A wise friend once said…”Erin, sometimes you just need to set down your camera and experience things.”….and you know what? He was right. Our team went to visit a hospital. It’s really uncomfortable to just talk to folks you don’t know who are in a hospital…who have been there for days with loved ones…but you do it…because that’s what you’re there for.
I met a gal who worked at an orphanage and was staying with a little girl named Hope who had been at the hospital for about 3 days. Hope’s story was like something out of a book…a survival story. She was found at about 5 months at the bottom of a latrine abandoned by her mama. This little girl was 4 and still fighting for her life. She had a shunt put in her brain to drain off fluid, her head was obviously enlarged, she could barely eat, couldn’t talk, walk, or do much but grasp with her hands…but you know what…she was still there…living…breathing…fighting. I’m not sure if she realizes it yet…but she has a purpose…an almighty purpose…and if nothing else it was to encourage me.
It’s tough to wake up and realize that most days you’re your own worst enemy…feeding your thought life with a whole mess of lies or daydreams that don’t bring life or truth to yourself or others. I thought my battle was going to be tough…but God just reminded me yet again that He’s bigger. Both Hope and I wore purple that day the color of royalty…ROYALTY. Later that night we had a team time and my teammates spoke truth over each other…words such as being worthy, bold, courageous, strong…things I had truly forgotten about myself. So when I went to bed that night troubled by my usual day’s battles God showed up. Kind of like the story of Jacob wrestling with God in the bible…it was a little bit like that…except this time…I just didn’t feel the need to wrestle much like I might normally want to. I knew in not caring about my thought life, worth, or purity that I had let my thoughts totally be wrecked in an ugly non-God-honoring kind of way….and I knew doing that had quite simply opened my mind up to ridiculous lies that affected my joy, happiness, and well-being. When the not so wrestling process went on I was left with a vision of being in an ocean…and the ocean had been a significant symbol throughout the race…where I was baptized and found freedom in Nicaragua…the vision put me back in an ocean…but this time there was a ladder…a way out that I had never seen or known before…and you know what…I took it! It wasn’t exactly easy…it won’t be easy…but God’s doing something new in this girl…helping me walk out and live out the freedom He brought me that I didn’t realize I deserved as a child of the King. A girl named Hope….that’s a girl in Zambia…but it’s also me…Jesus in me is…Hope.
