October | 2014 | so this is Love...

“God’s children can never run too far or be too lost for God to find.”

-The Jesus Storybook Bible

Sometimes I feel like Wonder Woman. I feel like her in moments of chaos that I bring to a calm, like that time I successfully put all six tiny Kiwi’s down for naps by myself. If you knew them you would understand why I am still marveling about that day.

I’m in Mexico now, Home here with my Dear Ones… these children who’ve held my heart captive for the past (almost!) six years. The other night, during those evening hours when the girls’ house is bursting with silliness & games & homework & play & music & delightful chaos I heard Cristina start to wail. I followed the sound of her until I found her squishy little 5-year-old self splayed out on the floor, crying out in her adorable manner of speech: “AHHHH!!! ME APASTASTE!!!!!!!!!” AHHHHH!!!!! YOU SKISHED ME!!!!!!

I picked her up and she melted herself into me, wrapping her arms & legs around me tight, and snuggling her sweaty face against my neck. “Ohhh, te apastaron?” They squished you? I spoke gently, affirming her hurt while carrying her away from it, her crying calming to sniffles as I tucked her into bed and stayed with her until she slept.

Sometimes I feel like I have a magic embrace. Wonder Woman style. I hold a hurting child close and the pain seems to melt away. I think it’s often like that with our little ones isn’t it? We are their safe place, their harbor, and our laps are meant to minister to them comfort & healing. Our laps are meant to show them the unconditional Love of the Father.

I have a girl here, who’s become more woman than girl now actually. But when she was still a girl she settled in close to me and asked me if I would be her Mother. Her eyes spoke deep wells of sorrow & rejection, but glimmered hope with that question to me. God helped me with the answer, I’m sure. I don’t think I had that much wisdom in me. “I think God will give you many women in your life to be Mothers to you, but I am honored to be one of them.”

All of these children are dear & beloved to me, but some are more like Daughters than others. She is one of my Beloved Daughters.

She opened up her heart to me recently, like she’s done so many times before, but this time my embrace wasn’t enough. I couldn’t melt away her heartbreak and make her pain disappear. I wanted to, oh how I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I told her that, as I led her up to the prayer tower in hopes that my prayers would fall over the barren places of her heart like sweet summer rains. I said, “Darling I want to take away your pain but I can’t, there’s nothing I can do to fix it. Only God can heal you but you have to let Him.”

I prayed and she cried and I held her close but I knew it wasn’t enough. I am not the Healer. Perhaps I am His nurse, because I know He works in me and with me to carry healing into a hurting world. But I am not the Magical One.

My heart has been all ache-y since that night, you know what that’s like right? When your heart literally hurts, you can feel it heavy & burdened. I smile and laugh and joke and do homework with my Girl, I even hold her tight when she joins me and the little ones at bedtime, squishing in close, still not too big for this Mama’s cuddles. But in the morning when the house is quiet and all the kids are at school I go into her room and fall down on my knees in front of her bed to pray Warrior prayers for my Daughter. Choosing healing, choosing redemption, choosing Jesus is up to her. She has to decide for herself. But I will carry on crying out to God for her, all the days of my life if that is what it takes, believing in a miracle. Believing that one day I will see her silhouette on the horizon, returning Home. She will be a Prodigal Woman, lost but then found, dead but brought back to life. She will come Home into the arms of the One who first Loved her, and I will be right there with our FatherMother God hollering at the servants to bring the finest robe and a ring for her finger and sandals for her feet. We will dance and feast and celebrate our Daughter come Home.

I cling to this Hope because I look at my Girl and my heart aches deep & heavy because she is hurting and I can’t heal her. I know I am not enough for her.

But I know the One who is.