You should have seen her face when I told her we were reading a missionary novel about a friend’s family. She nearly died in delight and immediately begged me to drop everything for chapter one’s starting line. It was one of the first times a missionary had become real. It had become personal on a new level of personal. Oh sure, she’s met missionaries. But now they mean more to her, especially as her heart calls out to my missionary friend’s sweet little son. The precious little boy that Rachael has held in her own arms and adores so…
I read ahead. I knew what I was looking for. Chapter by chapter, paragraph by paragraph I surveyed the book. One section I would skip. I wanted to be sure to skip it. A family held at gunpoint for hours. Hours of fear and prayer. Finally resulting in robbery and spared lives. This beloved family. This would all become ever so real to a little six year old.
At what point do you usher a child into another’s pain?
You don’t have to go far to find pain. It’s not something reserved for the foreign missions field. We live amongst hurts. We live amongst trials. Pains. No one is immune.
I told our girls about Alivia a few weeks back. The oldest had overheard something, as usual, but chose a good time to ask about it while still honoring the innocence of her sisters. “Mommy, what is a miscarriage?” opened into conversation about our Alivia. The last of my name-tweaked, unique-spelling children. We never got to hold her. We only had eleven weeks and four days of her heartbeat. But it was enough to still adore her. She was still ours. If only for a moment. And even if we never got to learn who she favored in appearance and mannerisms.
At what point do you usher a child into another’s pain?
Abi came into the room, catching Alivia’s name. And the older two will randomly bring it up when I list our children’s names on the homeschool board. “Don’t forget Alivia,” will get tossed out of the crowd. I never can, little ladies. I never will.
Safety can be an abstract concept. I learned that lesson fair well when the burglar came in through the nursery window, creeping past my toddler and my baby. I met his eyes at the foot of our bed. Something I can honestly say I would have never thought of on the way back from my 3:33a pregnancy potty break. In that moment, and the many thereafter, I realized that safety is not contingent upon location. And I also learned that I cannot keep my family safe. I’ll never forget studying the burglar’s face all while wondering if there was only one intruder in the house. My husband’s bravery while I prayed, even as he fumbled for his glasses, struggling to see straight. My husband is a strong advocate against violence. I didn’t realize how brave you had to be to not know if you’d meet fight or flight.
We assumed he went down the hallway, so we pursued to survey the damage. When we heard the sound coming over the baby monitor, I knew we were not alone. In and out through the nursery window. And still my babies lay sound asleep in their beds. We were in no way lucky, dear friends. That was nothing but the hand of Jesus at work.
It took a year to date after that for my first response not to be the burglary in that middle-of-the-night fog sending me to mid-night bathroom trips. God’s protection wasn’t defined like I would have imagined and yet in that instance I had no doubt under Who’s protection we were sheltered.
I told them two years later. It came up in a conversation about God’s protection. I didn’t share a lot of the details. I still left it pretty gentle. I don’t even think Rachael remembers bouncing on the couch that night, giving the inspector an earful of a nearly three year old’s Disney movie recollection. Abi hadn’t even woken up during the fingerprint dusting of the windowsill until a flashlight’s incompetency required the nursery light’s assistance. It hadn’t scared them then and I certainly didn’t want to instill fear now. But there’s a distance given in time. There’s a distance unlike stepping into an active hurt. A pain still throbbing from the abuse.
At what point do you usher a child into another’s pain?
I have come to terms throughout this process that I cannot protect my children from the hurt we will witness by stepping into another’s pain in Africa. Just as I cannot protect them from the extreme joy of celebrating beauty that arises from circumstantial ashes. It is all but a trust fall. A trust fall in which I remove my hands from comforts and perceived security of preserving their innocence, and I fall into the open arms of His guiding. I have no doubt that we as a family will embrace pain and hurt that we could not embrace fully by living in the U.S. I have no doubt that this revelation will be hard to describe sometimes and maybe even hard to comprehend. But I also have no doubt that where He calls His beloved to embrace another’s pain; He also offers an incomprehensible grace that we couldn’t even begin to describe from the comforts of our American homes.
At what point do you usher a child into another’s pain?
When He says “go”.
Our hearts race, our feet persist and our minds find renewal in the beauty of His compelling.
We must go.
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