I Need, but I don't want to.

  I went on a house visit today with the nurse I'm helping. I had been in the clinic already the last two weeks, so I wasn't too shocked by the way people have to live. I also spent Tuesday in a primary school helping to teach grades 1 and 2 how to make new colors from the primary colors. What I saw as I walked deeper into these neighborhoods only confirmed what I have begun to realize in the last couple weeks: I don't know what it is to need. I don't know what it means to be hopelessly destitute. 

  As I went on a house call today with the nurse whose clinic I've been working at, I finally realized how my mind was working to take in what I saw: I felt like I was walking through a war-torn city. As I walked carefully over shards of glass, stepping over streams of who knows what liquid, and entered into a building that I would have labelled as uninhabitable if I was in the US. We walked up a flight of stairs and up to a huge metal door. The window to the right of the door was missing a window pane. We walked into a dark hallway, stepping carefully because we couldn't really see where our feet were landing. There were three large tubs of what looked like clean water in the corner of the hallway. I learned that in neighborhoods like that one, the city hardly ever turns on the water so when it is one people stockpile as much as they can (I assumed that was what the water was for). We then walked into the first room we came to, where the patient asked us to sit on her bed which was really just a large cushion on the floor. As I looked around, I once again was in awe of how some people live. The room was maybe 5 feet across and 10 feet long. The window had bits of cloth stuck every which way instead of glass panes. There was a light above our heads.

  I don't mean to simply write stories of what I see, but as I work through what I see my heart applies it to what I am learning in the study "Sonship." My comprehension of neediness deepens, and my understanding deepens of what it means to be broken and needy in a way that is candidly vulnerable. I honestly don't want to go there, to be truly vulnerable, with people and especially not with my Heavenly Father. I really just don't want to need him. I want to figure this out on my own. I want to deserve His grace!

  This week I have started reading through Paul Miller's "A Praying Life." Reading through the first chapter I could feel my heart nodding in agreement. I have grown cynical as far as speaking with my Father goes because I don't believe me conversing with Him will have any effect on life. I don't believe in His power, the consuming fire that is His love, His passion for purity, and His unwillingness to leave His daughters and sons alone. I need Him, but I don't want to; although, I want to want to (if that makes any sense). 

May the God of hope

fill you with all joy and peace

as you trust in Him,

so that you may overflow 

with hope

by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:13