Evening and Morning

I fell asleep with this in my head after the first day, of many, Haiti brought me to tears: "Jesus will hear our hearts, will help our hearts, will visit our hearts; for the voice of the wakeful heart is really the voice of our Beloved, saying, “Open to me.” Holy zeal will surely unbar the door."

A mother, no. A young woman, no. A teenager has an adorable son JP who is a year old and weighs less than a kid's bowling ball. I held JP on Thursday and heard him struggling for each breath. I held him and had this overwhelming feeling that he was going to die in my arms right then. I held him and thought certain people should not procreate. I held him and tried to imagine his life five years from now... until two seconds later I realized he, more than likely, won't be alive in six months. He desperately needs intervention, and I have no power to do that. And that fact, the whole powerless-to-save-him fact, is what made the tears begin to flow. No one can save JP but Christ, no matter how badly we may want to.

I almost lasted a month without breaking down. I was pretty proud of that... until I realized I had been relying on my own strength down here instead of God's. Until I realized that, like everyone else, I too am powerless to save the world.

The following morning, God used my brokenness to send me a few reminders: "My hope lives not because I am not a sinner, but because I am a sinner for whom Christ died; my trust is not that I am holy, but that being unholy, he is my righteousness. My faith rests not upon what I am, or shall be, or feel, or know, but in what Christ is, in what he has done, and in what he is now doing for me."
-quotes from "Morning and Evening: Daily Readings" by C.H. Spurgeon, September 24-25.