Defilement.
The word came to mind quickly and wouldn’t leave.
Just sitting there in the dim lighting, my skin began to crawl. When they turned on a horror movie for our entertainment, the feeling got even stronger. Christi and I began to pray over the home, praying that it would be a place of rest and peace, casting out anything evil that had been brought inside and asking for Jesus’ presence to fill the space.
Conselletta began serving us immediately as we waited for her husband to return home. They’ve been married less than a year and she was excited by our arrival, which would speed up his return.
When he arrived, his story began to spill out. Ben is a young doctor at the hospital in town and works long hours in the pediatric ward. The children there suffer from everything from HIV to malaria, burn wounds to pneumonia. And many of them come to the hospital only after exhausting traditional medical options, which, at best, leave them scarred, and at worst, leave them cursed by the local witch doctors. Dealing with tragic suffering and death all day long leaves Ben burdened and angry when he returns home at night. He carries that into his house, sometimes along with the alcohol he’s stopped off for along the way. He confessed that he sometimes even beats his 5 months pregnant wife at the end of a long day.
Defilement.
We felt it in his home. We heard it in his story. We saw it in her eyes.
When I began to speak, it was with conviction. He could not continue to defile his wife, his marriage, his home. He could not bring death and curses, burdens and despair into his home each night. He could not allow hopelessness and drunkenness to divide his marriage.
Sanctuary.
As I spoke against defilement, suddenly the word sanctuary took its place. This home would become a sanctuary. A sanctuary for Ben from the burdens of his job. A sanctuary for Conselletta from the unpredictable moods of her husband. A sanctuary for their unborn child from a destitute world.
I found Conselletta cooking dinner outside, waiting to see what her husband had brought home with him this day. And as I prayed over her and the child she is carrying inside her, I saw the promise of life. She carries life with her wherever she goes as a reminder of God’s promises.
“This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
