LESSONS

“I am overcome with joy because of your unfailing love, for you have seen my trouble, and you care about the anguish of my soul.” Psalm 31:7 

Today I was reading back through some notes from while I was in Haiti and I came across this verse. I remember reading it. Remember it jumping off the page and into the heaviness of my heart. I needed it then, and I think I need that reassurance even more today. God cares about the anguish of my soul. The severity of my troubles in comparison to someone else’s doesn’t matter… He cares about the anguish of my soul.

Maybe you grew up in one of the poorest countries in the world, where each day is a challenge to reach the next. Where children experience starvation, slavery, and abuse at the hands of those claiming to help. Where an earthquake strikes and you can’t find your parents, or food, or clean water… and you get shot trying to survive alone on the dangerous streets of this unstable nation.

Or maybe you grew up in middle-class America, ate three meals a day, went to college, and experienced a pretty “perfect” life… until a man in a white coat tells you your child has cancer, and everything changes. Or your finances are so tight that you live in fear of losing everything, of not being able to provide for those you love more than life. Maybe this is the anguish of your soul.

We could be discouraged, lonely, confused, discouraged, battling an illness, fighting depression, experiencing a family pulled apart, hurting for a loved one that you don’t know how to help. The list is endless but God cares about it all.

Having perspective is a great thing, but I pray today that it wouldn’t minimize the experience of God’s love in my own life. The need for it.  Just because I didn’t grow up in Haiti doesn’t mean that God cares any less about the unique state that my heart is in. So this time, in Haiti, the perspective that I gained didn’t make me feel that they need more and I need less. We all need to be rescued; we all need to be loved. And Jesus is our rescuer, so we all need him. No one needs it more or less. What my experience did do, was increase my confidence that God is more than able to give us exactly what we need and to love us exactly where we’re at. That truth became more evident to me over the time I spent in Haiti, witnessing this incredible group of children and seeing the state of their minds and hearts now, knowing the past they have endured.

I write this as an encouragement to myself, just as much as anyone else who reads it. So that when my faith is faltering, I can remember what is true. I can read this and be reminded of God’s desire and ability to rescue, love, and lead me through whatever I am stuck in. Pretty sure I’ll be returning to this entry often.

I am unsure of a lot of things in this life, but this I know: Jesus cares deeply for the people of Haiti, Jesus cares deeply for me, and that fact… is amazing.

"Why should I gain from His reward/I cannot give an answer/
But this I know with all my heart/His wounds have paid my ransom"

"He loves us/Oh how how he loves us/Oh he loves us/Oh how he loves"