As we drove through Port Au Prince, Haiti something happened
inside of me. I became remarkably aware of my stomach as I felt my heart
sinking to the bottom of it. I cringed as my body responded to the optical
input it was receiving. How is it that the answer to my prayers could hurt so
much?
These words have rolled off my tongue time and time again:
“Break my heart for what breaks yours…�
“Give me the heart capacity to love them like you do…�
“Take my heart and form it to yours…�
“Break me of me so that I look more like you…�
———————————————————————————————————–
I have been many places, seen many impoverished people, but
never have I felt the way I did as I sat on a rickety old school bus, looking
out the window at a physically destroyed city. God gave me eyes to see more
than the rubble.
I looked over the endless fields of tarp homes, the
rubble-strewn streets, and hopeless faces and realized that I am absolutely
incapable of having any sort of impact in this place. I was humbled. I realized
that I can do nothing in this place, but God can. It was in that moment that
God broke my heart in a new way. It was as though he played a movie reel
through my mind of all the other places I’ve been to and revealed a depth of
need that I was not aware of until that very moment. He bridged the gap between
a people’s physical and spiritual needs and revealed that they are interrelated
and inseparable. Where I only had eyes to see physical needs, God has eyes to
see spiritual needs. The physical needs of the Haitian people are almost
unbearable to the human heart…it is no wonder that my heart buckled under the
weight of a glimpse of their spiritual needs as well.
Despite my inability to recognize it before, my only option
has always been to rely on God. Thank goodness for the eyes to see that not as
a last resort, but rather the first and best one. I am now taking that option.
