Lessons from the CP room (posted a week late)

Meant to post this last week, but ran out of Internet time! Regardless, here are some more words of love from India.

Here's the scene: You're in India. Sweat is everywhere, drenching your clothes and beading off your brow. Mosquitos find their way to all exposed parts of your body, which typically only consist of arms, feet, neck, and face. Gnats swarm and flies gather. The sun is bright and warm and toasty. Yet all of all of these ingredients are necessary and appreciated, because this is what it is to live in India, to be a part of it all. You come to love the sweat and the bites and staring and the bug swatting and the cows and street food and even the constant car horns because this is India and you know you were born to be here in this moment.

Today, three of us spent part of our Sunday back at Victory Home with the most precious kids. Times at Victory have in all honestly been the greatest and most touching moments of my life this far. Special needs kids, everywhere! All in need of love and hugs, with so much energy it would make your heart explode! Ah, such a special place for the love of Jesus!

Since coming here, I've discovered that my heart has been constructed and illustrated by God with a love for kids with cerebral palsy, which I am so thankful for! In this spirit, upon arrival at Victory Home I usually head straight for the CP room and let myself fall in love with the kids there. Walking through Though the majority of them are bedridden, I think their hearts are the most special and pure because they can only express themselves in ways that otherwise would be overlooked.

These kids let their personalities out in such different and humbling ways, oftentimes without recognition for who they are individually. For example, take Shanti (the little sunshine girl I blogged about a few weeks ago, though her online name is Cassia). Little Shanti doesn't react to tickling, or talking in the same ways as other kids. Instead she has little grunts, or head twists here and there. Sometimes she'll scrunch her fingers around yours or try to stretch out in your arms as her muscles become more relaxed. And even more special are the times when she smiles and laughs! Oh, words cannot express the joy in my heart when I see and feel her smile. I am honored and humbled to sit on her bed with her (lice or no lice) and hold her for hours at a time. To share those little moments when she opens her mouth, or kicks her feet, or looks at me when I (try) to sing to her. To be there when she smiles and know which of her limbs have trouble moving, to put her hair up and know she enjoys having someone rub her head. Those are the little quirks of Shanti that make her the little girl God created. A girl who loves listening to music and shows that by trying to shake her head and wiggle her legs. A girl who kicks her legs when she's happy, who does her best to grab your shirt with her little fist when she's exciting. A girl who is beautiful and perfect and alive and designed with purpose through love. A girl I never would have known had I not been drawn to the still figure on her bed that first day. Had I not held her, I would never been given the joy of getting to know her in the little things.

Then there's sweet Joshua, another little work that's caught my heart. Joshy also has CP, and is conveniently set up right next to Shanti, nearly sharing a bed with her. On that very first day when we were asked to feel the Spirit call us to a certain child, I was drawn to Joshua, but also Shanti. I went to Shanti first because she seemed so off to the side, but my heart kept pinching at me to talk to Joshua. Honestly, it was near impossible to sit there next to him without wanting to just scoop him up, even though he's probably 14. Josh has some other special qualities besides his CP which give him what I like to call a "Benjamin Button" look. He had little tufts of hair on his mostly bald head, and a toothy look that never seems to quit. More often than not his tongue is sticking out, and his hands are often clasping one another. In all of these ways, he is fantastic. My favorite moments in the CP room have been as Shanti is sprawled out in my arms, I rub my hand over Joshy's tummy, and he giggles with a smile so big I think his tongue might fall out. Or those times when Shanti is sleeping so I plop myself down on Josh's bed, and he works with all the muscles and energy he has to curl up on my knee. Those times, I put my face real close to his and he laughs, laughs, laughs. He is so joyful when people take the time to sit and love him. He sits there on his cot, day after day, sometimes I think without lots of love. He can't get outside unless someone cares enough to carry him, as heavy as he is, out to a bench and then holds him all the while. Yet Josh isn't empty or vacant, but rather always carrying a look of intelligence. Josh knows what's going on. I truly think he has some world changing thoughts up in that noggin of his. Joshua has changed my heart without having a body which cooperates or a mouth that can speak. My soul has forever been sculpted by a boy who just wants to love and be loved, who loves tickles and has beautiful eyes. Little Joshua has taught me to love with my spirit, a gift which doesn't just come from a boy rendered as useless.

Soon I will saying goodbye to these little rays of sunshine, and it's going to be hard. It was hard to sit in that room today, surrounded by misunderstood beauties and babies, and know that it was the last Sunday I could love them up close. Hold them, feel their fingers in mine, laugh together, watch them fall asleep, light up at their smiles. My prayer for them is that one day they will have mommies that hold them and daddies who love them, every day and night. That they have people who love them and take them outside even when they can't say outrightly, "I love the sun! I love you!" That there will be much happiness in each of their lives, smiles on their faces, dreams in their hearts. People who sponsor them and actually love the orphan as they would their own kids! These kids deserve not only that, but the moon and the stars. They are special not because of their diagnoses, but because they are their own. They have heart, real and true and full of life.

They may have yet to change the whole world, but they sure have changed mine from the inside out.

"Blessed are the humble in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God." Matthew 5:3

"May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in." Mother Teresa

God, take my heart and give it to the orphan, for their hands are Your hands.