Beautifully Broken. Total Salvation.

Jambo! (Hello in Luganda) 

What a crazy week it has been! I am still quite exhausted, but I have decided I will just sleep when I get back to the States. I can’t believe I will be leaving Africa in 10 days. I don’t want to accept that! In a recent email from my dad he wrote, "I know it is going to be very hard to leave those sweet children behind, but it won’t be forever.  You will return, perhaps many times.” He is so right! I will be returning...many times. I can’t imagine saying goodbye to these kids, forever. God has really changed my heart through each and every one of these children here at GSF. I have really experienced the love of our God. I can say with full confidence, our God is a God who overflows with love for each and one of us. To be able to love these children, to be loved by them...wow. My prayer is that I continue to overflow with the Lord. 

Some days while sitting in the clinic, when there isn’t much to do, I venture down to the social workers office. I sit on the wooden bench and begin to pull out file after file, reading each kids’ story. What is inside those bare manilla folders is something so powerful. From the outside, you may see a kid with a beaming smile whose laughter lights up the room. What you don’t know is that smile has a past, a broken past, hidden behind it. When reading the files of some of the kids, my heart started to break. I thought to myself...these children should have never had to experience this, nobody should. Some of the things I read, I will never be able to repeat. It is just too hard.  Many parents of the kids died, many were just abandoned. I remember reading one file on a child where he was found in the road...left, alone. That is something so hard for me to accept. My heart never felt so broken as it did reading the stories of each child. I couldn’t bare it. Many times I had to put the files down, back in their right place, and walk away. It is times like these where I really struggle trusting God’s plan. I feel so weak, I feel so broken, There are many days where I sit on our veranda just staring out into the endless forest wondering why He does half the things He does. I have to accept that no matter how weak I may feel, that His strength is all I truly need. In 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 He says to us, “My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.” I can’t tell you how many times I have read that verse. I can feel Him breaking down the walls of my heart, filling it with His love, grace, mercy, and strength. I feel so broken, I feel so defeated; but it has been such a beautiful experience. Tragic things happen. There will be days where we face obstacles that we never thought we would have to face. God doesn’t promise that every day will be perfect. He does promise that He will walk through every hard time with us, that He will provide the strength we need and that in the end His glory will shine brighter than any galaxy. There is a verse that has really stuck out to me through the broken times. It is Romans 8:18, “For I consider that the suffering of this present time is not worthy to be compared to the glory that is to be revealed to us.” No matter what, no matter the suffering, God has something bigger in store for us. We can weep with the comfort of His love. We can fail with the promise of His grace. We can be weak with the assurance of His abounding strength. We can feel defeated and broken knowing that His glory will be revealed to us, always. 

Being a missionary isn’t easy. It is possibly the hardest thing I have ever done. It is like spiritual attack is magnified. There is two words that have stuck to me; Total Salvation. In a recent devotion with the missionaries we read 1 Peter 1:3-9. 

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in Heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refines by fire- may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” 

Total Salvation. Wow. Even though we will go through trials and will suffer, we can still rejoice. No matter how broken I feel, no matter how exhausted I am, no matter how weak I may be....I can rejoice in the promise of total salvation. Never give up. Days will be hard, obstacles will be put in our way; but never give up. Our God is on our side, forever. How great it is to be able to rest in that promise. 

I will be facing 10 of the hardest days that are ahead of me. In 10 days I have to say goodbye to some people that I love with everything in me. It is hard to leave a child that you know may be sick, hurting, has a broken past; but I can leave knowing that God is still with them.  I will be back in Uganda some day. My heart has been completely broken, beautifully broken. I thank the Lord for that. There are a handful of kids that have touched my heart in ways I never thought were possible. It is a blessing to be able to love like our Father in heaven loves me, and you. I know I will cry, I already have. But those tears prove just how much the Lord has changed my heart, eternally. A humbling experience it has been. I am so thankful that the Lord breaks me so that I can be more like Him. 

“I am setting you up as a light for the NATIONS so that my salvation becomes GLOBAL.” -Isaiah 49:6

Beautifully Broken. Total Salvation. Rest in His promises. 

With all my love,

Claire

Sweet Moments with Grace 

Pure joy