But God.....

 I am a little over 2 weeks away from leaving Togo and moving back to the US. My time in Togo, West Africa has been one filled with so so many joys. So often being able to witness the hand of the Lord work something out, bring healing, or do something only He could do. It has been a time that has stretched me and grown me and I can truly say that I am not the same, but better and stronger than when I arrived some 5-6 years ago. 

 

But, it has not all been highs that is for sure. There has been lots of lows and hard during my time here. Things I will never fully understand, loss of friends and co-workers that still cause pain when I think of them. Loss of patients that sometimes felt like my heart was being pulled out of me. Because, after we fought so hard for them and prayed so hard for them we lost them anyway and I had to reconcile myself to that fact. That ultimately God decides, not me. How arrogant of me to ever think it was up to me in the first place. But sadly and honestly there were times that I did. I have been comforted by so many things over the years but pouring over the scriptures where the writers pointed out the Lord’s sovereignty has given me the most comfort. 

 

The Lord’s men facing battle, “Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God’s” 2 Chronicles 20: 15

 

“But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me” Psalm 49:15 

 

“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” Psalm 73:26

 

“With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” Matthew 19:26

 

“But God chose the foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are” 1 Corinthians 1:27

 

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” Ephesians 2:4-5

 

But God, in his unending mercy allowed me to see him work in ways that I could never have imagined: 

 

I had a massive hole torn in my heart by the death of a child a few years ago, But God used that to transform an entire family and draw them to Himself as believers and build a church in that village. 

 

Patients and work and deaths have piled on so often, so high that I felt like drowning, but God brought encounters with families or others that showed me Himself even when He seemed nowhere to be found. 

 

But God, has grown this hospital to be a sought-after referral center for northern Togo and southern Burkina Faso because we tell the truth and provide the very best care possible. 

I have experienced so many But God moments here and I will treasure them, even the hard ones. 

 

So why leave? Because as certain as I was that I was supposed to be in Togo in 2015 and then stay despite such hard circumstances in 2016, I feel the Lord leading me away from Togo to something new. 

 

Change is easy, transition is hard. I heard this statement a few months ago knowing that I was going to face those very things: change and transition. It stuck with me and has rung true in so many ways. 

 

Change has been in on the horizon for months and it is culminating in a couple of weeks. I am moving back to the US and the US will be my home base. I am not getting out of the missions game though. The Lord has given me a vision for what is to come. My best friend, Kelly Faber, and I will be engaging in quality improvement and best practice development projects in mission hospitals all over the world. I have seen the challenges of practicing medicine in low resource settings and have seen that great quality can be achieved. But I am also aware that there is NEVER enough time and energy to tackle some things even though it is needed. This is where our vision comes in. We believe that a high standard is achievable in low resource settings and we want to help mission hospitals reach that. We have coined what we call the Silver Standard. Western medicine strives for the gold standard in all areas. However, in low resource areas, the gold standard is often just not possible. However, we believe a standard is needed, hence the Silver Standard, the very best, possible care that can be delivered given the all of the nuances of the setting. This will be my new mission. 

 

I have joined Christian Health Service Corps (CHSC) and Kelly and I will head up this project for them. We have called it Iron 2 Silver to emphasize the importance of taking something that already has value and elevating it to a higher level. This is based off of Isaiah 60:17 when the Lord is speaking of restoring Israel. “Instead of bronze, I will bring gold. Instead of iron I will bring silver” 

 

This will require lots of traveling to initiate and coordinate projects once they are in place. This will be a huge life and direction transition, and I am very excited to get started on this new journey.  There have been so many things that have confirmed this decision as well over the past months. It is exciting to be moving in the direction that has been cleared by the Lord. However, I do not discount the process of transition that will take place over the next few weeks to months. I have heard it said that with every new change there is a grieving process as well as an excitement. Such it is with this. Despite the excitement that I have for this new journey, I grieve for my Togolese and ex-pat colleagues as well as my Togolese friends that I now have to say goodbye to. And as it is with grief, it tends to come in waves the closer I get to my leave date. I welcome your prayers through this transition process. 

