The day began just as almost every day has lately, with questions like, “Why am I here?” and “Who did you create me to be?” Or how about, “What are you going to do with me now, Lord?” (that’s always a good one).
Lately I think I’ve been too desensitized to feel that stirring in my heart anymore. Surely He’s getting tired of my questions, but I keep badgering.
Only I didn’t expect Him to answer me that day.
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This past week our team has been joking that we’re on a “mission trip within a mission trip.” The church we’re partnering with in Lima, Peru was taking a short trip into the Amazon jungle to visit an indigenous people group, the Ashaninca tribe, and we had the privilege of joining them.
After staying in the same village for 3 days surrounded by miles and miles of mountains and rainforest, we moved to a less remote area for one more day to set up a medical clinic in another Ashaninca village.
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As soon as we pulled up to the village in the van that afternoon, we saw him.
There was a boy with cerebral palsy. He was crawling and rolling around in the grass. Two of my teammates and I immediately went over and sat down with him in the grass. He smiled and giggled as we introduced ourselves; it was clear he was very pleased to meet us.
We found out his name was Nathanael. He was completely non-verbal and unable to walk, knees calloused from crawling on the ground his whole life. It appeared he hadn’t been very well-cared for, his clothes completely soiled. We decided to give him a bath.
Alex carried him over to the water spigot nearby and Sarah Kate and I began to wash him, along with some of the other volunteers who have become our friends here in Peru.
When we finished washing him, we wrapped him up in a towel and Alex just held him for a while in the warm sun. He was perfectly content.
And then there was that moment.
As Alex cradled him in his arms, Nathanael reached out for my hand. I grabbed it and held on tight. My eyes found his eyes and his face instantly lit up. He began to laugh. I started laughing too, our eyes still locked in place, fixed on one another. And for a few precious moments, the world stopped turning. I saw him, and he saw me. It was just the two of us, no one else.
It was one of those moments when time stands completely still. Those moments when it no longer matters whether anything makes sense or not.
When you realize that maybe it isn’t about finding some grand purpose, some divine calling for your life, but rather learning to seize those precious moments when you can stop and say, “This. I was made for this moment—wonderfully and fearfully formed for such a time as this.”
What if it’s all for those moments?
The ones where everything else stops and all the questions fade away, the doubts and fears disappear.
And you realize that maybe that’s more than enough.
To see something that no one else sees, that piece of beauty that’s been so overlooked, so misplaced. You realize that maybe simply seeing the unseen is more than enough reason to keep going.
And that maybe seeing the unseen is about more than you seeing them—it’s letting them see you, too.
