In the middle

Exactly 2 months and 12 days from getting home after the Race, it hit me. The weight of what I saw in those four months, the situations of the women and children I met, the deep brokenness for them, and the emotional impact of it all slammed into me unexpectedly.

 

I had just started listening to music and worshiping this afternoon when I felt the need to browse through some of my pictures from the trip. I had been meaning to do that the past few days because it was on my mind but got distracted and didn’t. So when it popped into my head today I stopped singing and opened up my folders of random pictures and went straight to the India folder. I felt a sadness creep in while looking at the first few pictures which is some-what normal, then out of nowhere I burst into tears. The realization of the reality of their lives sunk in, sunk deep into my heart to the point of making me beyond overwhelmed and in tears. I felt the heaviness of it all.

 

I looked at the kids I grew to love and peered into their eyes like they were right before me again as tears spilled out of my eyes and my heart. I know the hope that they are desperate for to survive the life they live. The hope they need to have so they can have a different life than their mothers. I remembered all the women we saw in that red-light district, standing on the corner and sitting outside the brothels, just waiting for another man to come buy their bodies. I remember the hopeless, empty, and pain-filled eyes I looked into that month. Their faces are still engraved in my mind almost three and a half months later and now all I can do is cry and pray.

 

                                                                  

 

I felt so incredibly broken for them but am now too far away to do anything firsthand. I left at the end of that month unsure of when or if I’d be back, and now that I’m home – however many hours away from India – I feel helpless. Their lives are still in the middle of that darkness. The kids still see what they see and women go through what they go through day in and day out. They are still in bondage and few see any hope of a different life. But as I cried out to the Lord in prayer for all of them a song came on that was straight from the Lord himself to fill me with hope.

 

                “In the middle of my storm, You are my peace.
                 In the middle of my desert, You are my strength.

                 In the middle of my mess, You wash my feet.

 

                 In the middle of my brokenness, You are my strength.

                 In the middle of my nothing, You are everything.

                 In the middle of my cry, You answer me.

 

I had to leave those kids and women in their devastating situation, but God reminded me that HE NEVER LEAVES. He will never leave those women and children no matter how dark and evil and messy their lives become. He’s there when they’re broken and sad and feeling worthless after what they go through. He’s right there in the middle of it all. He’s still fighting for each of them. He was before I went and still is even after I’m gone. He doesn’t give up or leave.

 

I didn’t anticipate feeling this brokenness and emotional wreckage like I did or when I did. I knew it’d hit me sometime, assuming it would be immediately after getting home, but my busyness occupied me and diverted my attention away from those memories and emotions. They came at me like a tidal wave and I’m left still feeling so broken for those women and children and trying to deal with and process the emotions that are leftover from my experience. In the meantime, I have to fight for them in prayer as I continue my life back in Indiana and trust that God is still there redeeming lives and bringing them hope.