Life Deserves to be Felt

            I saw him curled up in a ball on the porch swing with his head tucked between his knees. As I walked over to him, I could hear his muffled sobs. I called out his name, but he refused to look up. The sun had just dipped below the horizon, which was a signal for the tears to begin to flow. The darkness hid his face, and the sound of the recently awakened insects drowned out the sniffles that accompanied his tears. I sat next to him and placed my arm around him. I didn’t need to know what was wrong, I knew I would never be able to understand. At only twelve years old, this boy has had to push through more hardship and sorrow than I hope I ever have to in my lifetime. I will never understand the pain from the past, the frustration of the present, or the hopelessness in the future that constantly plagues his mind. As I sat there with my arm around him I couldn’t help but think of how unfair it all was. Just an hour before, we had been dancing, laughing, and playing together in in the rain; but now the sun had gone down and the darkness brought reminders of the sorrow, pain, and frustration which unfairly began to assault his thoughts. Possibly he was set off by the fact that he lost a game of jacks, but in reality it simply provided an excuse to mourn and cry over the deeper hurts in his heart. His baseball cap, which was once only used to cover his newly-buzzed haircut, was now pulled down low to hide his face from mine. Knowing there was absolutely nothing I was able to do, I began to pray. For over twenty minutes the tears refused to cease. Tears started to flow from my own eyes. There was nothing I could do for him. I could only sit with him. 

            The heat from the afternoon sun was mercilessly beating down on us. We were attempting to relax in the shade after finishing up another game of volleyball. He began to tell me how he was praying that the Lord would grant him the ability to study and become a doctor once he finished his final year of high school. When I began to question him about it, he revealed that he wanted to have the knowledge and skills of being a doctor so that he could prevent what had happened to his mother from happening to other people. He dreamt of the 

ways that he could serve the Lord with his life, and faithfully asked that the Lord would provide the means necessary to do so. His current situation didn’t necessarily set him up for success. He knew the Lord would have to intervene if he was going to see his dreams come to pass. Of his current situation he said, “Sometimes it’s really really hard and I ask the Lord, 

Why? Why do I have to live like this? Why does my life have to be so hard? It is really really sad. Sometimes I get so depressed that I just have to cry. Sometimes crying is the only thing that can make it any better.” 

            I was making my way over to the kitchen for lunch, when I heard the crying. “Mama! Mama! Mama!” I looked over and saw a seven-year-old boy, accompanied by his four-year-old brother, sitting on the floor crying. “Mama! Mama! Mama!” In my naïve thinking, I wondered what they were crying about. I watched as they began to wander around the orphanage’s complex. It wasn’t until later that I learned that their mother, no longer able to care for her two boys, had decided to drop them off at the orphanage earlier that morning. With the promise to return in a year, she left the boys with those who would be better able to look after them. For hours, the two boys wandered around crying as they searched for their mom. It was such a hard thing to watch that part of me wished I had never learned the real reason for their tears. 

            Over the course of this trip, my team and I have spent our time staying at and working with two different orphanages in Thailand and Cambodia. The three short stories above are just some of the things that I have experienced during the last two months. Because the entirety of our time has been spent surrounded by orphans I think I found myself growing very accustomed to the whole scene. When you spend every day over the course of two months scrubbing floors, planning an English lesson, or playing volleyball; you find that it is very easy to “get used” to the things going on around you. Things that would normally blow my mind or break my heart if I were back in the States. None of the stories above are necessarily fun to read, and they definitely aren’t fun to experience either. I think in the moments that they happen, I have found that I often “cut off” my emotions simply so that I can cope with the situation or attempt to wrap my mind around what is happening. But in doing so, I found that I also begin to grow numb to the pain of many of the people around me. I begin to find myself detached, unable to grapple with the reality of these kid’s lives. It becomes very easy to go through your day laughing, dancing, and playing with the kids; but be completely devoid of any real emotion. 

            It was this morning that the Lord opened my eyes to the way that I had once again begun to shut off my emotions in order to protect myself. As I began to pray he reminded me of the words he had already spoken in the past, “Life deserves to be felt.” So often we push away emotions such as sorrow, anger, and regret and say that they are not of the Lord. We try not to entertain them when they come and we attempt to make them go away by pretending that they don’t exist. But this morning the Lord reminded me that the emotions that I often shove deep down inside of me are actually opportunities he has given me to encounter him in ways I would have never been able to otherwise. The sadness, anger, and frustration that I feel because of the situations around me are actually gifts from the Lord that allow me to experience the hidden areas of His heart. The Lord felt very close to me as I began to weep over all of the people I have met, stories I have heard, and testimonies I have seen over the past two months. All things that I had buried deep inside, pretended didn’t happen, and tried to forget. As I cried and prayed over the stories above, I realized that the Lord was also crying and praying alongside me. God’s heart. It weeps for us. It is angered by injustice. It mourns for those who are lost. It is saddened by our pain. And when we allow ourselves to feel the things around us, no matter how hard, ugly, or painful; God allows us to encounter his heart. His heart: that is what I want to operate out of.