A year....all in a week....

Where do I even start.....so much has happened and so much is overwhelming my heart. I feel like I have lived 1 whole year and it has only been a week. I know that this is going to be a sorry attempt at verbalizing what I feel, but I know that I need to get it out....

Just to recap this roller coaster week....

*Tuesday--get the call that Moses (this is not how you spell or say his name, but it is the closest American rendition of it!) and Wannson are sick with cholera and probably will not make it. God, through the help of people in several states and in several different countries, mobilize a medical team that comes and gets the boys......all seems to be fine.

*Wednesday--Moses & Wannson plus 3 other children and 2 workers now have cholera. Moses and Wannson are still hanging on but still not expected to live. In the meantime, I slowly feel like God is ripping out my heart because we are here and cannot do one this to help.....except to pray (more about that later!)

*Thursday--13 children & workers have cholera and we learn that they are now taking the dead bodies of the people of Gonaives out in dump truck. Cathy "prepares" my heart by saying that God is totally able to do a miracle---but it is going to have to be just that because the "chances" of us not losing at least several children to this horrible epidimec is highly unlikely

*Friday---Wannson is better, but Judely (Bri's little boy) and Moses have now slipped into a coma. This is the part that literally shatters my heart to write. I asked Cathy if they will "work on the boys" until the end like they do here in the States. She said, "no--they will just put them in a room and let them be..." Tears still roll down my cheek as I think about it--they were going to leave those 2 boys---Sean & I's two boys---in a room all by themselves as they die. I CANNOT explain that raging emotion in my heart....it still makes me sick to think about it. Cathy said we are still praying for a miracle because it is a miracle they are still here. I knelt by my bed, and I practically was half sobbing/half yelling, "God--I know you are God--and I know you can work a miracle...and I KNOW you answer prayers, and my head wants to trust you....but God, please God, don't make this the answer. Please don't bring those boys to see you today---please don't let that be your answer to this prayer..." In the same breath (this, again, just magnfies my shallowness in my walk with God) I prayed, "God send an angel to get them....please don't make them do this alone---please don't let them be scared....please, Father, if you are coming to get them, please make this a fun ride....please, please send an angel and please don't let them be scared..." I am praying for a miracle and then praying in the next breath against the very thing I am asking for---completely shows my unbelief.

*Saturday morning---get a call from Cathy that the boys are still with us here on earth but still in a coma and now they have run out of IVs. So we spent the morning making several calls and trying to see if anyone here in the States could get access to them. At this point, I believe that we are in the HUNDREDS of people praying and storming the throne of God on behalf of these boys.....and I am still asking for an angel to come carry them home....

                              Judely is the little boy in this picture I am holding....

Sean and Moses : )

*Saturday afternoon--Cathy calls, half laughing, half crying, half yelling---THOSE BOYS ARE AWAKE....THE DOCTORS SAID "FOR WHATEVER REASON" THOSE BOYS ARE AWAKE AND THEY ARE SIPPING SOUP.....NONE OF THOSE KIDS ARE GOING TO DIE!!!!!!
There are not words in the English language the describe the unspeakable joy and wash of relief that came over me and Sean in that instant....God, our God, worked a miracle that we cannot even begin to comprehend.

Today, these boys are still alive and are recovering...

And in all of this, I stand completely in awe and completely ashamed at how I limited my God this week....All week long, I prayed--because I knew I should---but I kept preparing myself for "the call" because in my mind--it was coming. Lord, please, please forgive me.

I know that to step outside my own little world and to continue to live there is going to require complete trust in God....and prayer is my only access to that power. God is teaching me more and more about Himself but even more about me....both are scary! It is scary to me to realize how ignorant I am of the "biggness" of my God and His omnipotent power....and it is even more scary to me to see how little I trust Him.

I am so, so grateful for His merciful answer this week--and I am even more grateful for His mercy and patience for me as He walks me through this completely new territory outside my own little world.

do I have to get up?

Since Haiti, I can't explain it, God is opening my eyes wider and wider. Right now, I feel like I am just waking up from a deep sleep. Things are blurry and I am really disoriented, but there is no mistaking---I am totally awake.

I am awake to the fact that there is a much, much larger world out there and God has totally and completely got a bigger picture in store for me than I can even imagine. I feel like I am experiencing the lyrics of the song that is playing in the background of this blog...there is much greater purpose that I can be experiencing and have been missing out on for so long. It makes me so ashamed that I have been too self absorbed and too busy to step outside my own little world to see it.

In the past 24 hours, I have been completely reminded of my own shallowness and my complete lack of faith in my God. Oh sure, I say all the time that I believe and trust God--and in those moments, I honestly think I think I do--, but a phone call yesterday morning exposed that gaping wound in my oh so calloused heart. Two little boys that Sean and I left our hearts with in Haiti, Moses & Wannson, both contacted cholera at the orphanage and were not expected to live. I cannot describe the range of emotions I went through over the next couple of hours. Frustration-anger-sadness--extreme sadness--guilt--and doubt....lots and lots of doubt. Doubt that God could really handle this by himself with me being so many miles away (doesn't that just sound so shallow?!?) By the end of the day, though, God did miraculously intervene and literally moved mountains and got a medical team to the orphanage and as of this afternoon, both boys are still with us here on earth. However, I cannot escape the nagging feeling in my soul and those glaring questions that come with it.....It is as God is literally asking "why did you doubt Me?"/ "Am I not real enough to you for you to know I am always in control?" / "Do you not trust Me and believe that whatever answer I choose--regardless of the outcome--it is the right one?"

Then there my mind screaming the other questions at me "why are you waiting to adopt?"/ "did you know that Moses & Wannson are just 2 of millions of children that are sick today?" "Do you understand the global need that is screaming for a solution while you sit in your house worried about what color to paint your bathroom?" "When did you become so shallow?"

These and about 50 other questions have been permeating my mind for the past 24 hours, and the only thing I know is that I am coming face to face with a person that I do not like--and that is me.....or at least, should I say, the person that I am. I know that God loves me, and that will never change. However, to get me outside my own little world....which is ultimately where I know He wants me to live....He has to make me know intimately the very person who lives in her own little world. It's funny--I think that I didn't realize that this was going to be a stop on the journey! I really thought God was going to break my heart for the people and situations around me, use me to be part of the solution, and somehow I was going to be gaining treasures in heaven---doesn't that just sound so sweet---....again, dummy me...what I am finding is that He isn't using Haiti to break my heart for the people....He is using the people of Haiti to break me and my calloused heart....and expose all of the many pieces that He does not own...and there are so, so many...

If it is taking all of this for me to see just one more person outside my own little world, what is it going to take for my eyes to finally open to the billions of people that I still haven't seen....