Psalm 60:1-5

6/08/2008

1 O God, you have rejected us, broken our defenses;
you have been angry; oh, restore us.
2You have made the land to quake; you have torn it open;
repair its breaches, for it totters.
3 You have made your people see hard things;
you have given us wine to drink that made us stagger.

4You have set up a banner for those who fear you,
that they may flee to it from the bow.
Selah

5 That your beloved ones may be delivered,
give salvation by your right hand and answer us!

For some time my heart has been honestly troubled, hearing and seeing all these tragic events that are happening around us. Literally, thousands of people dying at once because of freak natural disasters, earthquakes, tornadoes, floods; I see so many desperate people around us, there were around 1,000 people here in Costa Rica that lost everything because of a tropical storm that came through a few weeks ago, I hear of people losing family members and lives in Myanmar and all of this honestly scares me.
This verse speaks to me in that I believe that God is allowing this to happen. I think He is hurting because we are hurting, but maybe all of this is necessary. I think that this is an opportunity for us, those who fear Him, to raise up a banner in His name for people to seek refuge under.
All of these tragic things that are happening around the world make me realize that there is nothing that I can do to change their physical circumstances.
I was in the Dominican Republic a few months ago with my parents on a missions trip, and we had the opportunity to visit an orphanage that housed children that suffered from severe handicaps.
Nothing could have ever prepared me for what I saw there, I cannot even write it down and describe it because I think the only way one can understand the magnitude of what we saw that day is by actually seeing it for yourself. I literally felt my heart breaking every single time I saw one of those little angel's faces smiling up at me. The majority of them didn't understand their situation, and sincerely I didn't fully did either. Being there made me angry. I'm not sure at who, me or God. I felt completely sick to my stomach, after a certain point I just couldn't stand to be there anymore, my heart could not take it anymore.
I ran outside and sat on the curb with my mommy and simply sobbed. In those moments, I think it is simply human to question, and I did. Everything that I had seen made me feel powerless. I realized that there was nothing I could do for those precious babies, nothing; and that just made me even more mad. Why didn't He do something?! Why were those angels even brought here to suffer in the first place?!
I struggled with those thoughts a long time ( I still do a bit), but that night in our devotionals my daddy said something that impacted me. He said that he too had felt completely powerless for these children, but it just made him realize that there were lots of people out there that he could do something for. Share the Gospel.
In these trying times, God has allowed us to bear His banners, hold them up high for all to see. I may not be able to understand the why of pain, but I am called to be a bearer of His glory for everyone else to see.