Drink deep

All of us are wounded, bruised and bleeding
Some put on an elaborate mask and pretend they are whole, carefully avoiding eye contact so they don't give away a secret that everyone already knows.
I don't display my injuries openly, neither are they hidden as if I am ashamed...they are a part of me.
I clean my lacerations and wrap them neatly in gauze and colorful cobaan,
Steristrips and benzoin to hold together wounds deeper than skin
And an old fracture, perhaps splinted too late,
Knowing if I cover my pain it won't disappear, no matter how many happy-face stickers I wear.

Sometimes loss seems almost too much to bear:
Young mothers suffering, slipped away before their time,
Bony brown babies struggling for breath in my arms
The unloved orphans living on the street, with stick-thin arms and worm-filled taut bellies and eyes unshuttered to wounded souls.
Abused, outcast, unwanted and homeless, does anyone remember their names?

They tell us in school to guard against your patients' pain
As if only the weak nurses recognize and share in loss.
But I leave myself unguarded with arms open to embrace.
I can't risk the callouses on my soul.

So I take my 5-gallon plastic jug with it's motorcycle-tire rope
Drop it deep into the community well to fill it full with sorrow
Drinking until it spills out the holes and the top and soaks my grimy shirt
Sharing with the mamas and papas and toothless grandmas
The baby with the broken face tied in a lappa and drooling down my back
And the children that clamor to hold my hand and call me Auntie.
Can I do any less?

Drinking until I am saturated, until all I know is that
Jesus is the pillar that holds my life.
Until all I know is that God is sovereign, and he will keep holding me when no one else can.

And I soak in the little things
Wrapped in strong arms and a blanket of sunshine and brilliant stars,
Rocking in gale-force winds that whisper comfort and strength
While dolphins play in the spray outside my porthole.
I breathe deep the scent of manure that lingers in the air and the back of my throat as I bike past silos and green fields
Wave to the bold raspberries peeking invitingly around the "No Trespassing" signs
Drain out the warm dishwater while wildflowers watch from their canning jar in the windowsill.

I steri-strip a cut finger and firmly wrap a bruised ankle and offer a reassuring smile as I think of my own wounds bandaged tight.
Offer a cool and gentle hand to smooth a hot forehead
or slip in IV after IV with a promise of fluids and morphine to come
And I grab scarred brown hands and spin around and around to the beat of the djembe,
A shouted and joyous prayer echoed in my heart
In celebration of hope and a new chance at life.
My cup overflows, again and again and again.

I can feel the wood grain beneath me and a warm breeze lifting my hair as I watch the sun drown
Brilliant colors perfectly reflected in the glassy lake.
And I peel off my bandages, layer after layer of bloody gauze
There should have been scars, twisted and deep and red with fresh memory
Instead I find only skin, smooth and whole, turned dark in the African sun.
I am ready again to share in the sorrow and intense joy, to love until it cuts deep again and burns like fire and I pull up another bucket hand over hand to drink...
Because my Jesus has come to the well, barefoot and bleeding and asking to share our water
It is here I've caught a glimpse of his heart.