grace

since i've been here i've realized that i've never really understood grace...not like i understand it now anyways.  the first two weeks of being here i spent doing pediatrics.  the stories were heart-breaking.  and for two weeks i tried to comprehend why i am living the life that i am and these precious kids are lying alone in hospital beds dying of HIV or malnutrition or other equally dreadful things.  it seemed so unfair.  it seemed like all the suffering was heaped onto them and none on me.  i almost felt guilty praying for my safety.  i would pray that i wouldn't get stuck by one of the multiple used needles lying in the beds or that i would miraculously get through this time without picking up TB...but then in the back of my mind i would wonder what gave me the right to even pray that.  why should i be immune to it all when these helpless, innocent babies were suffering from decisions that they didn't make and that they had no ability to change.  they didn't choose to be born where they were born, with the diseases they have, and the poverty they live in, and the neglect they suffer. 

surprisingly to me, it didn't really make me question God's goodness.  maybe when you see suffering on a smaller level it can make you question why God would do such a thing.  but when you see things as terrible as the things that i am seeing there is no part of me that thinks God could possibly have had anything to do with this.  maybe i could accuse God of letting someone lose their job or have a stroke or lose a grandma...the normal suffering we see if the US.  but when i walk into the gates of the hospital at Bara, everything in me believes that God had nothing to do with this.

the thing that it did make me do is process grace.  it made my prayers be centered around God's grace and mercy.  instead of just asking God to keep me safe, i acknowledged that i have done nothing to deserve safety but asked that in His grace He would protect me.  i suddenly looked at the life i am living with a whole different perspective.  everything about my life became a display of God's grace...my life seemed too good to be true. 

but i still continually questioned why me? why do i have what i have and they have what they have?  as much though as i put into this question....i never made any progress to the answer.  and then i realized i don't think i ever will.  i don't think that i will ever be able to comprehend the answer to that question.  i think that God's understanding is so far beyond mine in that, i don't have the capacity to get it.  and i realized that carrying the burden of that question was not going to do me or them any good.  i realized that the best that i can do is to embrace what i have.  i want to live a life that makes the most of what i've been given.  i want to be a good steward.  i don't want to hoard the blessings.  i want to redistribute the overflow of what i am given.  i want to live with incredible joy as i realize the grace i've been shown and i want to share it.