Soul Battle

Do you ever feel the battle for your soul?

I do.

Frequently have here.

On good days nothing can keep me down. All the need, hunger, and hurt have me relying me on Christ, and I’m confident in Him, singing, praying, speaking Scripture and Life with laughter over tears. Victory reigns on the battlefield of my soul.

Other days, I am prone in bed unable to stand anymore. And I repeat over and over, like Elijah under the tree, “Just let me go home, God. Take me away from this wretched world and no longer inflict it with my wretched presence.”

Those are the hard days.

The tough hours and moments when I’m waving a white flag of surrender, flattened on the bloody battlefield.

The second Monday and second Sunday after my October return were two such days.

That Monday the tears wouldn’t stop. The darkness overwhelmed even the intrepid Caribbean sun and hundreds of little hands happy to meet me.

Knowing the irrationality, the unfairness of my despair only worsened it—added guilt, further awareness to my failure, the way I disappointed everyone.

Three and half months of yearning to get back and after just a week I felt done in.

“I can’t do anything, God. No more. Take me home. Bring someone else.”

Bring someone who can match Beverly for speed, for fortitude, for cheer, for sociability, for affability, garrulousness, loquacity…someone not plagued by depression, someone reliable who can stand under pressure and not be struck down by despair. Someone who doesn’t fall so short.

Many times I’ve asked God why He doesn’t bring that someone else. Why He bothers with me. Why He’s chosen this timid, anxious, depressed introvert to come to this place of noise, chaos, pressing closeness and crowds of strangers.

Why me, God?

Well, I’m still not sure.

But I am sure of two things.

Second, this is where God has called me and although I’ve failed many times, He’s not failed me.

First, although the battle for my soul is constant, sometimes strikes me down to bed-ridden tears, the War is already won, and soul is secure eternally.

The fourth graders are so tall now. Having eaten Feed My Starving Children manna packs for four and half years now they are well-sized. My first Monday back I missed school sacrificially, as Beverly was ill and needed me to replace her at the airport for our visitors.

Rose and the kids still needed a ride to school, so I dropped them off, and for twenty minutes after hung around the courtyard greeting children not seen since June.

As I tore myself through the gate fourth grade Deborah came trotting up. She squealed upon seeing me and ran to my arms. We squeezed.

“I missed you so much,” I said. Tears leaked out. “I have to go.”

That Saturday we visited five children partnered by friends in the States, four by the same couple. The second of theirs we saw was Tchialensky, also in fourth grade. Tchialensky lives with his sister and cousin; both parents are in South America. He wasn’t at home and the house was locked. Fortunately we had a neighboring student with us who didn’t quit. Petite doll-faced second grade Angee marched up the alley calling Tchialensky’s name when the house remained shut. Seeing her flouncy skirt and flip flops round the far corner of a dirt lane I’d not yet set foot in I followed. At the corner was a house bordered by corrugated tin and cactus fencing. There I met Tchialensky’s nineteen year old sister. Her voice joined a neighbor woman’s and Angee’s calling for Tchialensky. Then he appeared.

Seeing me through the gate a brilliant smile broke through his furrowed face.

“Hey, Tchialensky,” I said, holding up my arms. I love surprising our kids at home. It proves over and over again how we love and value them for who they are, regardless of where they come from or their abilities.

“How are you?” I asked the top of his head as Tchialensky wrapped his arms around me. He and his other tall fellow fourth graders are level with my chest now.

“Good,” he answered.

“Were you studying?”

“Yes. Math.”

Gripping each other snugly we headed back down the alley with Angee and Tchialenska, the sister.

“Someone is here to see you,” I said as we reached the bank down to his house. Tchialensky grinned bashfully at seeing Mr. Philip, half of his Virginian partner couple.

I could clearly recall two years previous when Tchialensky had stood with Madame Jaimie, Philip’s wife, their arms around each other as they both cried; they cried the tears of joy of togetherness that only long-distant relationships understand.

