because Seeing is Different than Being Told...

It has taken days... a full week, actually. A week when I had nothing else to do with my time except think and yet I drew blank.

I'm not one to be at a loss for words very often- I almost couldn't have even told you what a loss for words felt like until this week. Even now, the thoughts aren't flowing like they usually do. I'm fighting through it only because I feel so much needs to be said that I need to attempt a headstart.

I thought I knew... I loved the thought of really helping a group of people that needed it so badly, and that thought alone kept me wanting to do more.

But I wasn't prepared. I didn't etch out in my mind what would come to pass when everything that I have been told would be living and breathing and having a conversation with me. My mind still doesn't know what to do with what I saw and my heart with what I feel.

The difference isn't in the things that I experienced- I knew they were real. I knew that there were hearts stifled from the depth of the things they feel and souls stifled from true healing. I knew that being there with them was going to be different. Cognitively, I had stamped all this out.

I thought I knew...

But seeing is different than being told. Wrapping an orphaned child in your arms is different than seeing photos of them. Walking among their heartache and feeling their joy is different. It is encouraging and heartbreaking. It is incredible and has the power to tear you apart. It puts our God on a whole different plane than before, and yet my heart that can only hold so much begs so many questions of Him.

They don't question Him. Why would they question a God who has held them for so long? I know He has. I know He is in them and with them and still in the back of my mind I wonder- Why them and not me? Why do these babies have to suffer this way? Why would a great big God allow... and then I stop. I know better.

In as much as my heartaches, His heart is breaking. I think of them throughout the day and He holds them throughout the day. I pray for them and HE answers the prayers. He is tangible and living and breathing. He was there before I came, while I was there, and will be there with them until the day they take their last breath. And then, without a doubt in my mind, He will take their hands and bring them Home.

and so, I am thankful. Thankful that I can't wrap my head around it. thankful that He knows them by name- the hair on their heads- thankful that I can't fully imagine that fact. Thankful for a God who Was and Is and Will Be and who allowed me to be a small part of the Story He is writing...

i'm so thankful that He is so big. So kind and careful and so much bigger than their heartache.

I don't understand. I can't fathom. But He loves Them Deeply- and that is forever Enough.

kat