Next week will mark my 10th anniversary of being in Haiti.
When I was little, I said that when I grew up, I wanted a job where I could just hold babies all the time.
Well, I got it, but that little girl had no idea what the fulfillment of that dream would mean.
No idea that holding babies meant holding them as they groaned in agony and sickness.
Holding them as tears streamed down their hollow cheeks.
Holding them as they fought for their lives.
Holding them when the fighting ended.
Had I known I never would have asked for this. But I wouldn’t miss it for anything in the world.
I’m so glad I didn’t know.
It’s been 1 year 1 month and 11 days since I last found myself on this blank page, words flying from my hands on the keyboard. It’s been a year of silence. One year of having absolutely no words that I could possible say. One year of being so tired of being broken that I forgot how to be whole.
It’s been 1 year 1 month and 11 days since a little boy named Emano died and I found myself, for the very first time, pulling away from my day-to-day life with the recovery center.
I was tired. Tired of fighting the same thing every day with no end in sight. Tired of grief, my own and that which weighs heavy on everyone around me. Tired of falling in love with another one just to watch them fade away.
For a year I’ve been tired.
It seems like every time I find myself on this brink of ready to quit, God finds a way to remind me that even though I am tired, He is not.
He finds a way to remind me that even through the hard and heavy, there is hope.
He finds a way to show me that little by little entire families are being transformed by the work that Middle Ground does.
This week He flooded our gates when my heart needed it the most.
In a 24 hour span 8 starving little babies found their way inside of our doors.
8 exhausted mamas and daddies entered our emergency room, and the road to change, and hope.
One little boy, 7 years old and just over 20lbs is a stark reminder of another little boy who came too late. My heart is still struggling with the battle of falling in love or holding back, but I am choosing that for this one, I will hope again.
These 8 will live, I’m believing that with all my heart. They will live and a month, a year, 10 years from now their lives will be drastically different than they would have been had they not arrived at our gates.
I will keep going, I know I will. Even on days when it feels like I cannot, I will. Because it’s on those days of my greatest weakness that He reminds me of His strength.