 

I also would love to share more about Iron 2 Silver and this new journey that is starting to any and everyone. Feel free to reach out to me by email: mssndoc@gmail.com, scates@heatlhservicecorps.org, what's app or signal 423.297.6794 or text  

Frankly, to move this forward, we need funding. Please consider helping us as we start this new initiative to aid mission hospitals and elevate care around the world. 

 

To give: You can text i2s to 41444 and you will be prompted from there OR you can simply

click on http://igfn.us/f/1rsymf

 

Rejoice with those that rejoice

             

Often times here I do not post or share what is happening at the hospital or with me. Some of that is just a time factor but a lot of the time the stuff to share is the hard stuff. The patients that didn’t make it or the outcomes we wish were different after the fighting and pushing. Those are hard stories to tell and often not the stories people want to hear. But they are the reality of working in a resource limited setting where often patients wait too long to come in and a hundred other reasons.

            So you are thinking what’s coming. Is she going to go down the dark path and share those stories now. No, I am not those are the stories best kept close to the ones here that fought hip to hip with me and we lost anyway. 

            

          

 What I am going to share are two stories that should have also been on that list but by God’s grace and healing hand they are not. Here at HOH we get lots of newborns that come in on day of life 1 or 2 that were born either at home or at a clinic and something is wrong and they come in or get sent in. These babies get a full septic workup including blood and CSF cultures and antibiotics. It is standard workup that we do many times a week. This little boy came in on day of life 1 and got the full workup. He was found to have neonatal meningitis which is not super uncommon here and was started immediately on antibiotics. His counts in his spinal fluid were high enough that we decided to re-do his LP on day 7 of antibiotics to make sure his infection had cleared appropriately. On day 7 his CSF showed over 20,000 white cells (normal for a newborn is around 30 or less and his initial CSF had about 850). His infection was much worse and what we were using for antibiotics, standard anywhere in the world, was not working. We switched him to the broadest spectrum antibiotic we have and prayed. He was not doing great at this point. Granted he was 7 days behind on a bad meningitis. A bad nursing error occurred 2-3 days into treatment and he missed 18 hours of antibiotics. The next morning he went into full cardiac arrest. We got him back but wasn’t sure what we were getting back as far as neuro status. He was stable but very critically ill. The next day, he took another bad turn and started struggling to breath. A STAT CXR was done and his entire right lung was whited out. I then put in a chest tube and he stabilized again. That stayed in for close to week and the day I took it out he opened his eyes and looked at me like, “seriously take this thing out of me.” The chest tube came out and he quickly came off of oxygen. He had another LP later in his antibiotic course to see how the antibiotics were working and he had zero white blood cells, the antibiotics had worked. Now, to see if he would eat. We had been feeding through an NG tube for close to a month now. He stayed in the hospital and struggled to eat by mouth for another couple of weeks until we decided to put in a G tube so he could go home. He did go home and about 2 weeks later he started eating everything by mouth and the G tube was able to be removed. I kept telling mom while he was in the hospital that she should name him Lazarus because he was dead and now he is alive. I was kind of joking but trying to convey the gravity of his case with her. I got to see them in clinic right after the G tube was removed and Dad was with Mom and I asked him, “What did you name him?” He said, “We named him Lazare.” (That is French for Lazarus). I have gotten to see him a couple of times since he left the hospital and he is eating and gaining weight and has two of the happiest parents you can imagine. 

 

            

The next patient, is a 10 year old boy who presented with abdominal distention and pain for several days. This is not an uncommon complaint that we see. We have lots of diseases here that cause intestinal problems, the most common probably being Typhoid. This patient came in overnight and I received him the next morning. I examined him and another patient with the same complaint that were currently both in general pediatrics which are non-monitored beds meant for stable patients. He was awake and sitting up in bed and his exam was benign. The other child was very touchy in his abdomen so I decided to move that child to a monitored bed and left this child where he was. 

