hope : not because it ain't broke

The other night I was snuggling Sofie after a very difficult Sofie day (the passion of this girl, have mercy.)  One thing rapidly leads to another with this one, and in a moment she was asking me questions about heaven.

Will everyone wear purple diamond clothes, but not the heavy kind?  Does God have really big wings like angels, or like butterflies, or no wings?  Will she meet animals there that don't exist here on earth, and will they be her friends?  Will Grandma already know her and talk to her, even though she's never met her?  Will she able to eat whatever she wants, whenever she wants?

Long after she was finally asleep, I found myself thinking about the grandma who's never gotten to love on her, not for even a minute, how these hard days with a passionate six-year old would be sweetened by her help and frequent presence and good knowledge of Sofie...and I was strangely and unexpectedly warmed by the utter confidence of how WELL my mama is with Jesus.

How deeply and unlackingly satisfied Sofie's grandma is with Jesus, well and full and endless in worship and praise.

Who has ever pitied a person deep in worship and praise?  Who has ever noted the ways they are lacking when one is fully in His presence, understanding a glorious ounce of Who. He. Is.?

No one.

Sometimes the utter brokenness of the world permeates our personal realities, sometimes it takes on flesh, sometimes it strikes those whose hands we hold, those whose hearts we love, sometimes it becomes the brokenness of OUR world.

The panic comes, the hopelessness permeates, the helplessness frustrates, the fear invades, the injustice angers.  And we are tempted to dismay.

We must FIGHT to trust.

I'm blessed to experience this battle that draws us closer to Him frequently due to living in a place where the broken seems to crumble more easily.

Dear Micheline, whom I can honestly say has already suffered far more in her lifetime than anyone else I know, suffers on tonight in a hospital with no bed or chair or light for her, tiny new grand baby in her arms, her daughter fighting, weakly, for her life behind closed doors, alone.  She lived through the emergency C-section 10 days ago despite dangerously low hemoglobin (iron levels).  You wanna be 14-15.  She was at 4 when she went into labor, when they operated.

Put flesh on being one of the bottom ten countries in the world for good prenatal care.  Haiti, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, Chad, Cote d'ivoire, Gambia, Niger, Mali, Central African Republic,  and Somalia.  

Days later, sent home in agony with vitamin C and iron pills, but no pain meds (NONE, friends), I emptied my purse of all the advil and ibuprofen I had and prayed for mercy.  A few days later, her incision pouring infection, she headed back to the hospital.

Put flesh on living in a country where 580 mamas in 100,000 don't make it through delivery, vs. the 15 in the US, or the 7 in Canada.  

She's been in the hospital for days now, her iron levels down to life-threatening 2.  So low, in fact, that she needs a blood transfusion, badly.  But the hospitals only get blood from the blood banks.  And there is one blood bank in all of northern Haiti.  And before blood can be taken, or given, it has to be analyzed, and the machine, the only machine in all of northern Haiti, the machine. is. broke.

It's all broke, people.

There's a dozen details, but the short of it is this.  There are many ready to give blood, and some of us her same type, and Woudislande is dying to have it, and there is NO blood to be had, because it cannot be tested and that which was tested before broken machine has all been used.  NO blood to be given, without being tested.  I cannot take her to the back alley and give her my blood, and she cannot get blood at the hospital not from the blood bank. And there IS no blood to be given from the blood bank because it cannot be tested.

There is no money to throw at Micheline to fix this, Miss America. It is a broken machine in a broken system in a broken world that God's always told us would let us terribly down.  

So.

So, I sit with you tonight, and I sit with Micheline and dang it, I lift my hands and praise Him, for He is worthy of praise, and I live, WE LIVE family, in the vast brokenness of just one story that represents a MILLION others in a hundred countries, and I pray for mercy and a miracle and a mama.

Woudislande, 2014, in the green and brown

Because we are children of a mighty God who knows the broke a billion times better than I do, since before it was even broken.  And He is crazy in love with Woudislande.  And Micheline.  And baby girl who still has no name.  And Gambia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Canada, Italy, the world.  And you.

And He's here, and He listens to our faithful prayers - are they faithful? And He moves, and He works, and He transforms, and things that are really, really broke?

He fixes.

I will praise Him because we have broken it all to smithereens, and yet He redeems.

When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You.
In God, whose word I praise,
In the Lord, whose word I praise,
In God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid
What can man do to me?

Micheline's little 8 year-old daughter, writhing at home with stomach cancer in 2007, I saw Him fix entirely, dressing her in purple diamonds that were not heavy, and holding her now and still.  And Sofie's grandma, eaten alive before our eyes and extinguished by leukemia in 2003, by His great grace, He fixed and surrounded by weird awesome pets, eating whatever she wants, filled to the brim with the fullness of God, eternal.

We are not hopeless.  Your life tonight, friend.  IT IS NOT HOPELESS.  

Do not be discouraged. Do not be dismayed.  Not because it ain't broke. But For the Lord God is with you, and 

He is our hope.  

Let us cling.  Let us pray.  Let us praise.

With hope.