A lot has happened in the last several weeks.
I've been in shock, more than once, and been unsure and unable to process some of the events.
In China, we ended up watching a riot that transpired a hundred feet from where we were working. I watched a man who had set himself on fire burn to death. I watched civilians throw things at soldiers. I watched people get tear gassed and sprayed with a giant hose. I watched four people run away with the charred body.
I was in shock. Disbelief. Shaken to the core. I'm only supposed to see that stuff on the news. Not in person. Not with my own eyes. Not in a way that makes me feel that I will never forget those images.
A few weeks and a country later, I came home late one night after spending 8 hours with a woman in labor. A few minutes before we got home, a man was stabbed just outside our gate. I watched him bleed to death waiting on an ambulance.
Shock. Again. And a little bit of selfish anger.
Aren't I already going through enough? I have a huge transition coming up– going home after 11 months of craziness on the mission fields around the world. There are a few things that I have clung to throughout the months– problems and issues that I really wanted solved and broken off of me by the time that I came home. And you know what? They are still there. And now I have to focus on processing through all this other junk as well.
And I have to remind myself that His strength is made perfect in my weakness. That I can and MUST cast all of my burdens onto His strong and able back. That in and of myself, I cannot handle much at all. But because I can do all things through Christ, I can trust that He will not give me more than I can handle. He knows our limits. He knows how much is too much and how far we can be stretched to result in the optimal amount of growth.
So I lean into Him a little more. I fall into His arms a little quicker. I rest in His peace a little longer. And I know, that even though I'm more broken than ever, I am confident that I know of His love and His grace and His joy a little bit more than I did before.
