Maybe my low budget ice-cream based diet is getting to my head, but I’m starting to believe that God’s a madman, or a magician. He’s reminding me more and more of my crazy great grandpa that used to pull quarters out of my cousin’s ears just to hear that little squeal of a 5 year old laugh. Albeit, the Great Magician’s magic tends to be on a more grand scale, and it’s always the “real deal”, no trickery needed (sorry Papa).
Every day, there’s this big burning explosive sunrise that exclaims, “Good morning, sleepy head! Rise and shine!” It’s really quite a miracle to behold. I mean, how is it that an expanse can be so dark, but then suddenly filled with such wonder, at the calling of light? That’s God’s style: what shouldn’t be suddenly is and we, the audience, who often anticipate very little, are left with our mouths gaped wide open.
I remember driving up to “New Hope Children’s Orphanage” the first day of ministry, readying myself for something entirely depressing, with lots of crying and pain. I’d painted this awful picture of a battlefield in my head with the wounded soldiers being wounded children, who had taken too many hits from life’s worst bullets.
Looking back, I realize that I could’ve paid closer attention to the clearly stated blue painted signs that read “New Hope” before I went making ill assumptions, but in true Jen-fashion an “awareness of ones surroundings” was not present (thank you to my patient teammates and God for keeping me alive all this time as I recklessly J-walk Asian streets on the daily).
So there I was holding my poor perspective in one hand, and lack of good expectations in the other, walking into such a beautiful storm of little hands beholding life, little smiles bearing joy, and little hugs inviting me home to family.
As you may have guessed, it was breathtaking and mind boggling and entirely magic.
I got back to the hotel that night, plopped down face first on my bed and said to my pillow, “What the freaking heck?!” Most days have been like that since.
We show up in the morning. We’re welcomed into the family. We laugh until we snort. We play in the sun for hours, because ain’t no sweat going to stunt our game! We paint each other’s nails, and talk about our boyfriends and crushes, because that’s just what sisters do. We hold each other’s hands even when we don’t want to (read my last blog, and yes, you can laugh). We dance to questionable Demi Lovato songs. We prayer walk around the block for our neighbors, because everyone needs to know this hope! We run like wild hooligans through rice fields, and cry at the beauty of it all.
We’re high on life, and God, and the hope that shouldn’t be, but is.
I’ll admit that sometimes the days are tinted with pain. There’s a healing process underneath the surface. The years of abandonment and loss these children faced sent bullets straight through. When someone’s been hit and wounded, you stop and you cry with them. You listen to the stories, and you ask God to be what you can’t for your brothers and sisters. You struggle through the pain of love and you do your best to trust him to have a hold on it all, because you don’t.
But you see, it’s Thanksgiving, and while life and love both tend to feel like a battlefield, I want to have hope and be thankful for it all like my sweet brothers and sisters. I want to say “it is well” through the night, trusting that there’s radiant blazing hope coming in the morning, because the kids who shouldn’t be laughing can’t stop, and God’s off his rocker about it.
This is the kind of out-of-the-box madman stuff the Great Magician’s doing. He’s taking all of our weaknesses and sad injuries of the heart, and transforming them into rainbows and little white rabbits. He’s giving the orphans a Father who loves them to the moon and back times infinity. He’s performing wonders in our Cambodian orphanage, and I’d bet my sister’s makeup collection (shout out to Brooke for having the best/most excessive makeup collection ever) that he’s wooing you wherever you’re at in the world as well.
Be wooed, let your mouth drop wide open, get on the edge of your seat, and always expect the unexpected!
Have a magical hopeful Thanksgiving, folks!