And tears leaked out of my eyes.

Tears leaked out as Tchialensky opened his gift bag to reveal a suit, handsome black, surely the nicest garment this boy from a back alley plywood house had ever owned. The thoughtfulness of that gift brought tears.

And as we prayed, Tchialensky holding Philip’s hand, as I recalled how unfair it all is, again the tears leaked out. How unfair that we should leave them here in this insufficient house without water or light or parents; how unfair that loved ones must be separated; how unfair that my arms just can’t envelope all 166 desperate children at once.

That same Tchialensky I had seen the previous Monday, when I spent twenty glorious, painful minutes saying hello and goodbye to as many kids as possible. He was standing in his usual place by the stairs, at the head of the fourth grade line, and smiled shyly at me as I hugged all manner of kids between us.

I met his gaze and smiled.

“Tchialensky,” I called. “I want a hug.”

He came.

We share this phrase specially. It’s something I taught him at the start of third grade, having recognized this bright, frustrating boy with absent parents needed assurance of warm loving arms more than anything else. So I taught him to ask for a hug when he needed one.

Each time I see him he repeats, “Madame Rachelle, I want a hug.”

Tuesday when I returned for real to spend the whole day at school, Tchialensky gave me a note.
“I am in your heart because I love you.

When you say, ‘Give me a hug’ I am so happy.”

With such bliss as this, how could I ever feel discouraged or long for the retreat of my bed over the splendor of such love?

Alas I do.

Still I get stressed. Exhausted. Feel as though I’ve poured myself dry, spread myself thin, borne too much weight. And this time returning home to Haiti I felt that within a week. A week of such intensity, without the usual relative quiet adjustment period in which to settle, organize, rest, adapt. Without the camaraderie and encouragement of Beverly, with the added duties of visitors, the unfamiliarity of new staff and housemates and room--I broke quickly.

TobyMac has a song “Love Feels Like.”

I am tired

I am drained

But the fight in me remains

I am weary

I am worn

Like I’ve never been before

This is harder than I thought

Harder than I thought it’d be

Harder than I thought

Takin’ every part of me

So much harder than I thought it’d be

But empty’s never felt so full

This is what love, this is what love feels like

Poured out, used up, still givin’

Stretching me out to the end of my limits

This is what real love, this is what real love feels like

This is what love feels like

Used up still willin’ to fight for it

This is what love feels like

Not everyone gets to know what real love feels like. I am so very grateful that I do.

That doesn’t mean life here is easy. Life here is extraordinarily difficult. This time I came back a month later than planned, to a remodeled school, twenty-five new children, three extra housemates, a new bedroom, seven visitors, and a sick Beverly. (Don’t forget the usual humidity, heat, sporadic electricity and internet, confinement, lack of books and privacy and hot water…)

So much harder than I thought it’d be…

Each time I come back it seems harder. Fuller, more wonderful, and so much harder than I thought it’d be. God grows me, stretches my limits further each time, lets me know love more real, more deep than ever before, and it’s tough.

This love is a battlefield. Sometimes I’m losing. Sometimes I can’t stand, can’t stop the tears, can’t help but feel like I’ve reached the end of my limits, like Elijah under the tree I’m spent and just long to stay there and sleep in the anonymous shade.

But, two things I know.

Second, this is where God has called me and although I’ve failed many times, He’s not failed me.

First, although the battle for my soul is constant, sometimes strikes me down to bed-ridden tears, the War is already won, and soul is secure eternally.

Real love is a battlefield. Sometimes I’m losing. But when I’m standing on that field of victory feeling the swelling joy among my Haitian family, our 166 most beautiful children, myself and God our Father, I know that no matter how emptying, how frustrating this life of carbohydrates, hand-wash laundry, cockroaches, traffic, unpurified water, malaria, protests, burning tires, long days, hungry bellies, life and death need—empty has never felt so full.