Though Pain Enters My Heart

My life has not always been flower gardens and sunshine, but on the whole it has been filled with all things light and glad. Happiness, cleanliness, learning and wide open spaces. I have chosen to surround myself with as much beauty and tastes of heaven as possible in a fallen world. This is the world I have woven and spun around myself like a protective cocoon.


Daffodils, the smell of rain, walks down country roads and the glow of evening sun. Flowing dresses and doing up my hair. Serene times of Bible reading, hymn sings around the piano, and heavenly times when godly friends surround me with faith and laughter. Family gatherings around the fire to read mission stories. Solitude in nature where my thoughts soar in gratitude to God. Mealtimes filled with happy chatter and the simplest, most delicious food imaginable. Herb gardens, poetry, burning candles and comforting quilts. These are some of the everyday blessings of my life. I revel in them, cherish them.


If it was up to me I would never be parted from these little taste of heaven. I would happily live out my days surrounded by these comforts and blessings. I'd marry a man I loved devotedly, live in a farmhouse and raise 3 or 4 kiddo's. Maybe there would be a wee lad and we'd explore the bug kingdom together. Or a giggly girl I could sink my hands into bread dough with. I'd love nothing more than to be homeschooling mom who surrounds her children with these tastes of heaven. I dream of it sometimes.


However there are places where there aren't neat farmhouses, libraries of inspiring books or idyllic scenes of peace. The countless souls who call these places home are as empty as I am filled. Sick as I am well. Plagued by darkness and pain as I am drenched by light and gladness. How can I build my pleasant dreams of comfort when such hollow hearts exist? - hollow hearts who cannot imagine a world not wracked by disease and violence.

I must go to those dark places. But what do I really think I'm going to do? Do I think I will somehow change their squalid, disease/violence ridden world into my world of health and peace? No. What then will I do?
This is what I will do: Hold one dieing child when I've done all I can, seek to comfort one patient I can't cure, hum one hymn to drown out the satanic village drums.

I don't want to! I don't want to witness such suffering and death! I shrink from it. It is too much for me. I'm too sensitive, too sheltered. I haven't even wanted to hear about such things most of my life. It makes me feel burdened, sorrowful...like I have the weight of the world on my chest. But God has children in the midst of all that horror and need.

I can be only one emissary of Light in a land of Dark. That is all. I will pattern myself after my beloved Master as best I can. When I think of leaving all the beauty, purity and peace of my world I begin to feel only a fraction of how Jesus must have felt. Shedding tears when leaving Heaven and shuddering at the blackness of our planet.

Lord I am willing to be made kindling for You. Burn me up with Your love and passion for Your children. Not my will, but Thine.