I Wept

I had a rare experience yesterday. I wept. 

On my blog last
month I wrote about getting robbed. Within the span of three weeks the lives of three of the children at our
care points were stolen from us. I was
saddened by this and there were tears running down my cheeks.

Two years ago I stood in Swaziland by a 7 year old’s coffin after his
father hung him from a tree. I was angered and numb
and horrified by the senselessness of it all. I spoke at the funeral again about the enemy who comes to steal, kill,
and destroy.

Four years ago next month a child was placed in Marcia and
my arms. This began a journey of faith
and a fight for her to become our own. Our hearts were broken over and over again.  Anger, hope, sadness, joy, and disappointment all
combined to make us a holy mess.  We prayed, we cried, we strategized, and we
did our best to listen to Gods voice in our lives and obey.  We
retain a special relationship and a glimmer of hope for the future. In the meantime we’ve garnered a life
response that will significantly shape the rest of our lives.

But none of this could prepare me for what I experienced
yesterday. Yesterday was like the first
day of the rest of my life. I was
talking with a dear friend about a child within our circle of concern. He was telling me of an injustice in the life
of this precious little one. As I fought
to understand how this could be true, I began to weep. Out of someplace deep someplace “other”
came a fierce emotion. A grief expressed
through wailing. A love “like a hurricane.” A focus of internal pain and anguish I have
only experienced rarely before in all my years. I relate it to events around my mothers death. In the last day or two of her life I crawled
into the hospital bed sitting in the living room of my childhood home. I wept with my arms wrapped around what was left of her body. I could
only croak out a repeated, “I love you mom” over and over in those last desperate
moments. Grief and Love barely
expressible.

Yesterday grief and love were again expressed through weeping and
wailing alone in my house. A window into
the heart of God was opened to me. I
felt some of His pain and love for this little one and the thousands
represented.  It was a holy moment. I was taken completely unaware.  As I write this my heart is throbbing and my
eyes streaming. There is a renewed
softness in my soul. An after the storm
quietness in my spirit. Internally I am undone and
there is nowhere to go, nothing to do but to be in the moment. A sweet and terrible gift from the Father to
know Him. To know His holiness.  To know His heart for His children.

I was reminded a few weeks ago about the time Jesus
wept. He was 5 minutes away from raising
Lazarus from the grave, yet He wept out of love and grief for his friend. I dont understand that and perhaps I never
will.