When I was about 13 years old, I attended a worship service that included a powerful song about the love of God. As the words of the song echoed through the church, I suddenly had the clear realization that God could have chosen to let humanity go and never have tried to redeem them.
Several decades ago at a gathering of Christian believers in Ethiopia, hundreds of believers were challenged to send someone from among them to reach the unreached tribes in their country with the Gospel; tribes where nobody else had been able to go for generations.
I was nervous about the day’s events. I gave my husband a hug before I left the house with his reassurance that, truly, everything was going to be just fine. Even on the short drive, I could only imagine how horrible it was going to be. As I pulled up at my destination, eyeing it with fear, I knew there was no avoiding it. No matter what…
Late into the night over cups of tea going cold, I heard her story and surveyed the landscape of her life from the outside listening in. My mind reeled and my heart ached as her words landed in my ears. There were problems I couldn’t fix; solutions I couldn’t provide. She was in a desert season — and I couldn’t change that.
The sound of humming lawnmowers and the carefree laughter of children playing could be heard throughout the neighborhood on that summer afternoon as I excitedly cut through backyards in an effort to reach my house as quickly as possible
Several months ago, I was asked a very unusual question as a room full of eyes were laid on me, awaiting my answer. “What quality instantly makes you dislike someone?”
As I have studied Amy Carmichael’s astounding rescue work, marked by such a dauntless commitment to seek and save the lost, I am continually reminded of the night when God seemed to pose the question, “What if that were Hudson?”
When our first child, Hudson, was four years old, Eric and I had a memorable conversation with a missionary who worked in an extremely corrupt and destitute part of the world. Thousands of children were dying everyday from starvation and neglect in the country where she served. She told us about a little boy who was just about our Hudson’s age.
I had reached a breaking point. I felt spent, desperate even. Both my body and soul were at a point of exhaustion. How much longer, Lord?, I cried within.