Still, I think of Jane and I grieve. I see her little fingers, chipped pink polish, and dirt under her fingernails, which I should have clipped yesterday. I see the gap between her two front teeth and the dimples that pit her cheeks as she giggles that high-pitched, uncontrollable, contagious laugh of hers. And for a brief moment I wonder how God can be good when babies starve and people die cold and alone and children are ripped from their mothers. But only for a moment. Because then I look around and I know that I am nothing without Him. That none of this, none of this life I have, would exist without Him. “Surely just as I have intended so it has happened and just as I have planned so it will stand,” He says in Isaiah 14:24. My good God gives only good things; He planned this and He will use this. In Him, even sorrow is Joy.
Just a few days after Jane left, I opened my Bible to 1 Kings 17. I hear the desperation in the widow’s rough scratchy voice, and I see the bags under her eyes as she wearily replies to the prophet, “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die” (1 Kings 17:12). She has nothing left to give. I know this kind of desperation.
But the prophet knows more. And he says to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land’ ” (1 Kings 17:13, 14).
So she went. And she did exactly what he said. I want to know this kind of trust.
First Kings 17:16 continues with the story of the widow: “So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.” He is always enough. Like manna that fell for the Israelites, His grace falls, enough for today and then enough again for tomorrow.
I am learning. I am learning to hope when nothing makes sense and to know that God knows best, even when what He is asking of us seems so impossible. I am waiting and God is teaching me this: I beg Him to bring me close to His heart, to even transform my heart that it might be more like His. I think orphan care gets us close, because He sees us as orphans. I think adoption gets us close, because this is how He brings us into His family. The poor, the beggar, the widow, the prisoner, they get us close to His heart because these people are so dear to Him.
But nothing gets us much closer than injustice.
The way Jane was taken was horribly unfair and totally unjust. When babies starve and people die cold and alone and children are ripped from their parents—these are some of the injustices of a broken world. And I think of a Savior who spent His whole life doing nothing but good, saving and healing and feeding and helping even the most undeserving of people, dying on a cross like a thief or a murderer. I think of Father, a Father who desires good things for His children even more than I desire good things for mine, a Father who could have stopped His Son’s torture at any time but instead watched it happen. For me. For you. And I weep at the injustice of it. I think that while no part of me wants to be in this place of losing Jane, not at all, this is where I asked to be: closer and closer to His heart. He knows this pain. He knows what it is to lose a child to the injustice of a fallen world. And so while I still cry and beat my fists on the floor, I find comfort in that, and I ask to be closer still.
Suffering. Rejoicing. Squalor. Beauty. Love. Pain. These are the things that surround me, and all of them are from Him. This life is beautiful and terrible and simple and difficult, and He is using it for His glory.
My knees are dusty orange, stained by the soil into which they press for hours as I beg God for the mercy and strength to continue. My tears flow in puddles that do not soak into the red, parched earth of Uganda. The puddles and the color of my knees remind me that I was not to leave this life unstained or unscarred. Even Jesus kept His scars after the resurrection. My stains are beautiful to Him and as I become dirtier and more beat up, I am becoming perfect, transformed into the image of the One who made me. And I am thankful.
We recently put up the Christmas tree that has watched our family grow, year after year. We still hung fourteen angels, one for each of my daughters, on our tree; we still had fourteen stockings. Only thirteen sets of hands helped our tree glitter, but fourteen places are forever notched in my heart.
We lovingly displayed our nativity set and I thought of Mary, young, tired, and alone. Completely unable to understand why this would be His plan for her. Chosen. Carrying our Savior into a dark world.
Jesus is here with us and He is coming back. And I am young and sometimes tired and completely unable to understand why He has graced me with this plan for my life. But I am chosen. Instructed to carry the story of our Savior, to shine His light in a dark and broken world. You are chosen too. His life and His strength and His grace, they will not run dry until He gets here, fresh rain on a parched land.
December 25, 2010
It is Christmas, a day of joy and light and hope coming into a fallen world. Friends have all left and the girls are all asleep. There is nothing I enjoy more than a house full of noise and laughter and chaos, except these quiet moments with my Savior just after the noise and laughter and chaos.
I hold sweet baby Winnie, a two-week-old we are keeping for the first month of life while her mom recovers from illness; and I marvel at the miracle of new life. There is a gaping hole in my heart, but there is a love that is even bigger.
All day long we have celebrated Jesus’ birth and now, as I gaze into this newborn baby’s eyes, I whisper my gratitude for His death. Love that conquers all. Love that is always enough.
We wait in hope for Him.
ONE DAY . . .
Monday, October 5, 2009
John is a sweet fifteen-year-old Karimojong boy with the most beautiful servant’s heart. He lives in Masese with a very old grandmother. She is not his own grandmother, just a woman he cares for because she is unable to walk well or find food for herself. And they live with a baby who came from I don’t know where. I am constantly humbled by John’s sweet disposition, his desire to help this vulnerable grandmother and child even though they are unrelated. How many fifteen-year-old boys spend their lives serving “the least of these” in their own community? He is precious.
