God's Grace

She was so small. She couldn't have been 5 feet tall, even if she stood up straight, and the physical and emotional burdens she carried were written in her features and in her posture. Her father had died months earlier, leaving her and her mother vulnerable in a country that rarely values women and where rape and abuse are rampant. Their home had been broken into many times following her father's death and I assume that it was during one of these break-ins that she was taken.

I cannot imagine.

Grace, the small, vulnerable 14 year-old whose life was turned upside down when she was kidnapped and raped. She was held for two days before she escaped, only to find out later that she carried a constant reminder of her terror and shame. Her mother brought her to the ward when she went into labor and that is where my journey overlapped with hers for a short time. 

She was stoic and silent the entire time I spent with her. She didn't know much of anything about labor and I explained a lot over the following hours. I was relieved to see how much her mother worried for her and how tenderly her mother spoke of her when I went out to the waiting area to give updates on her progress. 

As can be expected of the first labor of an extremely petite girl, it was very difficult. She was not progressing well and not eager to stand or walk or do anything that might help her along. As I watched her writhe and moan, I envisioned her; the naive school girl, studying, running and laughing with her friends. Her life would never look like that again.

After hours of obstructed labor, Grace was finally given a c-section. As they started an IV and charted her progress, two separate women approached and softly spoke to me.

"She should never have been allowed to carry this baby to term."

"NO!", I said. "Only God determines life and death!"

I was grieved by their words, and even more so, worried that their opinions would color how this young mother viewed her child - how she cared for it. I now only had a few moments before they would take her to the OR. The staff had pulled the cart up and were getting the paperwork signed.

I knelt down, my face close to hers, so that she might hear and understand me better through her drug induced fog. I waited until her eyes fluttered open.

"Grace, I know this baby has come because a huge grief in your life. And you will hear people tell you that the baby is no good, that you shouldn't have kept it. But Grace, this baby is a gift from the Lord. It's a precious blessing from God and you must care for it and love it. I will be praying for you!"

She nodded. 

I watched them wheel her away, praying that her baby had survived the difficult labor, that Grace would know deep and healing forgiveness and that an overwhelming flood of love for her child would sweep over her. 

Two weeks later, my friend was walking through the postnatal ward and saw Grace. Grace wept when my friend approached her. I cannot imagine the weariness this mama was feeling. Her baby was sickly and the incision from her c-section wasn't healing well so she had been an inpatient for that entire two weeks. When I was there, three weeks after her c-section, I asked about her. All the staff remembered who she was. Her story was told with shaking heads and clucking tongues. She had been discharged and at that time, her baby had been doing well. 

I hate the sin and evil in this world that precipitates horrors like what this girl survived. 

I. Hate. It. 

Pray for Grace. She will never forget the faces of her captors or what they did to her but my prayer is that she will gaze into the face of her child and know her Redeemer.

I Don't Have to Understand Why

I've seen some hard things at the haus sik. And each time I've marveled at God's grace. He has walked with the mamas and me through some incredibly dark places. 

Today felt different. 

Today I was reminded how little I understand God's plan and His reasoning. I know that I can't know all the details of God's working or how He'll choose to glorify Himself but I have felt reasonably confident that He is good. And even now, I know in my head that He is good but it doesn't feel that way. What I saw today doesn't "fit" with what I know of God. I feel as if I'm committing blasphemy by admitting this but, in my finite flesh, I don't understand. I want to tilt my head back and scream it - I DON'T UNDERSTAND, GOD!!

Today I held a woman in my arms and wiped the tears from her face while she delivered her 15 week-old baby. The victim of a rape at gun point, she showed me the mark, still purple, from where the man pushed the butt of his gun into her face, just to the right of her nose. She told me how he threatened to kill her. She became pregnant and in her shame and anger, aborted her baby. The result of such an invasive, unsterile "procedure" caused not only the death of her baby but uterine sepsis.

I looked at her and felt an overwhelming need to hold and comfort her. She was in obvious physical pain but her emotional turmoil was impossible to ignore. 

She asked if she could go sit on the toilet to deliver but I told her that she needed to stay in the bed because she was on a drip of oxytocin. I imagine she just wanted to get it all over with in a fashion that seemed "normal" like going to the bathroom.

I stayed with her for a long time and we talked. She told me that no man would want her now. In my naivety, I said, "Surely a good man will know that this (speaking of the rape) is not what you wanted and that it wasn't your fault." She looked into my face and said, "This is {insert country name}." I was taken aback by her direct response and I was acutely aware of how much I still have to learn about these people and their culture. For a moment, I felt like the outsider again. 

After the delivery, upon closer inspection, I could see a large hole in the baby's skull but he was otherwise, completely perfect with all his little fingers and toes. His umbilical cord was as thin as dental floss. The doctor came and had to help deliver the placenta which was difficult as her cervix hadn't completely opened. It was a painful and humiliating procedure undertaken by a male doctor.

When all was delivered and taken away to the trash, she rolled over onto her side and slept for a long time. When she awoke, she ate and washed and was then asked to leave. I don't know if she went to another ward or if she went home but I didn't see her again.

Even now, as I think about the day and my time with her, I am bewildered. If God wanted to glorify Himself and make His Name known, couldn't he have done that by stopping this evil in its tracks? Or couldn't He have brought someone along to show this woman His love and forgiveness and persuaded her to carry the baby to term? My list of His "options" goes on and on. 

Scripture says that God seeks to and will glorify Himself regardless of man's actions. But don't misunderstand this. God isn't a big-headed dictator seeking a pride-filled glory as we may imagine a human might run after. Rather, He is a gracious, loving, perfect Heavenly Father who's worth we cannot even fully understand in our flesh. How then could we completely understand the purity of His quest for glory? Or how could we accurately know the depths of His goodness when we still inhabit these bodies and reside on this planet? Our idea - my idea - of true goodness and love is flawed - flawed to the very core of my being and will remain so until I'm in eternity with Him.

But with all that I don't know, I know that I can rest in this: In His grace, He has allowed me to know Him. He has shown me that I don't have to understand His reasons for doing (or not doing) something because all I have to do is know Him - know His character and trust the perfect God who holds the entire world in His hand. The ability to have a relationship with the Creator of the universe is a gift and a steadfast rock to lean on.

I will never know His reasoning for why this girl had to live through this horror and her baby end up in the trash, thrown out and unwanted. Tonight my heart wrestles with it. I weep for this woman and her heart. And I'm mad. Not necessarily at God but at evil and my own flesh that causes my inability to understand the full sovereignty of God. I want so badly to just know why. But in answer to my cries, Jehovah says, "Know me. That's all you have to do."

1 John 5:19 & 20 - "We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true. And we are in Him who is true - even in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life."