Be Still, My Heart

Heal my heart and make it clean. Open up my eyes to the things unseen. Show me how to love like You have loved me. Break my heart for what breaks yours. Everything I am for Your Kingdom’s cause, as I walk from earth into eternity. [Hosanna – Hillsong United]

Be still, my heart. That’s my motto. My mantra. I chant it to myself some days, while other days I simply let it float across my mind once. Some days my heart does not stop aching; those days need more reminders. Other days are less painful, less full of reminders of why my heart breaks.

What breaks my heart exactly, you ask? Well it’s the same thing that breaks God’s heart – sin, hurt, people turning from Him, children. Oh. That last one. The children. Even that word makes my heart turn in my chest. You know when you get “butterflies” in your stomach, and it flops and flutters? That would be what my heart does when I think of the children. All children, but especially the ones without families, or with broken families. The ones living in deepest poverty, lucky to make it to 18 without ending up in gang or killed. The ones living in the highest riches, unsure of what it truly means to know you because they’ve never been shown love like that. Thinking about those children makes my heart ache. It makes me restless. It makes me want to run and do something, to love on them and show them the love of Christ.

Be still, my heart.

My little Romanians ring in my heart most of all. Oh, how I love those children! Iubesc copii mei romani! I can’t help myself. I just love them so terribly, incredibly, inexpressibly much. Ask anyone who’s been to Romania – the little ones grab onto your heart and they just don’t let go. It doesn’t matter if they’re little angels or seem to be the devil’s minions. You can’t help but love on them, even when you want to smash your forehead into a brick wall (perfectly normal desire, I promise). It’s something about their smiles, about their hugs and their kisses, about their games, about their little gifts. It’s their need to feel love and their desire to give it in return, regardless of the fact that many of them have not seen unconditional love in quite some time, if ever. Oh, how I love and miss them right now.

Be still, my heart.

In debriefing before we leave, they tell us how we’ll feel like “no one understands.” It’s pretty much a constant feeling. How can you understand the love for the orphan if you have never met him? David Platt says it perfectly in his book “Radical” when he says:

“We learned that orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names. They are easier to ignore before you see their faces. It is easier to pretend they’re not real before you hold them in your arms. But once you do, everything changes…”

Be still, my heart.

Patience is my friend. In God’s time, I will return to Romania. I know this. My heart will always ache for the children, but one day, all will be well. As God has promised, He will fulfill. I know that with utmost certainty.

Well why not?

In case you didn’t know – and if you didn’t, you’ve proooobably been living under a rock – but blogging is the new thing nowadays. Everyone does it. My mom does it, mostly about us kids and adoption. A lady I know through Facebook (no, it’s not sketch, I know she’s a real lady) blogs about depression and raising her kids. My friends studying abroad (what up, Johnny and Amber?) are doing it about their trip. And, most importantly and the reason I started this, my friends in Romania/that visit Romania frequently do it about their lives in Romania.

I’m a writer. Or, at least, I used to be. I love to write. Words are so fun and easy to me. But I don’t like journaling. I like writing where people can read it. I like to break hearts and make people cry with my words, in a non-masochistic way. On top of that, I want to tell people about Romania. I want people to know how it breaks my heart. The thing is, when they ask about it my mind just goes blank and I forget what I need to say. It’s hard to get the words out. And I look like a middle schooler doing their first speech if I write the words out on a piece of paper and carry it with me to read to people when they ask. Which is not ideal.

Enter, the blog. My thoughts on orphans, on Romania, on adoption, on love – for the whole world to see. Do we want that? Well, I don’t know. Might as well try though, eh? By the way, for the last paragraph and a half I’ve had this fear that my senior English teacher from high school would read this and be appalled at the abundance of “be” verbs and poor sentence structure I’ve been using. So in case anyone else picks up on that, don’t judge me for it.

Now, on to why I started this tonight…

Romania has been heavy on my heart tonight. Well, it’s heavy on my heart every day, but tonight has been especially rough. While I was at Encounter, my college age “youth group,” we were worshiping. For me, worship – singing – is a very humbling, emotional experience. Something about singing just makes all my worries drift away and my heart open up, so I was already prepped for an emotional shock. Well, God must have been planning something, because I got one. I reached into my coat pocket to make sure my cell phone was still there (habit), and felt something thin and plastic. So I pulled it out to look. It was a travel Kleenex package – you know, the ones that fold in half and have like five Kleenexes in each pocket? Well, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, that’s not important. It was just trash. There weren’t any Kleenexes left in it. But it shook my heart anyway. Ana – one of the girls in the transition program – had given it to me during church (in Romania). At the time, there were Kleenexes in it. I was sick my first two weeks in Romania, and I could not quit sniffing, so she gave me the whole pack. It was a totally meaningless gesture, but so sweet to me.

Finding that Kleenex broke my heart. All of a sudden, I couldn’t see anyone around me. I missed my girls. I missed my kids. I missed speaking Romanian – well, stumbling over it. I missed Romania. All of a sudden, I was drowning in love. I quickly scrambled in my pockets to see if I had anything else in there, and what do you know? I pulled out two little toys – a hot wheels and a little (creepy looking) plastic girl. Marion and Marius had given them to me on my last day at Peris (the orphanage) when they learned I was going back to America. They were just toys they had on them, but they gave them to me. They wanted me to remember them. They were going to miss me.

It all hit me. Standing there, with the guitar strumming and my heart breaking, it just hit me. I felt the tears hit, and I blinked them back (I hate crying in front of people). I was drowning in love. Was this how God loves us? It had to be. I was drowning, suffocating, with no desire to ever breathe again. Why would you want to swim to the top when falling offered such sanctuary, such hope and joy? It was beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. Beautiful because I loved those kids more than breathing. Heartbreaking because I missed them just as much.

It was a quick moment. As soon as it hit, it was over and I was snapped back to reality. So now I sit here, left with a feeling of longing as my heart aches to be back in Romania and my arms long to hold my kids. Six months to a year (because I have no idea when I’ll be able to go back) is far, far too long for me. Thankfully, I have a very patient God to help me wait. Until then, be still my heart… Your time will come.