If there's anything that I've learned during my time in India working with special needs orphans it's been that I am simply a tool made to point to something greater.
It's been easy to get caught up in the pride of thinking that I can be a savior for the least of these. Each day I would judge the day by my performance in bonding with the kids. I would weigh my success in how the children responded to me, encouraged by their laughter and discouraged by their silence or cry.
In a twisted way, I've made a lot of this month simply about me. About my satisfaction, my comfort, my growth, my need, and my wants. I had grown discontented with my surroundings hoping for people to pour into me and help me when I could have been giving so much instead.
I'm often brought back face to face with my selfishness, forced to either suppress it and continue to walk in pride or deal with it and be humbled.
There is such desperate need here in India, it seems overwhelming at times. There are so many orphans that need love and care, they need attention and affection. When I was faced with this need, it was easy to love out of my own strength and feel like I was lacking. I was tying so hard to be that one thing that they needed, only to create an idol of myself instead of pointing to something greater, the one true God who is rich in mercy, never failing, all sufficient, capable to fill the deep hole within us all.
I am a tool pointing to someone greater. I am the pen held by the author, the moon reflecting the light from the sun. I was created to make much of him and little of me. For his glory not mine.
