bringing you through that door

by Alanna

There's this door in my heart. Most the time I keep it shut and locked. I've even let the vines grow over it so some days I hardly notice that it's there. Behind it lies the suffering of millions. A bloody holocaust in the country I call my own. The cries of all the Djemys in the world who are separated from their parents for a chance at survival. The senseless deaths of so many from diseases that are easily preventable, easily treatable. The mommas who can't feed the babies they pushed out of their own frail bodies. The man who stands on the corner with a sign looking for what? For hope? And that small broken country just a two hour flight south from our prosperity. Those five letters that put together and spoken aloud make me cry every time. And those starving for truth. All over the whole world.

The reason I keep that door locked is because I can't fix those things. I can't even hop on a plane and go sit with them in their suffering. I can't mail them my life savings. And I can't just lay in bed and cry for them all day. To weep with those who weep could be debilitating when so much of the world is weeping, so many of these twenty four hours. I also don't know what to do when I feel cold water flow over my hands from the tap in my kitchen, every day. On and on it could come. And I feel so acutely that I don't deserve this, and that all is grace but how do I give some of mine to them?

Anyway, since the door got opened recently I've been thinking that maybe the solution isn't always to keep it shut and locked. Maybe there's something more I can do than just pray and cry. Maybe I should give my children a glimpse inside. Not into the horrors, no. They are too young and innocent. But maybe I should crack their vision just a little bit, to realize that the world is big. That we have been given what we have been given for a purpose. That maybe, just maybe, we could give our box of granola bars to the man on the corner. That we could pray together for the kids who are hurting in a country that's not ours. And choose to believe that those prayers matter because God made all these promises to be the defender of the fatherless. That we could share everything, however we can, and and claim nothing our own. I don't know what that could look like. And the not knowing makes me too afraid to try. But tonight I don't want to fear anymore. I want to try to crack that door. And trust the King with that flood of sorrow, come what may. Maybe I'm not meant to keep the door closed. Maybe I'm meant to bring others through it.