Doing Hard Stuff

I realize my title doesn’t sound inspired, but bear with me, because I think I have something here.

Recently I have been struggling with the idea of having more intimacy with God. This is a goal of mine, and I feel like it’s something I’m on the cusp of. But I feel like the closer I get to this intimacy I’m longing for, the harder it is to do routine, normal things, like reading my Bible and praying. Granted, there’s the adjustment

coming back to EV and living in the dorms now, but I think it’s more than that.

My theory, which I spent some time ruminating on last night, is that the more you want of God, the more it requires of yourself. For example, you want to develop a gift of prophecy in your life? Look at the examples of the prophets in the Old Testament-you need to give a lot. You want more faith? Watch out for what God is going to ask of you, because Peter had to walk on water. Does your faith allow for that? Well, no, that’s why you’re asking for more…

For me, this makes me think of mountain climbing. Now, I am not athletic. I wish I was athletic. In my head, I am athletic. I have perfect balance, I never fall down, and I can run faster than Nike (think Greek mythology, not shoes). But in reality, I am not athletic. I do not have perfect balance. I fall down. A lot. And as far as running goes, I have exercise induced asthma and wheeze like an asthmatic basset hound when I run for more than a mile-not at all like the winged goddess of victory. 

Needless to say, mountain climbing for me is really, really, really (to the nth power) hard. And I hate it. I hate training for it. I hate climbing up the stupid mountain. I hate the sore legs and the dizziness and all of it. And, most irritatingly, I hate that I have yet to get to the top of an actual mountain (when not riding a horse with a wooden saddle, story for another time). So I train and train and train and never get to the top. 

Don’t be alarmed, folks. I haven’t lost my point yet.

I think a lot of us feel this way about intimacy with God. And by ‘a lot of people’ I mean me. Because I feel like I try and try but never really make the cut. I can never get that real intimacy with Him-I’m always almost there, but I never reach it.

The primary example of intimacy with God for us is Jesus. Seriously, I’m pretty sure you can’t go more than two pages in the gospels without reading some version of ‘Jesus stopped to pray.’ Or ‘Jesus was fasting.’ These two things, fasting and prayer, seem to me to be the two key things that lead to intimacy with the Lord. And, of course, those are also two things that basically kill me (spiritual-discipline wise).

I don’t want to exaggerate, but when I fast I feel like I’m dying. Literally, I get so hungry. I can’t focus on what I’m doing, I’m irritable, I feel like I’m a complete ogre. At the time, I’m generally so focused on not snapping at people that I don’t even remember I’m supposed to be praying, and by 6pm all I can think about-literally, ALL-is when I get to eat. It’s not a pretty sight. 

Luckily, this is a stage. Because when you get in the swing of things and you start regularly fasting, it quickly becomes something, if not pleasant, less death-like. And, amazingly, it really bears fruit. I feel like my prayers have so much more power when I have been regularly praying, and I see the hand of God so much more obviously in my life and in the lives of others.

Which brings me handily to my next point: prayer. I have to pray in the morning, because if I don’t, I spend the entire day telling myself it’s gonna happen, I’m gonna pray and, well, yeah it just never happens. So prayer for me involves getting my lazy butt out of bed at 5:30 in the morning. I am not saying this to brag; I’m saying this so that if I look tired you all know why. 

However, I have found two things to be true about prayer. One, that it is completely and totally necessary for my relationship with the Lord and two, that when I don’t pray, I can feel it. Not that I’m a perfect person when I pray-I’m very sure I’m never perfect-but I can feel the Lord at work in me in a more tangible way when I pray. 

I don’t know about you guys, but intimacy with the Lord is something that my whole soul longs for. I haven’t reached it yet, but I keep striving for it, because I know it is something worth attaining. Hence, all the prayer and the fasting even though I feel like I’m dying. And if that’s not encouragement for you guys, I don’t know what is.

Reality

Somehow, nearly a month has passed since I’ve come here. I’m not going to pretend that it has been an easy month; little girls are complicated! But it has been a rewarding month, and I’d like to share why.

I never really expected to be working in the little girls dorm, and at first, I inwardly rebelled. After all, they had told me I was going to be in a different dorm. And I’m not even any good with little girls. And they’re there all the time, and they want hugs, and kisses, and to have their hair done and their clothes picked out and all of those things that I really just don’t do.

You could call this a stretching experience.

However, after being the dorm for a month, I can tell you that (unsurprisingly) there’s a lot more to my girls than a truly shocking amount of barrettes. I have eight little girls between the ages of 6 and 12, and each one of them is different. They each have different personalities, different likes and dislikes, different ways of waking up in the morning. Some are smiley. Some like to cuddle. Some resist categorization in all forms.

One of these little girls is Ada. She’s seven years old, and she came to us along with her sister Alejandra in March. Ada is a sweet, caring little girl, who loves to play and cuddle and to spend time with others. Ada also has anxiety about just about everything on the planet, right down to whether or not she can eat a piece of candy that was given to her.

This is where life starts to get real, here in the dorms. Because Ada is a little girl who wants nothing more than to go home to her mommy, and she doesn’t understand why she can’t. Even though she likes it at Esperanza Viva, she doesn’t understand why she’s here. She worries constantly about her family, and wonders what they’re doing without her. She worries that her mom won’t come to see her on visiting day (because sometimes she doesn’t make it). She worries about her siblings, about her grandfather, even about the supervisors. If any of us leave for the night, we can count on hearing Ada’s anxious little voice asking “But you’re coming back-right?”

One of the things I recently learned is that life just isn’t fair. How do you explain to a child that her mommy had to pick which kids to send away, and she picked you? How do you make that not sting? If life were fair, I wouldn’t have to hold a little girl as she cries herself to sleep because she just wants her mommy and doesn’t understand why she can’t go home. That’s not fair. In no way is that fair. But that’s what we do here.

We, as supervisors, take care of children that don’t have anyone to take care of them, for whatever reason. We wipe the noses, we dry the tears. We’re there for the big moments, the small ones, and the crisis. That’s what we signed up for, and there’s very little-if any-glory in it. But there are moments.

When Ada finally stops crying and gives me a hug. When she tells me she loves me when I tuck her in at night. When she prays for her family and tacks on at the end: “And God bless Alisha and her mommy and daddy too!” These are all good moments in my life, moments that I’m learning to love.

It would be easy to end here, on this happy note, but that’s not where it stops. Because even though she’s a happy, healthy little girl, sometimes Ada still cries herself to sleep. Life isn’t fair, not for her, not for any kid here. But, thankfully, God is good. He’s putting these kids together, and equipping us supervisors with the tools we need to take care of each of them.