For as long as I can remember my heart has been for the broken. I've wanted to love those who desired a real love, I've wanted to shelter those who need a home, I want to help those who genuinely need help. For one of the first times in my life I felt like I was able to be that person for people. I've been able to give love where love had possibly never been given. I've fed people, adults and children, who may not have had the chance to eat that day. I've bathed and dressed children who haven't seen soap or new clothing in who knows how long.
While in Cambodia we worked in a couple different villages, the prison and did pr^yer walks on an island. We also taught guitar classes and found great fellowship with the staff at the Youth Development Center (YDC), where we were staying. At the beginning of the month, I found a note in a bag from my Mamma (she put small notes in each bag in my pack before I left, I'm still finding them) that said:
"You were His before you were mine"
I smiled and was reminded how grateful I was to have such an amazing and supportive family back home. Little did I know how much my Maker was going to teach me through this beautiful gesture of love from my Mamma.
Let me go back in time approximately 2.5 months. At launch the music leader sang "Wedding Dress" by Derek Webb (if you never heard it, it's amazing and I highly recommend). My Maker spoke to me in this song asking me if I was willing to SURRENDER something to Him; something very close to my heart, something I was afraid of letting go. He said "if it never happens the way you want it to, will you break or will you continue to serve me?" I SURRENDERED.
So here I was, at the end of month two in Cambodia; a country I have completely fallen in love with, on a bus taking this sweet sweet boy, Dara (if you haven't already, read my past two blogs for Dara's full story), to his new home in an orphanage in Phnom Penh. My heart is breaking. Isn't this what I was created to do? Aren't I supposed to be the one taking care of this sweet child who needs a home? Father, why did you call me to the race and not to Cambodia? Then he answered:
"Because they are mine, you take care of MY people."
Wow! I wept. I was reminded of the note my Mamma had put on my bag. I was reminded of the SURRENDER my beautiful Maker had requested of me two months earlier. I was reminded that even my own heart beating in my body is not mine. It belongs to the One who created me; the One who knows me better than I know myself.
I wrote in my journal three times that day, at various points, to remember what happened in the physical, but also what happened in my heart.
I SURRENDERED Cambodia to its Creator. I SURRENDERED the staff at YDC to their Maker. I SURRENDERED my love for the people of the villages to their Protector. I SURRENDERED Dara to his Loving Father.
These things were His before I ever existed. Who was I to call them mine.
My last journal entry for that hard yet beautifully revolutionizing day:
My heart is so broken. All my life I've wanted to be the home for those who had no home. I just left a boy, a beautiful boy who stole my heart, at an orphanage. I want to own an orphanage, yet at this point in my life, it is not time. This is why I do not lean on my own understanding. This is why my ways are not His ways. I did not expect this to happen-especially this early in the race. His ways are just. Thank you, Daddy, for your so sweet grace.
Ps. 2:8 Ask and I'll give the nations to you. Father, this is the cry of my heart.
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I am in Viet nam right now which is a clo sed Country. Please use caution in your comments.