On Sunday John was waiting for us when we pulled up to the restaurant where we normally eat after church. He greeted us sweetly but then turned to show me a quarter-sized hole in the back of his foot. Through the language barrier, all I could understand was that a bottle had cut him.
While the big girls got situated inside, the little girls and I trekked off to the nearest pharmacy to pick up some antibiotic ointment, gauze, and tape. After washing John’s foot as best we could with my bottled water, we put ointment and a nice, clean bandage on it.
He looked up and said, “I waited for you. I knew you would fix it.” I smiled and promised to return the next morning to rebandage and start him on an antibiotic.
John was not surprised to see me the next day at 7:00 A.M. As I handed him the antibiotic and explained how to take it, I kind of wanted him to say thank you. But as I looked in his eyes I knew why he hadn’t thanked me: because this was expected. He knew I would bandage his wound and give him medicine because that is what I do. His trust was much better than a thank you.
As I washed the gash and covered it with a fresh bandage, he said once again, “I knew you were coming. You bring medicine like you said. You always come.” As I took his sweet face into my hands, I whispered to him that Jesus loves Him and that He will always show up, always come, always be there to help him.
This story reminded me that several weeks ago, Gwen’s son, Elijah, was looking at pictures of some sweet Ugandan children on her computer. In an e
ffort to teach him to be thankful for all that he has, Gwen explained to him that these children were hungry, sometimes not eating for days, some having no mommy or daddy, some unable to take a bath or drink clean water.
Elijah looked up at her with no doubt, “Mom, don’t worry, Katie will feed them. Katie will take care of them.”
Over and over and over again God reminds me. I see these children’s blind faith and I long for my faith in the Lord to be so trusting. He will come. I am waiting for Him. I know that He will come and bandage my wounds and bind up my brokenness. He will always show up, just as He says, bringing the medicine or whatever else is needed.
I look at the precious children around me—hundreds and thousands and hundreds of thousands of them. Hungry, with no mommy or daddy, some unable to eat or bathe for days, never having clean water to drink, never having adequate medical care when they are hurting. Could my faith be like Elijah’s? Could I say, looking at you without a hint of doubt, “Don’t worry. God will feed them. God will take care of them”?
He is coming! He is coming to bandage our wounds, to bind up our broken hearts, to take our faces into His hands and whisper, “I am always here.” He is coming and all these children who are hurting and hungry and longing for love are going to be scooped into His everlasting arms and told that they are beautiful. They will no longer be hungry or hurting because they will be filled with His Spirit. They are the least of these, they are His heart, and He is coming for them and for us. So we wait like John. We are expectant like Gwen’s young son, Elijah. We will not be put to shame.
Lord, we know You will come. We know You are here. Let us bring all our wounds and brokenness to You expectantly, without a doubt. Remind us that all the children we touch, and all the children we don’t, are Yours. Yours in this broken life, and Yours in eternity. Come, Lord Jesus. We wait in hope.
AFTERWORD
This year His beauty has been too big and my words are far too small to capture even a fraction of it. I feel that I must, however, give you, sweet readers, a glimpse into what He has been doing in our lives and hearts.
A few months ago I was reading in Matthew 17 the story of Peter asking Jesus if He was required to pay the temple tax. Jesus answers that He will pay the tax as not to offend anyone and sends Peter to catch a fish. I read it twice, and I laughed and laughed. Jesus is funny. Peter opens the mouth of that first fish he catches and there in its mouth is exactly enough money to pay both Jesus’ tax and his.
I am so thankful that I serve this kind of God. He loves to love us. He delights in surprising us. The funniest thing about this story to me is that Jesus could have just handed Peter the money. This is the Son of the Living God we are talking about. He could have made it appear out of thin air. He could have just pulled it out of His pocket and paid it Himself.
But Jesus wanted to come through bigger than that for Peter. I believe that He delighted in Peter so much that He wanted to put this element of surprise and hilarity in his day. Possibly Jesus was using this as another lesson in crazy trust or crazy obedience for Peter. Seriously, Jesus? You want me to do what? Taxes. We need to pay our taxes; can’t You just give me the money? But Peter had seen Jesus work enough by then that I imagine he just shook his head, chuckled, and headed straight for the lake.
And once again, God was not too big for the littlest detail. There in the mouth of that fish was the money to pay the tax. “Surprise, I am right here. Surprise, it is just as I said it would be. Surprise, I am exactly enough, everything you need, all over again.”
Can you see the twinkle in Jesus’ eye as Peter tells Him the story that evening? “It was right there! Right there in the fish!”
