Precious One

I fully realize that I began this blog with hopes of updating friends and family with the news of our little one.  However, the events of today leave me thinking.  Allow me to elaborate. 

My lovely twelve year old friend asked earlier in the week to come visit.  She LOVES coming over and baking sweet treats with me!  She's learning how to read the recipes and how to measure the ingredients.  Usually, she comes over with her big sis, but today she came alone.  She spoke incessantly, telling me about the events of the summer, her mom's upcoming surgery, her fear about the future, etc.  The main topic of which she spoke: the absence of her dad.

She tells me how he left them.  How even though she remembers little of him, she misses him. She says how much she needs a daddy.  Someone to take care of them.  She tells me how she had to tell her new summer camp friends that her dad didn't want her and her siblings anymore.  How he didn't want to take care of them.  Yes, she even tells how he pinched her when she was little and it hurt.

As the monologue continues with intermittent conversations of brownie baking, she says something that catches me off guard.  (As if what she was already saying didn't!)  She begins to tell me how she used to talk to L like he was her dad.  I'm thinking, "Aw.  Cool, that's great.  I know he sees her and her siblings as part of his family.  He's such a great guy."  Not only that, but she says that NOW, NOW that's he's married and having his own child, she just can't do that anymore.  I'm left thinking, "Why?  Why not?"  So I ask her.  Her response?  "You just don't understand."  Ouch.  She is right after all.  I can't.  My shoes haven't walked where hers have.  Although I can never fully understand the depth of her pain and fears revolving around this very issue, I crave the ability to help, the knowledge of what exactly to say and the power to fix it, to make everything better. 

But really, what can I do?  How can I take away her pain?  I'm sad that she hurts.  I'm sad that I feel helpless to fix the problem.  The truth is, only Jesus can bring healing and comfort.  So I pray.  Surely He can use me to help.  I'm willing.  After all, isn't this what pure religion looks like... "to look after orphans and widows in their distress..."?  What about the others?  The other broken-hearted children without fathers?  What can we do?  Is there hope?  No, not outside of Jesus there isn't.  But praise Him, who gives us hope and a future!

I want her to know.  To know her beauty and worth in and from the One who "knit her together in her mother's womb."  Beautiful girl.