I think today is the first day I started processing any emotions, these last few days I have been so excited and just so focused on seeing the kids that I couldn't even acknowledge the craziness going on inside me. Seeing how much they have grown and how much I have missed them made my heart ache inside me. I didn't want to open up the wound that has been trying to heal these last 10 1/2 months I've been away. I have felt so torn by my passion for these kids and my calling to be back in the states. I feel like I am sitting in limbo, heart torn in two, afraid to move forward and afraid to go back. I wish I could explain it better than that.... I wish I could explain how half hearted I have felt about life recently. God planted this seed inside me and I watched it grow, felt the growing pains and enjoyed the fruits of love and relationship. And then with one swoop I felt cut from the branch laying beside the tree watching it grow without me.
Today as I shared in conversations with the kids and reminisced about all we have shared I slowly felt that passion, that wound open up. And then like salt on that wound I discovered the stories of neglect, manipulation and emotional anguish inflicted by people in these kids lives who are suppose to care about them. Thank God though that although the realities of their lives pierced my heart there was joy in seeing the continuous chain of volunteers and staff that are here pouring out each day, loving these kids in the ways they deserved to be loved. I found comfort in my pain that even though I cannot be here daily, there are those who are, carrying on the legacy of love and sharing hope, spurring the kids on to better and brighter futures.
I won't lie that it is hard to accept that someone else is loving on my kids, and I know that is selfish and ridiculous really to consider them mine, because they always were and always are going to be God's kids. I just struggle with what my part is now; how can I love these kids and still live my life back in the states?
