What can I do?

She didn’t go unnoticed that night. Her tears didn’t go unnoticed that night. You see her best friend left the children’s home 3 weeks ago, she will probably never see her again. The week after, her dad showed up after about a year of not even visiting. And this Sunday she expected him to visit again, but he didn’t. Maybe the office didn’t let him, yeah that must by why he didn’t come, she convinced herself. She was left here at 3 years of age, and these painful pangs of abandonment were too strong that night. I hate my mom for leaving, look at what she did to me, she scribbles on a letter to me. She strained her face to try to hold back the tears and kept repeating to anyone who asked that nothing was wrong; but some big, painful, suffering was going on in her heart.

Days before she had nightmares. The recent bumps with her caregiver brought back the buried memories. Her caregiver told her she loved her too much that week, that was it. She didn’t believe it, she couldn’t believe it. Those words reminded her of the director that once told her “no one loves you, that’s why you are here and no one visits you. Nadie te quiere y siempre vas a estar aqui.” Maybe my dad will come back and take me for good this time, she thought.

This is as best I can describe the turmoil in one of my girl's mind this past week. Nothing can be put on hold in their lives. They keep struggling, keep trying to believe they will make it out well and alive, then something hits them and reminds them that they are fighting against the odds. This is not the “oh she’s poor and doesn’t have good food to eat” suffering, this is the kind of suffering that you can’t fix, no matter how much you hold her or kiss her or be with her. There’s nothing you can say or do. What’s done is done, the heart is already in pieces.

What can I do?

What can we do?

If any one among you suffering? He should pray. (James 5:13)

I didn’t say anything. I was just with her. Holding her. Letting her cry, without telling me why.

“Then comes the Son of Man, looking for [her] like no one else exists.”

The next night her voice is raised. Her prayers are loud tonight. She has something to tell him. I wonder if it’s a powerful thanks, or a cry for more help, or an intercession on another’s behalf.

Whatever it is. He caused that prayer to come out

of her. He reached down for her, and she responded. It was nothing that I did, it never is. It was completely Him. His heart for the broken, His defense for the orphan, His sorrow for morning, His perfect beauty for ashes, and oh His melody for our peace.