Left behind
It is odd how sitting and fellowshipping with refugees has now become a part of life for me.
Of making friends and sharing heart ache, and talking about our kids, what we are cooking and news from our families back home is part of my rhythm.
and in the midst of the daily routines, of friendship growing, of watching women move from hopelessness to hope...there are still moments that it feels like the whole world stops. and the sadness is palpable and there are no easy answers.
when the banter and the teasing and the kissing and sipping of tea hangs in the air because the reality has pierced through.
We visited a new camp last week to see a widow and her mother who is a widow. We stepped into their reality..their home and the smells dirt, cold and crowdedness hit us like waves. that is not always the story. There are so many times I am ushered into a tent and i am struck with how cozy it is. How the women work so hard to keep it clean and decorate it to make it feel ....theirs.
But this set-up. it spoke of neglect. of older women with no energy and no resources. of a women in her 60s taking care of her mother in her 90s... the affection and love for each other was there but the desperateness. the pain. ooof. i was not emotionally prepared.
fast forward a few hours in our clinic, and as we are praying for a woman she begins to share her story, her heart ache. That she has 11 children and her husband had gone back to Syria to find work and renew his children's visas. He did not return for a long time, and he blamed the closed borders. the women felt helpless to feed her children, to provide for their needs but what could she do. Her husband was not allowed back in Lebanon. Her oldest daughter's son became really sick and so as a last resort they had to take him to Syria to get medical help - they did not have money for any medical help in Lebanon.
The oldest daughter goes to meet up with her dad and finds that he has taken a second wife who has 4 children already...a widow. She is much younger than her mother and that is the true reason he has not tried to come back. He found a new family.
As this sweet women tells us this story, even though it happened 4 months before the pain is so fresh that tears just pour out of her eyes. She feels so lied to. rejected. She is filled with fear and uncertainty about how to provide for her remaining children. The clinic stops for a bit as we surround her in prayer. as we cry with her and let her tell her story. As we speak into her heart and encourage her to pray and cry out to God. We are moved by her sadness and her pain to the point where our hearts ache.
I know that her life is drenched in heart ache and loss but I walk away aching for her to meet the One who can show her love. love she has never know. Who can speak deep into the places that no one else can even reach...whose kindness can melt bitterness and pain in a moment.
though overwhelmed and grieving, i cling to the Rock who really is not shaken. Praying for this woman...
Of making friends and sharing heart ache, and talking about our kids, what we are cooking and news from our families back home is part of my rhythm.
and in the midst of the daily routines, of friendship growing, of watching women move from hopelessness to hope...there are still moments that it feels like the whole world stops. and the sadness is palpable and there are no easy answers.
when the banter and the teasing and the kissing and sipping of tea hangs in the air because the reality has pierced through.
We visited a new camp last week to see a widow and her mother who is a widow. We stepped into their reality..their home and the smells dirt, cold and crowdedness hit us like waves. that is not always the story. There are so many times I am ushered into a tent and i am struck with how cozy it is. How the women work so hard to keep it clean and decorate it to make it feel ....theirs.
But this set-up. it spoke of neglect. of older women with no energy and no resources. of a women in her 60s taking care of her mother in her 90s... the affection and love for each other was there but the desperateness. the pain. ooof. i was not emotionally prepared.
fast forward a few hours in our clinic, and as we are praying for a woman she begins to share her story, her heart ache. That she has 11 children and her husband had gone back to Syria to find work and renew his children's visas. He did not return for a long time, and he blamed the closed borders. the women felt helpless to feed her children, to provide for their needs but what could she do. Her husband was not allowed back in Lebanon. Her oldest daughter's son became really sick and so as a last resort they had to take him to Syria to get medical help - they did not have money for any medical help in Lebanon.
The oldest daughter goes to meet up with her dad and finds that he has taken a second wife who has 4 children already...a widow. She is much younger than her mother and that is the true reason he has not tried to come back. He found a new family.
As this sweet women tells us this story, even though it happened 4 months before the pain is so fresh that tears just pour out of her eyes. She feels so lied to. rejected. She is filled with fear and uncertainty about how to provide for her remaining children. The clinic stops for a bit as we surround her in prayer. as we cry with her and let her tell her story. As we speak into her heart and encourage her to pray and cry out to God. We are moved by her sadness and her pain to the point where our hearts ache.
I know that her life is drenched in heart ache and loss but I walk away aching for her to meet the One who can show her love. love she has never know. Who can speak deep into the places that no one else can even reach...whose kindness can melt bitterness and pain in a moment.
though overwhelmed and grieving, i cling to the Rock who really is not shaken. Praying for this woman...
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