This month we’re featuring stories of “The One” — the men, women, and children whom Racers will never forget.
Kyle Harper of 2015 U Squad had known his fair share of pain in his life. At least, he thought he did — until he met a woman in Mozambique who changed his perspective on everything.
I almost bit through my tongue when I was five. I broke my arm falling from the monkey bars at eight. I got a tree branch stuck in my leg at fifteen (part of which is still there). I got my face split open by a water ski at nineteen. I stubbed my toe twice this week. I’m no stranger to pain.
I lost my cat at six. My grandmother at nine. I was rejected by my sixth grade crush. I watched my godmother battle cancer. I lost my grandfather at twenty. My friend was shot and killed outside his apartment earlier this year. I’m no stranger to heartache.
I thought I understood the sting of pain fairly well. It has followed me even throughout my pie life (I say “pie” in light of much of the suffering I have seen around me). The haunt of heartache was not a foreigner to me. Despite all of this, things have changed.
Anyone who has been part of this world for very long has noticed that things aren’t the way they should be. The innocent is struck down. The criminal goes free. The child is targeted. The needy is neglected. The home misses a father. The baby misses a meal. The raped misses a period. There’s some wrong. Something is missing.
What I’m about to share is something I have debated internally about posting. I have feared that it will do more harm than good. As I contemplated it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there is someone who needs to be confronted with it. It has the potential to be the fork in the road for the one on the thoughtless path.
Like I said, I know hurt and heartache, but last month all of that changed. There came a moment when my understanding of brokenness shattered the glass ceiling that I had built over it. I witnessed a depth of pain I had never known, a depravity that struck me to the core.
We were praying room to room at a hospital in Mafambisse, Mozambique. “Hospital” here was defined as a long, narrow, dilapidated L-shaped building that had no more than a dozen rooms for patients. This was our second trip there. My favorite part of both trips was going into the newborns room and praying with the mothers for their babies, some of which were just hours old. There was a certain refreshment that came from these women — women who had just earlier been in the most agonizing pain imaginable. (There’s no such thing as an epidural in Mafambisse.) They shared a sense of victory that overshadowed the memory of pain.
We finished praying for the patients and walked outside. There, on the sidewalk, a woman stood in stark contrast to the women we had just been with. Everything about her screamed defeat. Her head hung low. Her form communicated deep shame. Her eyes were entirely dry from their emptying.
She held a baby girl in her arms. The baby’s heart was very literally beating out of her chest. It rose and fell at a rate that easily doubled that of a normal person, even an athlete. She looked weak and frail. She was a bag of bones wrapped in skin. The mother looked at us helplessly.
My teammate Kait, an NICU nurse, went into action mode and began assessing her new patient. We watched as the baby weakly attempted to latch on to her mother. Her lack of strength prevented her from being able to eat anything. Kait told us this girl was probably three to four days old and hadn’t eaten anything. The closest (equipped) hospital was an hour and a half away. The baby had a certain blue tint and a shortness of breath that indicated death was near. She wouldn’t make it.
The new mother seemed to know the impending outcome. The look in her eyes expressed wastefulness. Nine months, gone. All the pain for naught. No one could share in the pain she felt.
Her baby was going to die and part of this mother was going to die with her. My heart broke for her, but would never touch the profundity of her grief.
In that moment, I understood pain for the first time.
I left there numb. I was frustrated with God. I was spent. I had nothing to give. I came empty to Him. I was looking for answers.
In the midst of my questioning, I realized that God knew her pain exactly. He knows what it’s like to lose part of Himself. He knows the brokenness. He knows the feeling of helplessness. He knows the heartache. He knows death.
How great the pain of searing loss.
The Father turned His face away
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory.
For the first time, the pain that God felt as a Father when Jesus took his place on the cross crushed me. It crushed in me any resentment that I had based in a lack of understanding. My anger toward him allowing this little girl and this mother to die was subverted by the realization that He chose the same thing. This woman could have done nothing to avoid the heartache, but God had it within his ability to guard Himself from it. Yet, He still chose.
The love that He has for me has no end. I know that for sure now. I have seen it in the eyes of a brokenhearted mother holding a nearly lifeless baby girl. He whispered in my ear, “Do you know the cost it took to get you here?”
I want you to come face to face with that question.
Do you know the cost?
*photo by Georgia Dewey
Does your heart break for women like Kyle met? Do you want to do something about it and make a difference?
Try going on an adventure to 11 countries in 11 months and see the impact you could have on the world around you. Click HERE to find out how you can go on the World Race in August or October 2016!
