In a few hours I will be heading to a little refuge tucked away in a little niche on the outskirts of town. This is where I met little Locia, a girl with an independence that defies her size. She is one of the residents of this beautiful well-kept orphanage.
Locia has taught me a lot about love.
Thing is, she doesn’t want anything to do with me.
When I first met this little one, she sat at a table on a sunny afternoon, as several other children colored, staring at the wooden boards in front of her. The sun shown on her disinterested face, not marred, rather, accentuated by the marks that mottled her left cheek, caused by birth or some other incident. I tried to interest her in coloring, but she was anything but interested. So I sat beside her.
She began dozing off, doing that hilariously embarrassing thing we do as humans, head slowly drooping to the side, lower and lower, to suddenly rebound back up to it’s original position.
I wanted to pick her up, and hold this dear child, drawn to show her that someone saw her, but I feared the repercussions of loving a child who is not interested.
So I scooped up that dozing girl. She stirred enough to lock her arms around my neck as if she was never going to let go, then proceeded to fall back into a slumber for the next hour, in which she deposited a gallon of drool on my shoulder. So love wins, and the story goes on happily ever after…
Not So.
Every time I have returned, Chochi has been one of the most difficult kids I have encountered, spouting off obscenities and harassing her peers in spiteful glee. Then I found out why.
BY A DRUG-ADDICTED MOTHER TRAPPED IN PROSTITUTION.
I wanted to give up. This girl has seen things. You can see the knowing look in her eyes. No wonder she shuns love, especially from a guy like me. I represent much more than abuse and abandonment…a cage. I wanted to give up. But my heart wouldn’t let me.
God started whispering. “I have pursued you relentlessly, loving on you, but you often weren’t interested. You could do it yourself; you thought ‘why would anyone want to love me anyway.’ But I could not stop despite your rejection of my love. I have overtaken you. Yet at times, you still fall asleep, becoming numb to the love you don’t always believe in. But I’ll still hold you. I’ll hold you and wait.”
Abba has shown me, through a walled up child how HIS heart won’t let Him give up on me. This is what has driven me to continue to simply sit with this orphaned child regardless of whether she accepts our love.
As we left the orphanage last week, Sarah confirmed what Jesus had for me with these words, “Don’t give up on that girl. She needs to see a man in her life who is willing to stay, regardless of what she does.”
So I will head back to the orphanage in a few hours, letting the Father’s resolve to Love, the Spirit whom IS Love, fill me with the strength to not give up. Because HIS heart will not let me.
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