            A couple of hours later, this child, the I left in pediatrics goes into full cardiac arrest. After about 10 minutes we get him back. His ultrasound at that time showed many dilated loops of bowel and he needed to go to the OR but he just arrested. I put him in our intensive care for resuscitation. He was clearly in septic shock and we could not get an IV anywhere on him. I ended up placing a femoral line for a few hours until he settled out a little bit. His exam got worse and worse and his abdomen more and more tense. He did finally go to the OR. I took some time before he went to pray with him and his mom with a translator and told him I would see him when he got out. In reality I was not sure he was coming back out of the OR. He had a volvulus, which a twisting of the bowel on itself, and a lot of his bowel was dead. He was given a jejunostomy and had very little viable small bowel left at the end, but was alive and awake. The surgeons were able to do a re-anastamosis less than a week later which was the first big step for him. Next and the biggest step was nutrition and would we be able to come up with things for him to eat, in small quantities, frequently, that would give him everything he needed. We talked to a nutritionist who has been in Togo and knows what is available and came up with a plan. He was in the hospital for another couple of weeks and his parents did everything exactly the way we asked them. And he gained weight, did not have diarrhea or vomiting, and had no complications from his surgery. I have been able to see him twice since his discharge and I have finally gotten him to give me a high five. I tell his parents every time how much of a miracle he is and how their care and concern has made his recovery possible.     

This is him in clinic last week 

So many days here are hard and so many cases are difficult. But sometimes…..sometimes….there is joy and gladness. I choose today to rejoice with those that rejoice. 

            “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” Romans 12:15 

Death to Life ....

         During my time in Togo, I have been able to be a part of seeing a village Bible study progress and grow into a church. It’s something that came out of extreme grief and so many questions before the Lord to seeing lives changed and renewed by the love of the Lord. 

 

    Many of you know the story of a little boy, Tama aka Puddles. He was a medically fragile child that my best friend and I cared for in and out of the hospital for many months and at times in our home. He ultimately went to see Jesus just before his first birthday. 

        His family became fixtures in our life and in a way to cope with our own grief we started visiting his family in their village. His tribe is Gam Gam and no one in his family speaks French and I do not speak their language other than simple greetings. But every time we would head out there, the Lord would provide a passerby to translate for us. 

It was a healing time for me as I had felt like my heart had been crushed by the losing of this little boy and I could not understand why it would happen. It was soon evident that a chaplain needed to be a part of this so that better communication could happen. 

 

We asked our Gam Gam chaplain if he could start doing a Bible study with this family. He did and not one but two Bible studies started in this small village. Everyone in the village knew Tama’s story and that was a jumping point for the Lord to do something there. 

 

The Bible studies continued and grew and many, over the course of a couple of years, became believers and followers of Jesus. Tama’s Mom and Dad were part of that group as well and the transformation was incredible. Tama’s Mom then became pregnant about a year and a half after Tama died and she ultimately gave birth to another boy. They named him Solomon citing that when David’s son died, the Lord gave him another and he named him Solomon.  

A full circle, ashes to beauty story, is rare and I feel privileged that the Lord has allowed me to be a part of this one. A church now exists in the town and when I am not working on Sunday mornings, I attend. This is the church. 

 

 

 

        Not that impressive by the standards of the west but this is what they have right now and every Sunday they gather sing and learn more about the Lord and how best to live for Him. The church has recently decided that they want to find a way to build walls and make this a proper structure. It’s a big undertaking for them and it is fun to watch these new believers work out all of the things that we take for granted like tithing, offering, what to do with money, etc. 

 

            “But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” 2 Corinthians 3:16-18

 

            The transformation of this community is so evident and the Lord radiates from them. You can see it on their faces and hear it when they worship. What a day it will be in Heaven when we all worship before the throne of the Lord. All in our own language and all at once, no division, just children of the Lord worshiping the King. I get to catch a glimpse of that here and it is amazing. 

 

I am attaching a video recording of this church worshiping Jesus. Hope you enjoy. 

    Church audio

 

    If you would like any more information about this story or would like to help with the building project for the church, please contact me directly. mssndoc@gmail.com

            

Solomon and his mom at a recent visit to my house 

Thank you for your prayers and support. I could not be here without that and it is never taken for granted. 

Love in Togo in the time of COVID

Lament is, “a prayer in pain that leads to trusting God” Mark Vroegop

I have been thinking and praying through this idea a lot lately. It is hard to be here in Togo; watching the news online and reading the stories of healthcare workers, death, stress, lockdowns, quarantines, and social distancing that is happening in the US and around the world. I watch it unfold from my corner of the world of Togo, West Africa. The inconvenience that it all seemed to cause at first to now the total disruption of life that has happened.

