When all you can do is just sit there...

four pregnancy tests wrapped in a kleenex. My friend who has been married for 7 years and is only 20. She wants a baby so bad her hand is shaking, and she is flushed and we are willing that the pregnancy test would have two lines instead of just one. but it just has one.

i sit there, put my arm on hers, and tell her that i believe in the promise over her and that God is going to give her a baby.



                                             

 when i sit in the tent with my friends and their husbands tell me that they want to take another wife, because their wife is getting old. and it is light hearted and they want me to react. and i do. boy, do i. I tell them that this is terrible idea, that two women were not made to share a man. that God created man and woman for each other and they nod and agree, but i just silently grieve for my friends who have to hear their husbands say this. it is the silent rejection that is in the words. your are too old. not what i want anymore. 

when my friend's son gets beat up by other boys in the camp and she cries and is furious and makes a scene. because she does not want to have to worry about infections and medications and ultimately that her son is getting beat up. how they live in these little tiny villages of tents and how they used to have homes on land, on farms. how their kids are picking up street language and playing in dirt, dirty water, and trash. what can i say. 

when parent's bring their adorable little girl who has a skin disease and i just don't even know where to start. 

when young girls keep telling me that their hair is falling out. and i know there are so many reasons for that, but goodness where do you start. 

when i see rat bites on faces or hands and i have to hear them talk about how rat's are coming all around their tents. ooooof. 

 it's the reality i walk in that these friends, these women, whom i laugh with and share with and try and be Dr. Quinn medicine woman with, are living. it comes in waves over me how hard their life is, how different. how they have lost everything and how they are just trying to make do.

and all i can do is sit there. listen. cry. pray. tell them i am so sorry that this what they are going through. we can dream about a future visit when i come to Syria and everything is different. 

 and over and over again i tell them this: God wants to give them HOPE. that is why i named my daughter, who i birthed in this particular season. Because that it is God's heart and promise to them,  He wants to give them a future and a HOPE. when everything around us is hopeless, when we want to despair... we turn to Him. the Lifter of our heads.