the young honey I saw before me holding onto his momma
The day I met this sweet, precious child, our For the Love of Mateo group was delivering bunk beds, stoves, water filters and other donations to the remote village of Yalu, Guatemala. Feeling completely overwhelmed by the intense welcome we always receive, adding to the chaos the group leaders trying hard and loudly to explain to the village what we were going to be doing and how to put the water filters together, I stood on the outskirts of our group to breath and watch from a little distance. Yalu is a community deep in the gripe of poverty, and you do not have to look far to see the devastating effects of this in all the mothers and childrens lives.
As the teams started assembling the water filters with the mothers and instructing them on what to do next, my gaze settled on this small boy holding onto his mothers hand. Past his torn, dirt stained clothes and crocs that were barely held together, I recognized the too common signs of child mal nourishment. Not more than maybe 4 years old, he barely had the energy to wipe flies away from his body, and his blinks were even slow. Despite the unfortunate circumstances of which he lives, he still managed to look up with those beautiful eyes that spoke so he didn't have to, and a smile that would melt the world if they knew it. In that moment, as the world around went silent for me, I stood there smiling back at this little boy, and my heart broke.
During this exact moment of heartbreak, one of my favorite songs, Hosanna, by Brooke Fraser came into my mind. The specific verse of the song, 'break my heart for what breaks yours' was playing over and over again in my mind, and in my heart. Now, I have prayed to God for some time now to guide me and to use me to help those in need in this broken world we all call home. I know he has opened my eyes to things in Guatemala that are unseen and my heart and soul have been crushed many times before. However, at this very moment, looking into this boys eyes, the life around us became still and silent, and I realized I was at my very weakness of moments, I was broken.
If you have ever had moments in life that distress you so deeply, you'll understand this feeling of 'heartbreak', where it goes beyond emotional to a point where your heart aches with pain. This moment with the little boy is not the worst thing I have ever seen or experienced in Guatemala, but even that statement I just made, can we put a level or judge "worst moments vs the next" when dealing with people living in poverty? I think they are all terrible, unfair circumstances in life, but the point I am trying to make is, that moment is when God decided to speak to me through the little boy and let my heart feel. To let my heart know. To let me feel the feeling of my heart breaking for what breaks his. Having visited Guatemala 5 times prior, I have experienced moments of my body shaking inside of me, tears flowing down my cheek as I stand in a room full of tiny helpless children who will grow up to call the orphanage home, or being surrounded by children younger than 4 years old living on the streets begging for their survival, I have felt and witnessed pain. But, that day in Yalu, God helped me to understand something deeper. At that moment, I realized that if my heart is breaking, then the heart of God must be in agony for such children and people across the world. When the pain and realization became so great, I questioned the whole prayer and line of the song, break my heart. And then I was reminded of the line in the song that follows, 'Everything I am for your kingdoms cause' And i realize that the first line can't be sung without the second, because if we are to take seriously this prayer to have our hearts broken and to be used for the service of others, then we must give everything we are and have, and commit our lives to the cause of bringing about Gods kingdom here on earth. It's too painful to stand in the middle, to constantly have my heart broken and not give everything in response. And there is no way I could keep experiencing and witnessing these things without the knowledge that in the end, 'The sound of weeping and of crying will be heard no more and never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days' (Isaiah 2:4)
'Break my heart for what breaks yours' will be a prayer that will never leave my heart. xo to this little honey, I can't wait until we meet again in a place that is beyond your most imaginable dreams.
