Tag Archives: Refugee

The Servant Girl: Part 6 in a Fourteen-Week Bible Study for Women

Welcome! I’m so glad you’re joining us for this fourteen-week Bible study based on Girls’ Love Letters from God. If you have time, you may wish to keep a journal to record your responses to the questions. Please DO leave comments, responses or questions on this post so that we can learn from and encourage one another.

The Servant Girl

Read 2 Kings 5:1-16

Last week I saw an amazing movie called Hidden Figures. If you haven’t seen it yet, GO. It tells the untold true story of three brilliant African-American women, who served as the brains behind one of NASA’s greatest operations in history: the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit. The film’s tag-line is:

Meet The Women You Don’t Know. Behind The Mission You Do.

Our Bible heroine for this week is also a hidden figure. She is largely unknown. We don’t even know her name. We’ll find her with a broom in her hand, sweeping floors, preparing meals, making beds, serving quietly in the household of the commander of the Syrian army. But this quiet, unassuming, insignificant girl has the power to change lives.

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Where’s God?

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So my husband said something from the pulpit that bothered me. Don’t get me wrong…. his sermons are great (okay, I’m a little biased).

He was talking about where we find God and how, with the advent of Facebook, we’re able to share our precious God-given moments with the world.

Our sweet granddaughter in Portland, Oregon, just started walking. He said. She’s adorable! Her parents post pictures all the time, and when I look at her, I think I see the face of God.

Of course he does. So do I. Just look at her….who couldn’t see God in those blue eyes and that big, toothy smile?

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But last week on Facebook, I saw another child’s face. I didn’t want to see it. (That’s the trouble with Facebook…you end up seeing things you never wanted to).

It wasn’t my sweet smiling granddaughter. It was the boy everyone’s talking about, the boy everyone’s writing blog posts about, the Syrian boy covered in dust and blood, sitting motionless with haunting eyes. The boy who didn’t look like a boy at all.

When I first saw that image as I scrolled through my news feed, I just quickly zoomed right along. What on earth was that? I thought, in shock. Was that a doll? That couldn’t possibly have been real. I pushed it to the back of my mind. I didn’t want my thoughts filled with horror like that, I didn’t want my mind seeing those images. I didn’t want my nice, joy-filled day interrupted like that. So I didn’t even read the headline.

His name is Omran. The image of him, bloodied and covered with dust, sitting silently in an ambulance awaiting help, is another stark reminder of the toll of the war in Syria.

Whatever that was, it must be someone’s idea of a sick joke. I thought, and continued scrolling until I came to my smiling granddaughter again.

But it wasn’t a joke was it? It was real. This little boy is real! His name is Omran Daqneesh. He was pulled out from under the rubble of his home in Syria. He is five years old, the same age as my eldest grandson, the one who just moved to a beautiful new neighborhood surrounded by trees where he rides his bike with his brother.

Omran’s brother died yesterday from his injuries.

And even though I’m a strong believer I just can’t help asking….. where’s God in all of that?

Why do some children die and some children live?

Why is it that my grandchildren can ride their bikes in safety while other children are blown to bits in Syria?

It’s so easy for me to see God in the happy, smiling face of my granddaughter, but where’s God in the haunted face of Omran?

If I believe that God is in every child, (which I do), then God can’t just be in the face of the happy – God has to be in the face of the hopeless, and the haunted, and the hurt. God IS there… in the face of little Omran.

God is there, crying in silent agony for what was meant to be a beautiful world where babies die and children are bombed.

I don’t know the answers to all my questions. But I do know that I can help.

I don’t understand God. But I understand my responsibility.

I cannot turn away. I am called, ALL believers are called, to be part of the healing in whatever way they can.

Only healing can take away the hurt.

*****

Sign this British PETITION to help 300 refugee children who are stranded in Calais.

Sign the petition or donate to the WHITE HELMETS.

Why I Don’t Understand God

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WARNING! THIS POST CONTAINS AN IMAGE YOU MAY FIND DISTURBING. (BUT SOMETIMES I THINK WE NEED TO BE DISTURBED)….

I don’t understand God.

I can almost, almost, sympathize with the atheist. How can it be that some of us live in a world of fun, while others live in a world of fear?

How can it be that I can jump on board my little wooden boat, and sail out across the lake to enjoy a picnic while others jump on board a refugee boat to escape being beheaded?

Daniel Ettter/The New York Times

How can it be that in my backpack there’s coffee, and chocolate biscuits, and a big fat subway sandwich, while in his backpack there’s only lemons for sea-sickness and a green laser pen, because if in the dead of night, he is bobbing around in the waves, he wants passing ships to be able to find him?

How can it be that I can take pictures of lily pads and sailboats and sunshine on waves while others try to cling to their children in the dark waters of the Mediterranean sea because their overcrowded boat capsized?

How can it be that my grandson can play on the beach with his bucket and spade, while the lifeless body of Aylan lies on the sand, and he’ll never play again?

AFP/Getty Images

I don’t understand God.

I don’t understand why I was born in England, and Aylan was born in Syria. I used to think I was blessed….I used to say I was blessed. But if I am blessed by being born where I was, what does that mean for Aylan or his brother, who drowned beside him, or his mama whose body was found washed up, or their father, who is left to wrestle with what just happened and the decision he made to rescue his family from ISIS and let the cold sea claim their lives instead? Are they blessed too?

My sister told me once, We are as much trapped in our world as they are in theirs.

But I am NOT helpless. And shame on me if I cannot crawl out of my cocoon of affluence to sign every petition, and weep for that boy, and give what I can to help.

And pray.

Because I DO believe in God.

I just don’t understand him.

Five Ways to Help the Syrian Refugee Crisis