For a long while, I have only watched, read, and looked on from a far while all of this unfolded around me. I remained relatively untouched and unaffected from it all. But none of us are unaffected and what is happening and will continue to transpire has and will continue to disrupt all of our lives. 

The way our system works here is that we have a core group of missionary physicians that live and work here all of the time but that group really cannot sustain the work at the hospital for long periods of time and so we rely on short term providers to come and help. Many of the physicians here were slated to take a much needed and long awaited vacation at the end of March. We were all going to a conference and then taking some vacation time afterward. We had called, emailed, and asked volunteers to come and cover the hospital to make it happen so that we could all go. Well, as March went on and COVID ramped up, worry set in that the conference would not happen. Then the news came, no conference. Many of us were like, “ok, no problem, at least we will still get to leave for a vacation.” Then one by one our volunteers decided not to come. Finally, we all decided given what was then happening in Europe and the US that it was smart for no one to come to our still untouched area of the world with the possibility to bring COVID here. So just like that, no vacation and no volunteers coming in. 

I was devastated because I really needed a break even though I knew from every aspect of life and public health that no one coming in and no one leaving was the right answer. After this sunk in, instead of a vacation and a break, we went into prep mode for COVID. 

There was a sense of eeriness for sure, because we have all been here before. We are not new to prepping and preparing for an epidemic here. With the prep, came a weird anticipation that “it” is coming. With all of this, comes all of the emotions of 2016 with Lassa Fever and now every year that follows as we continue to be vigilant for Lassa fever every spring. Now, with COVID, there is a new, invisible enemy that will attack us. But this time, it’s not only us, it is everyone. The whole world is battling this new enemy and affected by it daily. For so many weeks, we just read about all of this and did not truly understand all that was happening. It is strange to be sitting in Africa and only reading about an epidemic that is affecting the entire world when so often we are the ones being read about from afar. 

Being an ER physician, it feels weird to be here and not “there” where I would be in the middle of the fire every day. Instead though, I am here, preparing and waiting, and weathering this in my own way. 

Epidemiologically, we are at least 3-4 weeks behind Europe and the US. The cases for Togo are slowly starting to climb and a week ago, we had a case in our town. Since then, we have went into high gear with vigilance, screening, and preparing an area to treat possible and confirmed patients here despite our overall lack of resources. How COVID will end up in Togo is yet to be written but we at the Hospital of Hope are making every effort to be in the fight to the best of our ability. We may not have ventilators but we are prepping to give the very best level and quality of care possible despite this. 

1 Corinthians 1 27-28 says, “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is low and despised in the world even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” 

My prayer is that God will use our hospital, our workers, us, to bring glory to Himself. There is no boasting in a time of an epidemic but there is a lot of lowness and “things that are not.” May I be used by the Lord in this…in this time of COVID….in this time of uncertainty and inadequacy….in this place….to bring Him glory. 

Please pray, because despite COVID being here, our hospital carries on. Preemies keep coming, cerebral malaria continues, cancer, and heart failure continues. Borders closing are good steps to control the spread. But with that means, no short-term help is coming any time soon. So hunkering down for now is wrapping our minds around that and all the implications that brings to future breaks, furloughs, vacations all of which are giant question marks for all of us. Pray for resilience…pray for strength…pray for peace in this time of uncertainty. As I continue to lament to the Lord during this time I pray that it could be something that turns me even more to total dependence on Him. 

Know that prayers from here continue for the US and the world as we face this thing together….try to laugh a little more….be creative with your time…wash your hands…and don’t touch your face. 

Pick me.....pick me!!!

These past two weeks have been extremely busy at the hospital. For a few days we had over 35 patients on our service which is just insane. Two doctors a day, split 12 hours each trying to care for all of those people and all of the emergencies that come in is, well, a lot. Things were probably not done as effectively as they should have been and some things probably got missed or overlooked. 

It was a rough few days and it took its toll on me. But then this week the census was much more manageable and it was like the Lord was saying, see….sometimes really good things happen….

Almost every conversation here with a patient or family member goes through a translator. Because even though I speak French, many of the families here do not. They speak one of about 15 tribal languages. So normally, it goes French through a translator to the patient and/or family. Because this is how it works, I will typically go and examine kids and then go back with a translator to explain the plan for the day, what we are doing, etc.

