It hurts to hold a 5 year old who is sick with the flu running a 102º Fever with no adults, much less parents, to take care of her.
It hurts to watch a lady who is paralyzed on one side of her body and can`t walk crawl outside of her house so we can clean up her filthy home.
It hurts to sit next to an 18-year-old girl who is 8 months pregnant and sees no reason to have hope.
It hurts to see older kids at a CarePoint dragging a younger girl by her arms threatening to beat her.
It hurts to hear the oldest Gogo in the community has lived her whole life apart from Jesus Christ.
It hurts to hug a child for the last time, not knowing at all what their future holds.
It hurts to mourn the loss of a lady loved by some teammates.
It hurts to listen to a new friend share her need of a mere 60 USD to complete another month of college.
It hurts to discover that kid that stole your heart is HIV+.
It hurts to feel the little girl squeeze against you tightly in fear as a truck full of men getting off work drive by.
Life can be painful. Tonight as my team gathered to pray for a mom who lost her 2 twins and is fighting for her own life and for a lady who passed away this evening I am reminded of this fact. Playing with cheerful kids who love the mulungos (white people) is wonderful and the Lord is so in that, but that is not where our calling ends.
It can be easy and tempting to doubt the Lord in the hurt. I can understand why a Gogo who has lost 10 of her children and is struggling to provide food for her grandchildren has trouble believing there is a Sovereign, loving God who cares deeply about her. I don`t know the best way to respond to the pain, but I do know that God is good all the time. He is Sovereign in everything and, somehow, He always “works all things out for the good of those who love Him” (Romans 8:28).
The point of this post is to say that we are filled with the Lord`s joy daily and His goodness is incomprehensible but also life here is real. That means sometimes we hurt for the people of Swaziland that we call friends and neighbors. I ask that as you read this you lift up Swaziland and the beautiful people that fill it up. Pray that the Lord would mend brokenness and heal hurt. Pray that the Church would become a safe place for real people with real problems.
When it hurts I want to challenge you to allow your trials to push you closer to Christ. Take your hurts to the Lord and lay them at His feet, knowing that you have brothers and sisters in Christ hurting right there with you.
In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire- may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 1 Peter 1: 6-7
