Hope

She lies naked on the cold cement floor of the local "hospital". She is unable to walk and has been this way for a while. Her bedsores are untreated, and her tattered piece of foam is soaked through with urine that trickles across the cement, the stench almost unbearable. 

I bend to greet her, taking her withered hand in mine. Her cloudy eyes light up and a smile shows rotten teeth as she struggles to pull her thin sheet over her exposed body. 

"The hard work has made her old before her time," the nurse tells me. He claims she is 60, but her cloudy eyes, white hair and rotten teeth suggest otherwise. 

Two weeks ago she was raped. She was unable to walk...unable to escape...unable to defend herself.

Someone brought her to the health center where she has been lying, alone, since then.

"Her children live away...there is no one to cook for her, no one to care about her. If we
were not giving her porridge every day she would have died by now," the nurse tells Misty and I. "We just need someone to cook for her...we will provide the food if only they can cook it. But there is no one. No one will help her," he says. 

I am overwhelmed with anger as I drive home. Raped...this old woman who has nothing and no one. This old woman who is helpless and alone...defenseless...crippled...raped...

I can't wrap my mind around it. I can't fathom the evil in this world. Once again I struggle to hold onto hope...the promises of God...

"For the needy shall not always be forgotten, and the hope of the poor shall not perish forever."                                                              Psalm 9:18
"For he delivers the needy when he calls, the poor and him who has no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy. From oppression and violence he redeems their life, and precious is their blood in his sight"          Psalm 72:12-14

Precious is their blood...precious is their suffering. These are his lost sheep, those he left the 99 to find: the poor, the needy, the broken, the hungry, the lonely, the abandoned...they are HIS. His children...He created them for himself and loves them more than his own life. He died so that they could have hope.

THIS is the good news, the gospel.  

There is hope...hope for the hopeless. Hope for today, hope for tomorrow, hope for eternity. There is a better life now...one of love, peace, and healing...one where you can be forgiven and learn to forgive...one where griefs are comforted by one who is familiar with them...one where we can live in freedom from guilt and shame...one where we can know the One who knows us intimately and loves us still.

And so tomorrow we will go back. We will bring food. We will bring clothes. We will bring soap and blankets. We will bathe her and feed her. We will smile and chat We will bring hope, His hope. 

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As  it is written,

                    'For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

                       we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered,'

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."                         Romans 8: