Every week I feel like my heart shatters and is rebuilt in a way that I never knew was possible. Each time it gets pieced back together it seems it is made bigger and one of these days, I am quite certain that it will be too big for my chest. Some days, today being one, I come home from feeding the kids and I weep as I clean up the dishes. I promise you, it is not because I am hurting. I cry because of the grace we are shown every day here. I cry because I am allowed to have my heart shattered to a thousand pieces by a place that knows perfectly well how to break you down and put you back together so that you are better than when you started.
Today one of the slum girls, Anjuna, sat down next to me as I was passing out the last few meals. She had her baby 'sister' on her lap and after a break to take a picture she picked up one of the meals and started passing out the food with me. A girl whom weeks ago begged from us on the streets now sat beside me and gave with a smile on her face to her fellow children. A girl who, when we started passing out meals in this particular slum, tried (and was successful on some occasions) to take multiple meals for herself, now helped explain to the coming kids and families that everyone receives one meal. The happiness in her giving was apparent. Can you see now how the change in her is so real that it brings me to my knees?
These emotions were only compounded as I thought about Anjuna being around ten or eleven years old and I re-read an email I received from a fourth grade teacher this morning. In the email she explained that she had stumbled across my blog through Sometimes Sweet and that her class decided to collect change in the month of December to donate to the kids here. She went on to tell me that though the socioeconomic demographics of her school are rough, the children of her class were able to "look beyond themselves and see the needs of others," they stuck by their decision to collect change and today, their donation made it's way to Guwahati. Children of ten or eleven years old saw a need far from the reaches of their reality and gave their nickels, dimes and pennies to help children of the same age out here. Once it reached here that love continued and the kids of the slums embraced the act of handing food out to one another. Can you see now, why my heart just breaks only to get put back together beautifully?
We have a huge responsibility in this world. The compassion that we show, the way that we open ourselves up in front of children affects them tremendously. Like light refracted through water, what we shine on them is magnified and multiplied and sent right back to us, or more importantly, to the world as a whole. Can you see now why it is so important to nurture a child's heart, to treat it as your own?
No comments:
Post a Comment