I wasn’t going to write about this particular experience because it was extremely hard for me and it honestly still hurts to process, but I feel as if I should.
What I am writing about occurred during our time in Swaziland only four days before traveling south to where we currently are in South Africa.
My team had arrived at the care point we did ministry at each day and everything was normal. The cooks were starting to burn the firewood, kids from the playground ran into our arms, and our Shepherd Gabby greeted us with hugs. As always the first hour of each day was really slow and only a few kids would be there. But everyday there came a point when kids started popping up on the dirt paths leading from their homesteads.
One girl in particular, Lasheeba, I was always beyond excited to see on the dirt path. She wore the same two outfits every single day in the entire months I knew her. She never once wore shoes and had stickies stuck all over the bottom of her feet. She had dirt rings around the snot in her nose. But she had the most beautiful smile ever, and she simply loved to be held.
This day in particular, though, I remember sitting at the care point with a boy on my lap unable to see the path Lasheeba normally walked down. In the moment I wasn’t worried because I knew she would come eventually and I would see her when she arrived.
I was right. She arrived, but she was hurt. Badly.
She could barely walk. Her back curved at such an awkward angle it physically hurt to look at. Her belly was sticking straight out, but her hips and shoulders were both sticking straight back. I worried immediately her back was broken.
In that moment I remembered every medical thing I had ever learned and told my teammates what to do and what I needed from them, but I still felt helpless.
See not only was Lasheeba hurting, but she also could not speak. Not a single word. She wasn’t even crying hard, she just had single tears that would slip out and run down her face.
Again, I felt helpless. There was no hospital to take her to, only a “clinic” that could not do much. It would take days to get her the help she immediately needed.
So I simply held precious Lasheeba.
What I didn’t share with y’all is that Lasheeba is the same young girl I wrote about and included a photo of in my blog titled “Sawubona”. The same girl who each day would brush the hair out of my eyes and simply stare into them.
But on this particular day, she wasn’t brushing the hair out of my face. She was pleading to me with her eyes. She would not look away from me. She simply let her tears fall. And I simply brushed them away lightly with my thumbs. I whispered prayers over her and waited for the leader of the care point to give me more information.
At one point Lasheeba was laying on my lap while my team prayed over her and she still had single tears running down her face. We prayed peace and comfort over her. By the end of the prayer Lasheeba was fast asleep, a testament to God hearing our prayers.
Almost immediately after this prayer Lasheeba was taken out of my arms and taken to the clinic. And my team and I headed back to our team house.
I was distraught.
That entire night ALL I could see when I shut my eyes were her big brown eyes pleading with me to help her.
I didn’t sleep.
I didn’t eat much.
And I could only think of the worst outcomes.
I prayed big prayers for healing, but I honestly don’t even know if I had the faith in those moments that God could do the big things I was asking.
The next morning after a sleepless night, my team walked to our care point. Everything appeared normal, but my heart still longed to see Lasheeba run down the dirt path to me. Like I said before, I was putting God in a very small box and didn’t really think she would come running that day.
She did though. The day before she couldn’t speak or move, and the very next day Lasheeba ran down the path towards us like nothing had ever happened.
WHAT GOD????
I am sitting here and I am still in utter awe.
God taught me two big lessons in that moment.
1 – the obvious, God is powerful. He can heal, he knows our wants our needs our prayers, he doesn’t belong in a box and he can’t be fully understood.
2 – God really humbled me. In the moments with Lasheeba I felt powerless, I felt as if I was doing nothing. BUT I DIDN’T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING BECAUSE GOD WAS THE ONE WORKING THROUGH ME. All I did was be obedient. And God held sweet Lasheeba. God brushed her sweet tears away. God gave her the peace to sleep even just for a few minutes. God HEALED her.
My medically educated mind just doesn’t understand how a seemingly broken child could be perfectly fine the following day, but isn’t that pretty cool? It puts into perspective how truly big and wild our God is. Our God who we could never even begin to fully understand.
I am humbled. I am removing the box I sometimes place God in.
