One week left until we hop on a plane and fly over the entire eastern coast of the United States and land inside of Haiti.
I don’t think I’ve ever been more worried and excited all at the same time!
I have three beautiful, wonderful children here at home that I’ve never been without for more than a day. Three children that I haven’t ever spent as much time as I would like with, three children that have so much potential and possibilities and capabilities if they can grow up in a loving and caring home filled with their mother and father.
If something was to happen to us, they’ll live on, I know they will, they’ll adjust, they’ll have to, and they’ll be loved and cared for, I know they will, but it just won’t be the same for them… how would they cope, would they be raised the way we long to raise them, would they have a loving relationship with God their father? Would they blame God, and if they do, who is going to help them understand and accept His will?
And then I have two beautiful, wonderful little girls that are in Haiti. I do not know them very well, except that they are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of our Father and creator, that they have no home of their own, and no family of their own, and that I have this indescribable desire to love them, and hold them, and give them out of everything great and small that the Lord has given to me. And what if they lose yet another set of parents?
Would they all have the wisdom to say: “Blessed be the name of the Lord: Blessed be his name in a land that is plentiful, where the streams of abundance flow: Blessed be his name when the road’s filled with suffering, when there’s pain in the offering, Blessed be his name… He gives and takes away, but my heart will choose to say, Lord, Blessed be your name!”
While life is always on the edge, and at any moment something could happen to me or Amanda or both (may it never be), I weep for the possibility that my children could lose their parents, and also that our daughters from Haiti wouldn’t ever get to know the love that we have to offer them. The fear that no parent wants to face, and yet, it’s always there…
To leave my children without a father (or mother) would be something I hope they never have to face, but don’t misunderstand, I don’t fear for my own life (well – except that I hope I don’t go painfully ), because I truly believe for me “To live is Christ, but to die is gain…”
Lord protect us, and give us the strength to face anything you send our way!