The Abyss

I was told that coming on this trip would change my life. I was told it would be some of the best months of my life. I was also told it would be hard. Yet no one ever said just how hard it would be.  No one talks about the hard moments.  The moments so difficult you question why you’re truly here. The moments when you feel like you’re in a bad dream. The moments that steal your breath. Those are the moments I’m talking about.

People have painted a picture in their minds of what ministry looks like, yet most of the time that’s the farthest from reality.  The fact is: Ministry is hard, not just physically, but emotionally.  My ministry is to give everything I have, to give it all until hurts, and then give more.

Last night was one of the hardest thus far.  I found myself standing on the porch above the pool crying about the incident that had just taken place. I stood there talking and crying for what seemed like hours. No words could ever describe what happened; no words could give justice to what had to happen. I felt like I was back in Honduras with Maria right before she left Gracie’s.  I felt the same way leaving the boys at Zion’s Gates. It’s been hard since this trip started.

Since this trip started I feel like I’m continually waiting for something else bad to happen. Bloody noses, little boys being raised as girls, handing out bowls of rice soup to hungry kids, reading bedtime stories to kids who never hear them, putting medicine on a baby who has scabies, loving on kids who have seen and experienced the worst of the worst. That’s what my life looks like.  When the day ends I’m usually curled up in my bed thanking God for the good we saw and praying for the bad.

I can’t give details about what happened, but last night as I lay in my bed after one of the hardest days so far this quote came to mind:

“Sometimes there are no words, no clever quotes to neatly sum up what’s happened that day. Sometimes you do everything right, everything exactly right, and still you feel like you failed. Did it need to end that way? Could something have been done to prevent the tragedy in the first place? Many lives have been forever altered because of what happened. People thought that monsters didn’t exist until they learned that they spent their lives with one. And what about my team? How many more times will they be able to look into the abyss, how many times before they won’t ever recover the pieces of themselves that this takes? Like I said, sometimes there are no words, no clever quotes to neatly sum up what’s happened that day.”

In the next few months I know more days like these will happen; the broken heartedness is far from over.  It has really only just begun.  Yet looking back over the last four months I wouldn’t change a thing. I did everything the Lord has asked of me. I have loved well. As I drifted off to sleep I told Him, “I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else but here where You have me.” 

 So, yes ministry is hard, it is devastating sometimes. Yet by the end of the day it is all worth it. And I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but here.