In an earlier blog, I told you guys about a connection I made with an orphan in Haiti. Well from the time of that blog to the time we left Haiti, that connection got exponentially stronger. When our relationship started, I never in a million years would have believed what this 6 year old that speaks a different language would teach me.
I didn’t really fully understand what he had taught me until about 30 minutes after the last time I saw him. After leaving his presence for the last time for a very long time I was overwhelmed with emotions. I knew that this moment would come, but I decided to push through and give into Egine as much as I possibly could. At first our relationship was a friendship, then it transformed into a brotherhood, then finally morphed into a pseudo-“father-son” relationship. So when I left him for the last time, I was obviously torn up by the fact that I wouldn’t be able to spend anymore time with him, but then the tables turned about 30 minutes after that. God showed me what I had overcame through my relationship with Egine.
This revelation was that Egine had broken down the wall that I had built up around my ability to love. God freed me to pour everything I possibly could into Egine and I had no reservations as to what would come out of it. I knew that Egine could never physically repay me or anything like that for the things that I did for him, but that did not matter to me. Also, I only spoke about 5 phrases in his language, but the language of love transcended every language barrier that could ever exist.
This revelation alone would have blown me away for weeks (and it still is), but God was not done with me that night. About an hour later, somebody that had been working with us for about 3 days came up to me and spoke something about me that was complete truth and affirmed all of the thoughts that I had about myself.
Also, that night the most amazing lightning storm was going on, so after we had some time with our team, I decided to go out to the beach to watch the storm and listen to some music (this is where the story gets a little crazy!). I put on the CD, Tear Down These Walls by Hillsong United and put it on shuffle. It started with a song that I really didn’t know, but as I was walking it randomly shuffled to the next song. I didn’t push any buttons or do anything that would have made it shuffle (shake it, drop it, etc.). Well the song it went to was the title track from the CD. On it’s own, this song is absolutely fantastic, but on this night it was even more special. In the song there is a line that says, “Let love tear down these walls.” As this line played on my ipod, the whole sky lit up with lightning. Pretty much affirming all of the thoughts that I had been dwelling on that night.
So through the night, I went from being torn up about not being able to see Egine again, to having all of my reservations about loving freely being completely removed. Living in that reality is completely fantastic, and I can’t wait to step deeper into this freedom, and the freedom that God grants us on so many more levels.
