. I wanted it to be a place totally free - so that their families would have options and so that coming and attending school or living would be open to every girl, every woman, every infant, every teen.

It's a massive dream for anyone - but an "impossible" one for such a fearful person.

I'm so afraid - in my flesh I don't want to move somewhere in the bush, in the middle of a war-zone - I can't handle the atrocities, tragedies, heartbreak and grief - I'm sheltered, I always have been and I've been okay with it - I can't go to these places, work with these girls, I can't handle it. These thoughts and fears swirl in my head.

Most of them are lies. The truth is, I am sheltered- I have no idea what it's like to suffer - I've got a pretty darn cush life and I've never had to wonder or worry (that doesn't mean I don't) about where my clothing, food, education, anything will come from. The lie consists of the "I can'ts" the "it's impossible" the "you're too fearful" and the "what can you, of all people, really do to change anything?"

The thought of "they need to know there's hope - I need to know there's hope" was suddenly a target for the Holy Spirit to convict me the other day. I know there's hope, the source of Hope lives in me, yet I don't claim it or live in light of it. I don't need to go to see that there's Hope - no, Hope exists. I don't need to go to bring it, it's there - just like I don't bring Jesus or the Gospel or God anywhere - He's there already. The crazy fact that He choses to use us is not so that we can "bring" Him anywhere- but so that He brings us and introduces us as His kids - manifestations of his light, love, hope, joy, hands, feet, heart. Conviction of self-righteousness has hit like a wave the past few days... instead of seeing myself sitting down to serve as though I'm superior - I should see myself kneeling, eye-level with those I get to hang out with, serve and help as equals, even as a student who wants to learn. They don't owe me anything, they shouldn't praise me for anything.

Is a servant praised for doing his job? God's not interested in me sitting down at the feast with my side-dish - he doesn't need it, because he's got more than enough (and better) food. All He's interested in is me being there, enjoying His presence, and passing the potatoes (the blessings he's given me) to His kids - my siblings.

grace - how i want to get such scandalous grace -
corley