Her eyes overflow with pain and tears, and so does my heart. Yet she smiles.
How could a little one endure such suffering? And in the midst of it be speaking out in gratitude, and showing us love, and teaching my heart deep things about God? And how does one know how to suffer and say thank you, except for the extravagant grace of God?
How could we –as those watching the suffering—feel such an intensity and depth of pain?
Sometimes another’s pain becomes our own.
We choose to embrace it, to take it on and in…to let it grieve us to our core. Sometimes another’s pain feels personal.
Sometimes we don’t know what to do with the pain of another—even when we KNOW that it is worse than our own…
Her eyes, now yellow. Her fingers, now rotting. Her heart is failing. Her liver is failing. But her Hope remains.
We want to save her. To rescue and heal. To change what we see. To HOPE and keep fighting for her.
We want to ignore. To distract. To avoid. We walk away from her bedside in silent grief.
But then He calls us in. Into the place of suffering. Of compassion. Of crying out and interceding. He calls us closer to His own heart. For He suffered. He suffered for Mbezia. He knows her pain intimately, deeply—as His own. He weeps for her. Tears washing her wounds, her pain and her need. There is a hope unseen, as strong and as real as this pain. There is a promise of healing. There is a light of redemption. Someday, she will be whole. Someday, her body will be new. There is a light in her eyes. A radiance in her smile. She must SEE Him. She must know his presence because as He said, He is with us in the suffering. He has met her there. He holds her there. And she looks up into her Father’s eyes and smiles.
And that smile will one day shine in all the glory that she was created for.
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