Break My Heart for What Breaks Yours

Last night I laid in bed thinking about Tedi's mom.  Was she hungry? Did she miss him?  Was she alive?  Were his siblings alive?  Is her face etched with evidence of a trying life, her lines and hurts unable to be covered by Clinique like mine? As I cuddled up next to my husband under my duvet comforter, did she miss her husband, deceased from typhoid (a preventable disease if only their water was clean)? If I don't carry Worknesh's battle scars, even in my heart, will anyone else?

I sit at work today and tell a family their son may have cancer.  I stare into the face of a battered baby.... both physical battle scars wondering where this, the tragic misfortune that they did not choose, will leave them.  My heart breaking....breaking as it did last night thinking of Tedi's mother. 

The funny thing is... I do not often cry, at least outwardly and unless you know me, like really, you would think maybe I am cold.  But in effort to "keep it real", here I am...an open book.  I hurt for my patients....I cry on the inside for them.  I am shattered over and over and over by their pain and the hurt of others....  Because I have the nerve to sing the lyrics to myself.... "Show me how to love like you have loved me; Break my heart for what breaks yours." ...which leaves me here, in an office chair in the seventh floor of a hospital, shedding heart tears over children I do not know but hold on my lap and sing Old McDonald while dancing like a crazy lady....  which leaves me laying in bed at night wanting to hold Tedi's birth mother's hand, like I would that of my dearest bestie and show her pictures and comfort her aching heart and laugh over chinese food  injera.  These lyrics leave my heart continually asking God (and more days than not my husband and close friends):


"What else God....what more could I be doing?  How can I make a difference...How can live beyond myself?  Where else am I needed....where I can best serve you?"

So many questions.  But here is what I have decided.  I keep asking God to break my heart...because if not, I become a cold, disenchanted resident...then doctor with a heart not like my Father's.... I become a wife and mother more consumed with said job leaving me unable to serve my family.... I become a friend too into myself to embrace the needs of sister friends.  I become a human being existing to merely serve myself and not serve others.

But what does the "breaking" do...???  It is null and void unless it spurs action, causes change.....change in me evident to those around me...causing them to want to act.  What will I do?  What do I DARE you, CHALLENGE you to do?

1) Ask: Plead with God to break your (my) heart...I once heard someone say that when we ask God to do this, we often find our calling... Mine...well, it is obviously broken for children, hence my profession, heart cry, my passion.  BUT I do not feel we are called to one thing...unless that one thing is making difference....  God continues to break my heart in so many other ways but I having to remind myself to ask. 

2) Love: When people are difficult, love them.  When they stare at your black child and your white skin and ask ignorant questions, love them.  When they look different, love them.  When they hurt you, love them.  Love when it hurts in spite of the pain.  I say this because I struggle daily with this....There are some people that I just do not feel that I can love...people who hurt their children, people who hurt my friends and family, people who just down right suck.  Yep, I said it.  Some people suck.  But....BUT, we do not get the option to not love them...  because we were loved by someone greater first.  If you need inspiration to love, check out Mother Theresa and her awesome quotes.  My favorite "I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.”   It boils down to this....if we are not loving these people, people who might suck, there may be no else loving them.  If no one else loves them and we don't, who will.....because the sucky people are the ones Jesus really wants us to love.... THEY are the ones He loved.

3) Act: Do something.  Anything.  Hold a baby with bruises and scratches on her face.  Hold your friend's hand for no reason.  Buy someone's adoption shirt that you will never wear but merely to support them.  Take a bag of $1 Junior Cheeseburgers from Wendy's under the bridge to feed the homeless men.  Pay for the coffee of the person behind you.  Send a card to someone you may have hurt.  Sponsor a child.  But for goodness sake, just act.... you, me, all of us...what a difference we could make if we all did something.  Something small...

I will update on my progress with these....there are specific people I am having trouble loving....actions I need to take and ways to be more daring in my asking.... WHAT ABOUT YOU?  If I am looking inward for answers, I feel I should issues challenges outward.

"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute." Proverbs 31:8