During my last week in India God taught me a valuable lesson. And he used a blind, autistic 7-year-old to teach it to me.
My team spent our time in India working with orphans who have special needs. In one of the homes, Tori and Nikki’s, we each chose a child to work with one-on-one. I chose Jasmine. Born blind, she was abandoned soon after. Her foster mom Nikki shared with me that no one really knows if Jasmine was born with autism or if the neglect and isolation from growing up in an overcrowded orphanage caused her to develop her ticks and other autistic tendencies. Praise God for taking her out of that dark place and bringing her into the safe and loving home she found at SCH.
As much fun as I had during my month with Jasmine, our last day together before I left India was not our happiest day. Over the course of our month together we hugged and cuddled, went for walks, played with water, made music together, and just generally had a good time. But on that final day, when I got there I found that Jasmine was coming down with a really bad cold. Like, really really bad. I came into the room and saw her with her face down on the couch. I scooped her up for a hug without realizing the nasty snotty mess I would find. I cannot exaggerate to you how much mucus was coming out of her nose. With her foster moms out for the night, I knew I needed to clean this mess up.
Side note… Just so you get the full impact of this story. I don’t know if any bodily fluid grosses me out more than snot. I would prefer to clean up blood, pee, and poop before boogers. Even typing that word kind of makes me want to gag. Anyway, back to the story…
I knew what I had to do. You better believe I felt like an absolute hero coming towards her with the wad of toilet paper. She was going to be clean, feel better, and her cold symptoms would no longer be able to stop her friends and caregivers from getting close to her.
Jasmine didn’t see it that way.
First of all I surprised her. The poor girl literally didn’t see me coming with the tissues. Second of all, her tiny nose was so raw from being wiped all day that it was chapped and bloody. The result was an angry, flailing, screaming and crying little girl who could not be reasoned with. I tried to talk to her but she didn’t understand my words. She couldn’t see me, couldn’t really connect, couldn’t understand how this pain I was causing her could be for her own good. I questioned it myself, and let her just sit in it for a while, but I just couldn’t let it go on. I won’t go into detail because I don’t want to gross you out to the point of scaring you away from my blog forever, but believe me when I say it was repulsive and needed to be dealt with. I called on a teammate and together we were eventually able to clean her up, but Jasmine was furious with me.
I was journaling about it all later, on the day we left SCH actually. It hit me that in that moment Jasmine didn’t trust me. I was hurting her, and it didn’t make sense, so she believed what appeared to be the truth (that I was a dirtbag) rather than trusting me to be the gentle and loving friend she had gotten to know over the course of the month.
She didn’t want her nose wiped because it hurt. But it was stopping us from getting close, it was unclean, and she needed it. Jasmine is blind and autistic… She doesn’t understand and couldn’t understand what I was doing even if I tried to explain.
It’s exactly the same between me and God.
I’m a blind, autistic child before the living God.
He does things (or doesn’t do things) all the time that confuse, upset, and even anger me. But He knows things I don’t know, maybe things I could never understand. In my limited understanding it just seems wrong, like a tissue to a sore nose seemed to Jasmine.
“‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.'”
Isaiah 55:8-9
It’s so hard to trust God fully. I never knew that I didn’t until I came on the Race. I’m learning that sometimes he let’s things happen to me, he does things I don’t like, to deal with the spiritual snot that’s all over my face. When I pray for healing and it doesn’t come, I trust that He’s still good, still on the throne, and still able to heal, though perfectly wise in His decision not to. When things don’t turn the way I expected, it’s a downright battle to believe His promises from the Bible and ignore what seems to be unfolding around me. When life hurts and it feels bad, I have to remember Jasmine and not be to proud to recognize that I’m her and I need to trust my Father. Some people would say that’s foolish. But the truth, is that’s faith.
I am so thankful to my Heavenly Father for choosing to use a snot- nosed kid (figuratively) like me to advance His kingdom. I’m learning so much and, I pray and hope, making an impact on the lives of the people I encounter along the way. Unfortunately I can’t find this trip alone. Fortunately, I am gave been blessed beyond blessed and am currently 77% funded- praise Jesus! I can’t believe how far we’ve come and I believe we can get it to 100%.
Pray for my support account and consider giving. Anyone who donates from here on out will receive a postcard from the country of their choice– South Africa, Swaziland, Botswana, Mongolia, or China. Thank you, thank you and God bless!
