the slow drip of grace

Yesterday it was time to do the thing I've been dreading the very most. 

Go to Josie's house. 

The last thing I wanted to do was look into the sweet faces of her children. Last thing I wanted to do was sit on her couch, next to her bed, in her home. Bounce her babies. 

Coming alongside people in deep pain is probably the most necessary worst thing in the world.

But I brought a stack of photos of their mama.  Josie with each baby, Josie and Claudin before the babies, Josie with my family, Josie on bedrest, praying with me. And I brought a few clothes and toys and chocolate bars.

And as I have mourned for two months that I wasn't there, wasn't here when she died...here I was dreading finally seeing them more than anything in the world. 

I grabbed a few students for stability, made my kids actually wear shoes, and we plowed through the travesty some call a road to their little home, always such a happy place.

I felt sick over saying the wrong thing. Over adding my tears to theirs. Over somehow making it worse. 

But the second dear Christie saw us, she came running and jumped in my arms, no longer the shy little thing she's always been, and man alive, kids make everything easier and harder.

We played with all the kiddos for a while...cooed over chubby cheeks, laughed when Little Claudie threw up the moment Kernant reluctantly had taken him, talked with Claudin's mother for a while, asked Claudin questions about the different personalities of each kiddo.  I avoided looking at him the entire time and it was so sweet, so sweet to be with the kids.

Gertha helped herd the kiddos all outside to play for a bit, and I asked Claudin how we could pray, looking at my hands, him looking at his shoes. He shared some major weights, some I expected and some I didn't, shared all the ways the Lord has provided help since his wife's death...women from the church coming to braid Christie's hair every morning, some friends cooking meals, some ladies helping with laundry. 

He said he is getting the help that he needs. That the kids are doing better than he expected. And that his heart misses his wife and best friend and mom for their children so badly that he feels like he will never repair. 

We all started to pray, Haitian style, all together now.

Guerrier in his loud, leaders voice, authoritative and praying with all the strength I lacked. Kernant in her soft whisper, barely heard, Beaucejour in her passionate, fast rhythm. Jonas always prays in his calm, steady voice, loud enough for the Lord.  Lacking my words completely, I gave myself permission to pray in English, but turns out I didn't have words in that either.

I just stood there next to Josie's bed and cried and cried and cried.

I cried for three kids whose mama would be holding them right now if she lived in a country with medial care. I cried for the slump in Claudin's shoulders, for the twisted and heavy look his face has carried since we arrived, for the lost look in his eyes. I cried for the boys, who will not even remember the woman who loved them and prayed for them so mightily. I cried for the brokenness of it all. 

And prayed with all my silence and all my tears.

I prayed that all the prayers she prayed for these three children, the only three of many who survived, that those prayers would follow Christie, Claudel and Claudie all their days. I prayed that they might know they are deeply loved, that they might come to follow Jesus with all their hearts, that the Lord might fill all the many gaps Josie has left.

And I prayed that God would...that God would...just...Claudin.

I completely did not expect this two weeks to be learning so much about prayer. 

The day we got here, it was the first thing Guenson mentioned.  The focus this semester has been prayer, and he's truly seen a revival of fasting and prayer on campus.  The country is in such a desperate situation, and so I affirmed that prayer was the perfect theme for the semester...so much that only God can do.

The Lord had placed on my heart before coming to pray with every single one of the staff and students that I had interviews with...ALL sixty, and Guenson's word confirmed it. 

But as I've been living these beautiful and heavy days, listening to chapel messages on prayer, launching into prayer with student after staff, seeing the students early in the morning walk the campus in prayer, listening to them praying choruses and psalms at night while I'm tucking in the kids...I am learning that prayer is NOT the crutch we use when the situation is impossible.

It is not a method for dealing nor a version of throwing up hands. Prayer is not how we sleep at night nor how we brush off the pain of others, not a passing promise or a routine endeavor.

I have seen this week--far more than any word or wisdom or dollar I have to offer--that prayer is the finger that points us to the Truth.

It is the encouragement to remember our rock, to affirm what He has established, to start where He is, to note what He has done.

It is the slow dripping of grace into the life of another. 

It is the speaking, the articulating of hope when there simply IS none.

It is the nonsensical begging of the kind of help that ONLY GOD.

It is the voicing of truth you'd forgotten you believe, it is the articulation of faith that is stronger than you realized. 

It's forgetting how you feel, forgetting what you think, and seeking and aligning yourself with God's perspective. 

It is asking God to be God, and remembering that HE IS.

It is coming alongside people in deep pain with the only solution in the world.

Just the last ten days I've seen it convict. I've seen it refresh. I've seen it empower, I've seen it completely change the demeanor of men and women in my office.  I've seen men and women who have been feeling utterly hopeless in hot tears over the reminder that in Him our Hope is unshakeable.

And those times this week when I've prayed with men and women I just met, unsure what to say, tempted to skip, I have started with the truths that I KNOW.  Lord, since the start you have had your hands on this man's life, and even today, we see and know that you are at work.  Before I realize it, a whole symphony of truths have been spoken over lives, and in a day and age of so much confusion...prayer! Praise the Lord. 

Once I finally got everyone down last night, I started crying again over the loss, the injustice, the brokenness of so very much. I couldn't stop crying for so long that I finally just went to bed, crying anew picturing Claudin tucking in his children, alone. Picturing Rickendjy falling asleep feeling like he has no family in the world, because his family told him so. Thinking of all the nights of thirteen years that Jonas fell asleep in an orphanage, abandoned at 4 years old. Feeling the weight of Belony as he shared his great burden for all the kiddos in his community who go to bed hungry, who have never ever been to school. I cried and cried thinking of all the pain just in this little stick-hut-village-corner-of-the-world...much less EVERYWHERE else.

I tried to pray, but my prayers were so muddled that I finally fell asleep with none of my words at all, but with His.

We wait for the Lord

He is our help and shield

Our hearts rejoice in Him

For we trust in His holy name

May your faithful love rest upon us, Lord

For we put all our hope in you.