Answering the "Why?"

He stared right into my eyes.  I could tell he was trying to hold back the emotion and pain, but it showed all the same.  

“Why?  I need you to tell me why you get up everyday and choose to do this over and over again? Why don’t you just throw in the towel? Why don’t you close this place? Why do you choose to keep facing the risk, the suffering, the loss?  Why?”

It was a loaded question.  He knew it, and we knew it. There was no right answer, but he was desperate to find one.  It was too much.  He was seeing the enemy win too many battles.   He was starting to lose hope and without hope, he knew there wasn’t much left.

I knew what my husband’s answer was going to be.  I knew because it’s the very essence of who he is.  

He calmly responded, “Because I know to Whom I belong. I know my God.  He has been faithful to me these 40 years.  I know He will meet me and us in our need.  He ultimately will always have the victory. Just as David listed all the attributes of God, I too have my list of all the times, big and small, that God was faithful.  I do it because I know God asked me to, and if He is the one Who asked me, He also will see to my every need.  This place, these children, my country, they all belong to Him anyway.  I can trust Him because I have seen His hand.”

For my husband, the answer was easy.  He has known the pangs of real hunger from days without real food not just the ones of a spiritual fast or a forgotten meal.  He knows the loss of a parent both through death and even for a period of time, through the awful circumstances of life. He has known rejection and betrayal and disappointment.  He has been without and he has experienced abundance.  He has known both immense pain and immense joy.  He has seen both the worst of man and the best.  So for him, He understands that God is His all because He has literally been his All for the 40 years of his life.  

I smiled at his profile and squeezed his leg underneath the table.  What a gift it was having this steady, faithful man as my husband.

It was my turn now, though, and I knew really the man who had asked the question was waiting the most for my answer.  He knew I had another home thousands of miles from this one. He knew I had a loving family somewhere else.  He knew that I had other opportunities.  He knew that I could have chosen a path that wouldn’t have been pain free but certainly would have been less wrought with the struggle, the grief, and the pain of this one. 

I swallowed hard and decided to just tell him the truth.

“For me it is harder.  I find that I live most days somewhere between wanting to trust God with all my heart and also the fear that is never far behind all of the ‘what if’s.’ As my husband said, I KNOW that I can trust God.  I have seen His hand as well.  He has been so faithful to us.  But, I am also scared.  I am scared of what He is going to ask me to do next.  I am scared that it will be too much for us or mean too much sacrifice or loss for my family or me.  On the really hard days, I may not physically have my bags packed but mentally I do.  I rehearse my speech for why we should leave. I still mourn the dreams never realized and all I left behind.  

The truth is I am often afraid…but I also can’t turn back.  I can’t be the Sara I was 17 years ago.  I can’t unsee what I have already seen.  I can’t ignore what I now know.  I wrestle with the question over and over of why I had so much when others have had so little.  Why did I get wonderful, loving parents?  Why did I get white skin and a beautiful suburban home?  Why did I get to hear about Jesus when I was young enough to skip the typical rebellious teenage years?  Why was I born in the US?  I also have a lot of ‘Why’ questions, and I have only come up with one answer.

So I can give.  So I can pour myself out.  So I can be that drink offering that Paul talks about.  There are too many people already in this world choosing to look away because it’s too hard or too scary. There are too many who would rather be safe and comfortable than risk pain or suffering for the sake of those that have little to nothing.  This world doesn’t need more comfort.  We need more people willing to risk for the sake of their neighbor.  

You ask me, ‘Why do I keep choosing this?’ Because God asked me to. Because I can’t go back.  I have seen too much now.  I am different.  And at the end of the day, I WANT to be a part of God’s plan.  I am privileged to be a part of these kid’s lives.  It’s terrifying sometimes.  I absolutely feel ill-equipped 99% of the time.  But God is faithful, and I want to obey His call.”

I looked around the table as I finished talking and there were tears.  Tears not because anything I said was especially profound but because they knew it was true.  They were struggling hard.  The pain was too great.  The cost was too high.  They were losing hope.  Satan was winning the battle.  But in that moment, all together, we stopped and we prayed.  We filled that room with our tears and our cries for answers. We asked God to bring victory when with our human minds we only saw defeat.  We asked for more of His Presence and His Power and His Favor and His Strength.  

We went to battle.  Not today Satan.  You aren’t winning this one.

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I never wanted to be a missionary.  I fought God hard for a good several years about it. I told Him over and over that He picked the wrong girl.  I had a plan, and it didn’t include another country.  It didn’t include leaving my family and saying goodbye to my life and my dreams and my friends.  I didn’t want to save the world.  I wanted a simple life.  Basically I wanted the same life my parents had and had given me (with the exception of a few more kids because I was always a little salty that they only had 2). 

I never would have dreamed 17 years ago that this would be my life, and if I am being totally transparent, if I would have known at the time, I probably would have tried fighting harder or never stepped on the plane to come to Guatemala in the first place.  If I battle fear now, its nothing compared to the fear that regularly reared its ugly head in my late teens and early twenties.  I would have been scared out of my mind and would have gone running in any other direction besides this one.

But that is the thing about God.  There is a reason He doesn’t lay out the whole picture right from the start.  He knows it would feel too big or too hard or too lonely or too scary.  He only asks us to be obedient in each step, and as we are obedient, He also over and over again continues to prove Himself more than faithful.  We see Him whisper soft words when we need guidance. We see Him part waters when we need favor.  We see Him calm the storm when we feel like we can’t go on.  

We say yes.  He sustains us all the way.

As my husband said, He knows His Father and he knows that He is so very good.

And you want to know the very best part?  

The best part is it is ALWAYS better than we think it is going to be anyway.  It may also be harder.  This is true. It may cost more than we want to pay at times.  But it is also sweet and good and rich and wonderful.  It’s a railroad track lined with both hard and good simultaneously.  

If I hadn’t of said yes and if I didn’t continue to say yes, I wouldn’t know the joy of hearing “Sarita!!” a dozen times a day. I wouldn’t know the depth of the love I could feel for girls that I didn’t birth from my body but are as near to my heart as daughters could ever be.  I wouldn’t know the equal parts grief and blessing to hug a biological mother as she has to say goodbye for another month to her children…grieving not getting to be with them but also knowing that she still has steps to take in order for her home to be safe place once again for her babies.  I wouldn’t know the richness of seeing the impossible become possible.  I wouldn’t have seen the miracle of healing over and over again in the lives of children…the sensation of hearing the doctor say, “ I have never seen anything like this!” 

If I hadn’t of said yes, I wouldn’t have my beloved first-born son or even the other two for that matter.  I wouldn’t know my husband and experience his steady, faithful, immense love for Jesus and for me and our family. 

Yes, this life is hard.  Yes I feel scared many days.  I may always walk that line between fear and trusting God.  I have set up my Ebenezer stones along the way, and yet somehow I still fall into the trap of wondering if the next thing God asks of me will be more than I can bear.  Will I have the strength to cross the river?  Will I have the ability to withstand the battle?

But the answer to the “Why” will always be the same. 

Because saying Yes to God is always the right decision. Because I don’t want to miss out on one second of all He has prepared for us.  I don’t want to go back.  I don’t want to close my eyes.  I want to see and taste and hear all the goodness He still has in store for those who love Him.  And because I want to see with my own eyes and continue to experience first hand the joy that comes with seeing vulnerable children and broken families finally drink from the living water that is Jesus Christ. 

What is the yes God is asking of you?