This has been a year of surprises. A year full of glorious gifts from a Father who so delights in us that I sometimes feel downright spoiled. I think back over these days and months and I can see the twinkle in Jesus’ eye, as things unfolded then and as I lay in bed late into the night and relay the stories back to Him again, still in awe.
Recently I traveled to the States for the release of this book. Jesus surprised even more. I arrived sick, and the nurse at the walk-in clinic grabbed me in a tight hug and prayed over me just hours after I stepped off the plane. Friends whom I have worked alongside in Uganda attended conferences and church services to carry my babies and my bags and laugh at the stark contrast of American life to my normal and remind me that I still am that—normal—even when people are asking me to sign books. Grace’s visa was approved just days before I was scheduled to fly to America and a dear friend made an appointment with an incredible surgeon who was willing to “squeeze her in” in that first week for a surgery that has changed her life. Just two years ago, by God’s grace and mercy, Grace learned to walk. Now, because of His grace and mercy at the hands of a humble, extremely skilled surgeon, she will soon be running and dancing with her foot flat on the floor. There were neat new friends, windows of sweet time with old friends, and parents and a little brother who spent days keeping my younger children and driving me from interview to interview, state to state, cheering me on and loving me in every possible way. There were extravagant gifts—of time, of friendship, of finances, and of support.
I could feel Jesus smiling. “Surprise, I am right here. Surprise, it is just as I said it would be. Surprise, I am exactly enough, everything you need, all over again.”
Just the day after I arrived home, a jackfruit (this enormous, bumpy, yellow-green fruit that grows here in Uganda and can reach up to eighty pounds in weight and thirty-six inches in length) fell out of a tree and onto a baby’s head in Masese. As her father carried her to me in the middle of a prayer meeting, she bled from her nose, her mouth, and her ears. She looked to be no more than eighteen months old, and her tiny hand with its dirty fingernails fresh from playing in the mud and blue bead bracelet traditional in Karimojong culture dangled as she lay limp in her father’s arms. She barely made a sound and her head did not swell. These were bad signs.
Certain she would die on the way to the hospital (can even an adult live after being hit on the head with an eighty-pound fruit?), I hopped on a piki with her dad, instructed the driver to go quickly, and squeezed my eyes tight to pray. Surely, her brain was bleeding. Even once we got to the hospital, there would be nothing they could do here in Jinja. We would need to get to Kampala or Mbale, both at least two hours away. And we didn’t have two hours. I asked God, begged God, and finally told God that I just didn’t have access to the right kind of medical care and He must please have mercy on this baby girl. I told Jesus that I knew He could show up for this daddy. Oh, would He please? I declared with my lips and believed in my heart that God had healed this precious life, and she vomited blood all over me.
As I opened up my eyes when we reached the hospital, still whispering His name, the bleeding stopped. The little girl’s head started to swell. The hospital gave her a shot of painkiller and an IV of saline and hours later she was sitting up, alert, chattering to her father. “Mild concussion,” they said. But I knew; that mild concussion was our miracle.
A week later I watched her grandmother praise Jesus for the first time for the healing of her granddaughter. Maybe I am not surprised when He heals. He says that He can. But I am always surprised that He loves me enough to allow me to be a part of it.
I was sharing all of this with a friend recently, this wonderful surprise of how much He delights in me. He simply laughed and said, “Of course. He loves you, Katie. You are one of His favorite people.” The truth resonated in my spirit. Yes, that is what I feel like: one of His favorites, lavished with His love. Isn’t that what He wants each and every one of His children to feel, all the time? The big God of small details loves each one of us so intimately, created each of us in His image. Each one of us is cherished. How would life change if we thought of each other as such? If each person who approached us we treated as beloved of God, cherished by God, one of God’s favorite people? The God of the universe delights in you. In me. In them. Could we rest
in that? Could we love like that?
This year has been the hardest yet, but all of the hard has been wrapped up in knowing that I am His. I can look back at all the ways He has surprised and know that I am one of His favorites. He has delighted in me; He has gloriously surprised me.
This year, Prossy learned to jump rope. Sixteen years old and I get to watch God redeem her childhood, beauty out of dust.
This year, four foster babies I cradled late into the night and fed and bathed and clothed went to live with forever families and now I get to watch them thrive and be cherished there.
This year, three alcoholics recovered in our guest room. All three of them went on to find jobs and work hard to support their families. All three of them came to know and love our Risen Savior.
This year a man burned his leg straight to the bone and all the hospitals said it needed to be amputated. Two hundred twenty-four days of scrubbing, dressing, and bandaging later, smooth, shiny brown skin covers the once-gaping hole. As I bandaged he told me stories of his hard life and I told him stories of a baby sent to die on a cross. God surprised him with a good-as-new leg and eternity. God surprised me with the patience I learned from a stubborn old man and a marvelous new addition to our family.
Kisses from Katie Page 22