Strike Sparks

I'm the kind of person who cries a lot. I cry during sad movies. I even cry at happy ones. Like Sea-biscuit. I think that God probably has an X-Large bottle in heaven for my tears. Something more akin to a water tank here in Uganda than a perfume bottle.

So when I say that lately I've been so overwhelmed by God's goodness that I just cried (for a really long time) and it means that I'm happy....maybe you can understand. My husband on the other hand, who always wants to comfort me, is perpetually confused. It seems impossible to him that my tear ducts don't run dry :)

And when I say that God has been so good to me, even in the middle of getting typhoid and dysentery, and officially pooping myself for the first time in my life....I really mean it.

Most people would not consider those "acts of kindness" by God. And neither do I...but what I believe I am finding, what I believe I am experiencing is something I've longed to have---a belief in God's goodness above the war zones, and sick children, above the starving babies, and the woman with a black eye. It's something that I have envied in others....and yes, even probably coveted (even though that's something you're not supposed to admit.) It's something my friend Cass has that I've always admired. To look death in the face, and to somehow still radiate God's goodness. To know it deep down, in your bones. It's something satan doesn't want us to know...because with it--we are unstoppable.

With it, we can go into any place in the world and not be afraid of what we will see.

This last month, God ministered to me in a way that was so unique to me, so beautiful that tears can't match it. He loved me in one of my favorite love languages--with words. He spoke deep promises into my spirit. He could have done it on His own, but He used people to do it.

He took the years of what I thought were wasted tears, and He showed me what they meant to Him. He showed me not a single one was in vain. He showed me that in a moment, He can release His spirit so strong that it breaks through. It shatters walls. It heals the sick. It changes everything.

He took the love poured out on the ground, for these women, for these girls, and He poured even more out on me.

This last month I got to see what I've contended for. I got to see women worshiping in a way that is more awe-inspiring than the dome of the Sistine Chapel. I saw women healed from diseases they have carried for a long time. I saw years of unforgiveness dissolve with their smiles. I saw dancing on limbs that were once useless. I saw children who will know a mother's love because she now knows that she is loved. I saw a woman who lost 3 children in a fire because of hatred, become a worship leader. Because God is good. And here they sing of that, even though sometimes there is no food. Here, their love for God is extravagant. And costly.

Here, a woman will go days without food her God because she doesn't want to sleep with a man. That is worship.

And what we witnessed was a piece of heaven on earth. God touched down.

They have tasted. And they have seen. And their hearts are His. More so even than mine sometimes. And for that, these women are my heroes.

Goodness. That is the nature of His heart. So when I doubt it, when I cry out for breakthrough, for healing of the heart, for miracles yet unseen...I will read this to remember. To know--that God sees. He sees. Every tear. Every prayer into the mattress. Every sacrifice. And He honors them all.

In His time.