I really felt the need to write this out because, though it is a simple truth, it is totally transforming the way I’m seeing my little world around me. I feel like this is really relevant for our trip as well, since we’re probably going to be seeing some things that make us feel helpless. So, I posted it here. I hope it’s encouraging:
Lately I’ve been realizing how incapable I am. I am incapable to make people see God’s love and how much he really wants to just hold them. I am incapable of getting people to understand that the abuse they’ve experienced is not their fault. I am incapable of healing people- both physically and emotionally. I am incapable of loving people. I am incapable of loving God. I am incapable of saving others or even saving myself.
Lately I’ve been realizing how capable God is. He is capable to make others see his love and how much he really wants to just hold them. He is capable of getting people to understand that abuse they’ve experienced is not their fault. He is capable of healing people- physically and emotionally. He is capable of love and of teaching me to love. He is capable of saving.
Not only is he capable of all these things- he is DOING them! God is at work- he is taking people who feel so used and worthless and empty and broken and scared.. and he is giving them peace and hope and confidence and joy and freedom and life!
This past week, I’ve been especially overwhelmed by the sickening power of child abuse and neglect.
The way that it grabs hold of it’s victims (the children) makes my heart ache. So when I hear onlookers say things like…
“That child is going to be so messed up when they get older”
“The cycle of abuse is unbreakable”
“You can’t save them. They need counseling.”
…it makes me want to put my hands over my ears and run away.
Could there really be so little hope for these precious children? For a time, Satan had me believing that lie. But my God, my beautiful and powerful God, reminds me day after day that he IS a God who saves. God is healing and doing great things, and he is the ONLY one who can do it. He is in the business of giving new life.
There is hope for these children.
Their hope doesn’t rest in counseling, nor in ‘The System’, nor even in me and my power- their only hope is in God their Father… and fortunately, he’s not just standing around waiting for them, he’s pursuing them.
There is hope for these children.
So, when I start to see destructive habits developing in these precious kids that God loves, I will pray over them instead of get frustrated. I will look them in the eye and tell them that God and I love them no matter what they do. I will cry with them and over them and I’ll know God is crying too. I will pat them on the back and ruffle their hair and laugh with them and dance with them, because that’s what my Father will do with me when I finally see him face to face.
Of course, not all of these children will be saved. Not all of them will have life-transformation and find freedom and peace and hope and joy. But I will not be discouraged- because God is big and he is moving- and I will continue striving to make each one know that they are special, they are valued, and they are so loved- and I will do it by God’s grace and with the power of his Spirit.
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
(2 Corinthians 3:17)
Our God is a God who saves.
Hallelujah.
