Embracing Interruptions

Darkness was pressing in from all sides. Fear is the only emotion that seems to seep its way in.

A boy, maybe around 9 years of age, not in his right mind, jumps out from behind the corner. Barefoot and wearing only a dirty gown, he begins to rock back and forth in front of us.

Where are You in this place?

Somehow, in those 12 days of being in the heart of Africa, I lost words for how I felt. Somewhere along the way, I forgot to feel. Emotions were avoided in order to function, and now I am home trying to make sense of it all.

I sit on the couch weeping over the faces I saw, knowing behind each face is a story. Weeping over all the children that have no place to call home or even a parent to love them, feeling as if there is nothing to be done.

Perfect Love cast out all fear.

The very touch of Heaven diminishes the darkness and quenches the fear.

Was this really the children’s ward? Is that where they sleep? How can that be, it looks like a jail cell? Do they really have no one to love them? 

Maybe the only way to make sense of it all, is to breathe in a fresh wave of awakening? Maybe it’s an invitation to never stop believing, to never stop searching, to never stop knowing that Hope is the answer?

That day in the children’s ward of the government-run psychiatric hospital, awakening blew in. Ten children that had never felt the love of God, felt it for the very first time.

Because God…in His magnificent plan, the plan He made before He created the foundation of the earth, had two girls who depended completely on Him, miss their speaking engagement at a big University to bring hope to the forgotten and mistreated.

Sometimes you have to allow the Holy Spirit to interrupt your plan to make sense of it all. God interrupts our plan to remind us that He rules and rains. He travails over the darkness and through the blood of Jesus we do too.

Interruptions can be God inviting us to bring Heaven to earth and if we are not careful we can dismiss the still small voice of the Holy Spirit, missing our opportunity to touch the heart of God.

That day, when I thought my day was ruined because our driver never showed up taught me something. Three kids receiving the hope of Jesus and one being set free of the tormenting thoughts in his head, revealed to me that we serve a God that never forgets His dearly loved children.

We are not alone in the mist of the darkness. He knows. He sees. He feels. He loves. He empowers us to be the change.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.” (John 1:5)

He has given us the power to distinguish the darkness, if we choose listen to the still small voice of the Holy Spirit.

No one gets to see God unless they choose to surrender to His plans and ways.

Today, where is the Holy Spirit asking you to abandon your plan? Where is He asking you to bring light to the darkness?

Let’s embrace interruptions today and see where we can bring Heaven to earth.

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