The movie ended and I rolled to my other side. Lying on the wooden bed my eyes fell upon the five girls snuggled around me. Though my eyes were heavy my thoughts began to drift to the future. What will it be like to be the sole caretaker of a whole house of children? How will I love them well?
I find it to be no coincidence that after God showed me plans for a safe house last month he placed our team at a ministry this month where we would work with two orphanages. It has opened my eyes to the masses of children who so desperately need to be loved and taken care of. At the orphanage we spend the most time at, there are 37 children. Every time I’m there they desire my attention. The small ones want to be held; the big ones want to play games. They don’t care if I teach them English or hang up their laundry; they just want my undivided attention.
My heart has been broken this month more than any other. I have listened to stories that immediately brought tears to my eyes. I have held children tightly who have been abandoned by their families. I have watched a teenage girl come to the orphanage begging to stay because she’s been beaten. I have seen the fresh wounds and scars from her abuse.
But the problem is we can’t save or help everyone. Pastor had no way to provide for that girl and no authority to decide where she lived. We didn’t know if she was telling the truth, though her wounds cried otherwise. When I returned the next day she was gone. She’s probably just another one in a million who never gets out. I promise I’m not meaning to sound heartless; I’m just telling the truth.
I don’t really have an answer or solution to this. I know God’s heart is for the orphan. I know He loves and cherishes them. I know His ways are higher than our ways. I know He works all things together for our good and I know we seldom comprehend what God is actually doing.
I’ve been reading The Chronicles of Narnia this month and there’s a beautiful illustration to describe this problem. A young boy, Shasta, is riding through Narnia for the first time. A large lion named Aslan, who depicts God in the series, comes alongside him during the night. The lion explains from his perspective all that’s happened during Shasta’s escape from a nearby country. Aslan reveals, “I was the lion who gave the horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time.” This chase wounded Shasta’s fellow rider, so unsurprisingly he asks, “Then it was you who wounded Aravis?” Aslan confirms it was he who wounded her and Shasta, like any of us would, asks him why.
“Child,” said the Voice, “I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own.”
I don’t have an answer for why these things happen or who gets rescued, but it’s not my story to explain; it’s His.
