We are always behind in movies and music. We have stopped trying to understand or keep up with what feels like abrupt and mostly weird fashion trends. Menus have a lot more asterisks than they used to, with diet restriction acronyms we do not understand. Certain things are noticeably more expensive from year to year. Other things, like fuel, seem cheap compared to home. Everyone we see we play a year's worth of catch up...last year you were pregnant, this year, he's toddling around. Last year you were looking for a new home, this year it's all broke in. Last year your kiddo was off to college, suddenly, they graduated this weekend.
It's a whirl to keep up with, even more so for our girls, who never did live in this culture and never DID get or know any of this first-world, America stuff.
But this year it's the sin culture that's really got us feeling heavy.
Lily can talk to anyone, anywhere, about voodoo talismans and how people try to get help and answers through voodoo superstitions, stories, threats and bribes. I caught her telling a new wide-eyed friend she found on the playground last week about how witchdoctors claim they can eat broken glass without being harmed, but it's actually a lie to keep people afraid.
That was a fun mom follow-up by the slides.
But she can't figure out for the life of her what all this talk is of drugs and the many, many people dealing with them, struggling, fighting, dying. She doesn't understand what's she's seeing ('cause Lily doesn't miss. one. thing.) of alcohol and how people who've drunk too much are acting. She's not used to being exposed to foul language. Girl knows where they are burning tires and why, but she's not heard anything about school shootings, any shootings, not ever. An evening at the rodeo, a day at the amusement park, even being in church, a trip to the store, she's hearing and seeing and learning about cultural sins, struggles, temptations, burdens that she's never heard and seen and learned about.
Lily was anxious to get to America this year. It was a hard one in Haiti, and she had her mind set on the idea that life must be better in America. All the things she's not crazy about...surely they'd be perfect in the land of McDonald's breakfast wraps and shopping on every corner, smooth roads and no fuel shortages.
It's easier for all of us to think that way sometimes. It would be better if we were somewhere else, with someone else, as something else, doing something else. Then it would be easy.
But instead we find broken people, just like broken people at home, just broken by different things.
Lily, she doesn't have it all worked out in her mind, but I've been amazed the last few days how our Father is working on her spirit.
I can't work all this out for Lily. I can't work this all out for me! I am heartbroken and confused over so very much brokenness, observing so much loss and pain and confusion.
I want to share this because I want to remember, set up rocks to remember.
On our long drive yesterday, I heard Sofie say, "Lily, what's wrong?!" and turned around to see tears pouring down Lily's beaming face. She was grinning as wide as she could grin, and tears were flowing as fast as they could flow, and no matter what I said or asked, she just kept shaking her head, later.
Last night as we laid in bed together, she finally shared her heart. She'd been sitting in her carseat, thinking about all the sites flashing by her window, and thinking about how she couldn't wait to tell all her friends about them when we got home.
"Mom, I was picturing my school friends and my Emmaus friends and each person's face, one by one, and suddenly my heart felt really floody and pinchy, and I felt like the Holy Spirit was squeezing my heart really hard. I felt like I've been wanting to be in America so badly because I thought things would be easier and more fun. Then God was suddenly giving me all this love for all those faces so hard that I knew He has me where He wants me in Haiti. Even though that wasn't what I wanted, I suddenly felt so much joy in my heart and love for people at home!"
I want to share this because I want to remember, not only a time that the Lord touched my daughter's heart, but because I want to remember that the Holy Spirit IS AT WORK in people we're sure He's not...our children, our friends, our spouses, our enemies, our neighbors, our coworkers...and bringing them conviction and love and peace that passes understanding that we. can't. give. them.
I want to remember that God's got a plan for our children, and that He's working on their hearts, EVEN NOW.
I want to remember that the heaviness of sin and brokenness, in EVERY culture, is to overwhelm and challenge our hearts. We are to be broken with the broken, whatever the reason, and to be praying for the broken, whatever the culture.
He is the one, the only one, who brings healing. He is the one, the only one, who redeems. He is the only one in whom no pain and suffering is wasted.
He is the one whose heart is broken for people, and who breaks our hearts for people. He's the one who is SENDING, the one who is HEARING, the one who is at work.
and I need Him.
I'm a heavy feeler (Lily dear, I'm sorry for the genes), and if these first two weeks in the States have reminded me anything, it's that.
I need Him. I'm as needy as they come.
Having your heart in many places, like you do, too, like He does, isn't easy.
I'm trusting--in many areas without any proof--that God. Is. At. Work.
If He will, may it be through me, clinging.
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