Chronic aches and pains....

Last week, the letter we received with our The Voice of the Martyrs mailing read as follows:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Dear Friend,

In the mid-1980s, our mission's Romanian founder, Richard Wurmbrand, took a fall one night at his home in Glendale, California.  He was in his 70s at the time and had begun to feel both his age and the lasting effects of 14 years in communist prisons.  Richard spent that night in the hospital, but the next morning he began to pull on his clothes to leave.  When the startled nurses told him he wasn't supposed to get up, he replied, "How can I sit in bed with only a little pain in my head when I am supposed to speak in Berlin, where the people suffer much more than I do?"  (East Berlin was still under communist rule.)  Richard left the hospital and caught his flight to Germany."

The letter went on to talk about their ministry some.  And then also said this in part of the closing....

"We have much to be thankful for in the United States.  Like our founder Richard Wurmbrand, I pray that Christians here will never show more concern for the 'little pain in our head' than for the acute suffering of those persecuted because of their faith."

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is really easy for the "little pain in our head" to be what moves us or rather keeps us from moving.  My little pains right now would be that the kitchen water has been froze for most of two months only thawing maybe 4 days out of those two months and then quickly refreezing.  (Big family, lots of dishes, no fun at all ... and this included the time we had our homestudy.)  Another pain would be that my husband's van stopped running when we had extreme freezing temperatures so he has been using our passenger van for work for about two months now... that means if I have somewhere I need to be with the children I can either get up at 5:30am, wake the children, take them out in the cold and drive my husband to work so that we have the van that day - or out of love he can drive here during his lunch and we can drive him right back, he will be a little late because it takes longer than his break, and even though he loves us much, he would really rather have his break than do the whole mad rush thing, and then when we get him back to work all the littlest of the littles are crying and begging him not to go to work but he has no time to comfort them because he's already late getting back ... so I get to drive to our destination with two very sad, very loud, crying little ones, one or two that are trying to help, and two or more that are asking isn't there someway to just make them stop crying.  Trust me, words can't even begin to paint the picture!  See though... as annoying, not fun, plain crazy as all that can be.... those are the types of chronic little aches and pains, plain old "little pain in our head(s)" that get in the way of it all.  That keeps us so preoccupied that we so quickly and easily forget that there is "acute suffering" in this world beyond our daily aches and pains.  There are those that are suffering much more than we have or ever will.

But THIS PAIN, this is the pain that is breaking my heart.....this is the pain I need my brothers and sisters in Christ to come along side our family and show compassion in despite our own chronic daily "pains".....

"Mary Ellen" she is the baby (our baby!) out of the three children we are bringing home....  she has been in and out of surgeries alone, she has laid in a crib and cried without any mother to pick her up and hold her close, to sing to her or pray over her, to offer any assurance that the pain will end, no father to kiss her little head or to make sure the person responsible for her care knows she IS priceless and loved and being entrusted to them to care for like the treasure she is.  She had another surgery at the end of last year when her shunt failed.  The last update was that she wasn't making eye contact any longer.  This is the acute suffering I am crying out for... she has no voice, so I need you to hear me shouting for her... or better still can you hear what her Father in Heaven has already asked of us as Christians.. we were asked not to let her alone in her suffering.  She has been alone, she has known nothing but being alone and hurting.  

 And I am crying for our son, "Alonzo".  Two families have met him and say that he begs for a family of his own.  He asks the translator to tell them he wants a family too.  When adoptive families leave with the child they came for, he's left... they say he becomes very emotional and cries.  No one is there to comfort him, to pull him onto their lap or into their arms and tell him he is loved and he is precious.  He has no idea why no one has come for him.  When I look at this first picture of him, I remember hearing a young woman who was an orphan at the time sharing her heart... she said "when you are an orphan, yes you exist...but no one knows you are here or thinks of you, no one sees you, or cares"... in this first picture it is like a question is being asked do you really see me?  He has mostly cried himself to sleep countless nights wondering why no one can see him... and you take a picture, is he seen now, can we hear him cry now or do we keep scrolling?  The second picture breaks my heart even more.  Yes, yes he is smiling.  But can you imagine how hard you would be smiling if you thought maybe ... just maybe if I smile big enough, my family might come for me this time, maybe this time someone will see me, maybe someone will want me.  There would be so much pain built up in what it takes to smile that big when you have been left in tears watching other children leave with their families time and time again.  He just turned eight in February (and Mary Ellen just turned two in February)...  how many times do you think he stood there watching while he pleaded for a family in the eight years of his life?  And yet he still hopes!

And I am crying for our other daughter (cannot wait to show her picture).  Two families before us have tried to bring her home and couldn't.  I don't want to be the third that cannot.  She has also experienced surgeries with her Spina Bifida, like "Mary Ellen" without a mother or father there by her side as she healed.  She needs to come, she needs to hear that she is loved, she needs to know she will never be alone again. 

So those chronic "little pains in my head"...  I cannot let those pains be louder than the cries these three children have cried, louder than the suffering they have endured in their loneliness, rejection, and pain.  Will you please consider how you could be part of bringing these three home

What does it look like to give up our aches and pains to care about suffering?  Henri Nouwen gives this definition of compassion:  "The word compassion is derived from the Latin words pati and cum, which together mean to suffer with.  Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish.  Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears.  Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless.  Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human. "  Following his definition in Fields of the Fatherless, the book goes on to read, "There you have it."  The definition of compassion is about involvement.  To be compassionate means to get out of the current circumstances and get into the boats of those who are in need of our campanionship-to weep with those who weep (Romans 12:15).  It's not exactly a popular message."

These children most assuredly have no one, so no companionship... there isn't even a way to wrap our minds around what it means to have no one.  Having no one to the point that your speech is delayed because there isn't anyone talking with you.  And if we are to weep with those that weep....  these children have weeped - they have weeped in pain, from loneliness, from hopelessness, they have WEEPED and so should we.

Hebrews 13:3 "Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering."

These children need us (you and I) to get out of our boats and into theirs.  It doesn't look pretty, their boats are leaky and taking on water, their boats are broken, their boats are sinking.  But their boats are in the water... and He is in control of the waves, so we can get in with them and trust Him to do what he wants in that storm knowing while we cling to them, He's holding all of us.

This song is my prayer...may those distracting "aches and pains" fade away, Lord, make me broken!  Will you consider helping us bring "Mary Ellen", "Alonzo", and "S" home?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqap3BvxJAw

"Keep Making Me"

Make me broken
So I can be healed
‘Cause I’m so calloused
And now I can’t feel
I want to run to You
With heart wide open
Make me broken

Make empty
So I can be filled
‘Cause I’m still holding
Onto my will
And I’m completed
When you are with me
Make me empty

[Chorus:]
‘Til You are my one desire
‘Til You are my one true love
‘Til You are my breath, my everything
Lord, please keep making me

Make me lonely
So I can be Yours
‘Til I want no one
More than You, Lord
‘Cause in the darkness
I know You will hold me
Make me lonely

[Chorus]