love wastefully.

(from the blog archives, but I'm revisiting these thoughts tonight.)

I've been thinking about the kids in Malawi. I just miss 'em. I really hope I'll get to see them and be with them this summer. That would make me deliriously happy, you have no idea. I just woke up from a nap of which I dreamt of Malawi and remembered how we used to say goodnight to the kids. They would always hold out their hand with their pointer finger, pinky and thumb pointed at our hands until they touched. I found this weird at first, until I asked one of the girls, Caroline, and she turned her hand up and said, "I love you, Auntie." She had been making the sign for "I love you" in sign language. That gets me at my core. I really love that. I find myself grabbing a hold of any memory of them just to have them in my mind, to remind me that they are real. It scares me that at times, I wonder if I was ever there.

My time in Malawi can seem like yesterday and at the same time only a distant memory.

I've also been reflecting on our world in the past weeks and months and I've come to realize on a much deeper level how broken our world really is, and it's so, so sad. There is not enough love in the world. Someone once told me to love wastefully. What better advice, love wastefully. You can never love too much. Why is it that so many people do not receive the love they so desperately need from the people who should be giving it to them. I know way too many kids from broken homes, with parents who are never there or just don't take the time to care and it's so awful. They begin to search for their worth everywhere else. It pains me to look around everywhere in our culture and see all the things, things that will make you desirable and loved, things that will make you beautiful or accepted, things that will numb the pain and the hurts to make everything that weighs on you just a little lighter, if only for a little while.

My heart has broken over and over again for the hurts in the world, and in the lives I have been privileged to know, in Malawi and here in Seattle, and it's hard not to be overwhelmed. I've spent many a moments filled with deep sighs, tears and silence over the things I have seen and felt. I wish I could fix it all…

I was reading Blue Like Jazz this summer and this quote struck me, "The human struggle bothered Rick, as if something was broken in the world and we were supposed to hold our palms against the wound, reaching a felt need." Very well said…I love that. We can all be healers in the world holding our palms against the wound. To love where it's needed and to help where it's needed. "If I can keep one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain…"