Republica Dominicana: Learning Trust

The smell was faint, but amidst the dry heat, everpresent. But there I sat, little black and sticky arms of a six year old Haitian girl wrapped around my neck, inhaling a smell I can only describe as that of old infant formula on a sweaty child- a smell that a few months ago made me naseous. Only now, I put my head against hers and just sat as minutes ticked by, and her arms tightened around my neck.

I could have put her down at that moment and told her in broken spanish to go color or play with the few children still straggling around as their mothers gathered to collect their monthly food, but my heart was open for her. After all, to her I was just a Gringa (how they refer to white females), and she had absolutely no reason to trust me. Or to find safety in my arms. Yet there she clung.

***



These children here, they find their safety in Jesus Christ. They trust in Him, because without Him, their circumstances are hopeless. It clicked as I held that little girl and her mother looked at me, more appreciative for someone loving on her daughter than quite possibly that food she was there to receive. His playground is this dirt floor, his playmates are the poor- because they trust and find safety in Him, when this place is anything but safe.

They grasp that it isn't this world that is supposed to be safe- but Him, who we find shelter and security in. How many of us can honestly say that we find safety in Jesus on a daily basis, that we seek it in Him? I know I don't. I fail daily. I've begun to realize how much of my safety comes in things of this world- in a car, in the money that keeps me from poverty, in friends who put walls up around me to keep me "safe." Yet most of the time, that safety turns into barriers that keep me from the heart of who God is, and I sink back into the "reality" of this world.

All these barriers and walls that have been put in place as a "safety" measure in my life have left me with little old me and nobody else. Because what I consider trust is to more often pour my heart out in bits and pieces, and then pull the gates back up and lock the door. But in nothing more than a couple of hours, I had children climbing up my back, while two clung to each of my sides, arms wrapped around my neck. When is the last time you even hugged someone you knew for more than five minutes? The outpouring of love here is not conditional, and is a pure reflection of the trust that I've mistaken my own definition for. Trust in Jesus Christ, and through that, trusting in those who are led by Him. They grasp something I have seemed to miss the mark on.

I don't say any of this lightly. I've been one to make excuses for why I lack trust and why my heart stays on guard even around my closest friends and Jesus Himself. Years of pain and confusion. Hurt and destruction. Yet these children here- they still pour out the grace and love that only comes from trusting in God. And they live lives of poverty; drugs and prostitution, abuse and neglect. Every day. And still they trust.

What if we chose to live with our hearts on our sleeves, with the trust and security in Jesus that nothing can be against us if He is for us. These kids have something that we can't grasp. And that is that they have nothing to lose. And it is those who Jesus comes for, and those who He promises eternity and abundant life.

So really, trust Him. What do you have to lose?