Almost every bed here is located in an open ward with beds beside each other.  That can vary from 3 beds in a room to some big wards that hold 9-10 beds. So when you are talking with a  family everyone hears what you are saying. 

It is malaria season and I have written often of the tragedy that comes with malaria. But I do think it’s worth sharing some of the successes we have too. It is true that we see a lot of kids succumb to malaria but there are even more that get to leave, recovering or cured and do well. 

I do these “are they ready to go?” rounds every morning and every afternoon. Sitting up, awake, eating, these are things I look for to see if they can go home. Sometimes I walk through and kids have a plate of traditional pate and sauce and they are shoveling it in. Well, that’s an easy one….discharge home. More often though it becomes this almost a game. I see a kid with his eyes open and tell the family, “ok if he can eat something and sit up maybe he can go home later.” That’s all it takes and next thing you know they have propped up the kid and are giving him bouille, which is like a porridge. Sometimes the family will call me over and show me kind of like, “see…see he is doing it.” It becomes funny at times because parents seem to be like, “ok there she is, this is our shot to go….”

This past weekend I walked through the ward and told one family their child would be discharged and the Dad of the kid in the next bed tapped me on the arm and pointed at his child. So I sat him up, awake but pretty weak and the Dad kept calling his name. The kid would just cut his eyes over to look at his dad every time and then look forward again. Almost like, really dad, I hear you, why do keep calling my name. It was so funny. Needless to say, that child also got to go home that day. 

It can be rough here, not going to lie, but there are times when it is very sweet as well. Please pray for the hospital, the nurses, the aids, the doctors as we continue to walk through very difficult days of malaria. However, rejoice with us as well as we see many kids go back home with their families, recovered. 

If you would ever feel like contributing to the work here at the Hospital of Hope, you can do so at this link: www.abwe.org/give 

click give now, then search for HOH Togo pediatric care. This fund allows us to help families pay for their bills when they are not able to do so.

Reality

I get asked from time to time, “so what’s life like there?” So this blog is going to be my reality. The good and the bad of it. This is where I live: 

It is pretty nice. However, that roof is metal and on hot days, which is most of them, it’s like an oven inside. We do have A/C in one room so I stay in there most of the time. 

This is my transportation: 

Always a lot of fun and really the most practical way to get around on dirt roads. Most of my days are spent at work but on my days off its laundry, cooking, cleaning, all the same stuff that occupy days off in the US. 

Working at the hospital here is my ministry and why I am here. We do shifts, either days or nights and when I am on I am responsible for all of the medicine patients. We are extremely pediatrics heavy and on most days, 80-90% of the admitted patients are pediatrics. We also have a very busy NICU and usually at least have 3-4 preemie infants admitted as well.  During a normal day, I will round in the morning and then take care of any urgent or ER type patients that may come in. There are some days when I am like, “yep I got this, no worries.” But there are many when I plead with the Lord for help because I don’t have the right answer or know exactly what the right thing is to do. The Psalmist says it plainly, “I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.” Psalm 121: 1-2. I find myself praying this prayer often. 

It is hard to be here at times. There is so much poverty, illness, death, and disease. We try fiercely, as a medical staff, to stand in the gap and to intervene when we can but death still comes. It comes like a thief in the night. We are in malaria season now and every year this disease breaks my heart as I see it steal kids from this life so quickly or it devastates them to the point of needing full time care and a feeding tube. 1 – 3 million people …..that is a big number. That is roughly the population of cities like Houston or Chicago. That is also the number of people that die every year from Malaria. Of those 1-3 million deaths, 80-90% are children under the age of 5.

A limp child is brought in to the ER area. He is unresponsive. His breathing is not good. Glucose check and its normal. We start bagging. Heart rate is ok. As we work, the family gives the story, 2 days of vomiting and fever at home. They took him to a clinic today, had a malaria test that was positive and he got a shot and told to come here for anemia. We continue to bag him while an IV is placed and IVF given. Labs are drawn and he starts breathing better. He’s placed on oxygen and I walk away for a few minutes. I am then called back over shortly and he is again not breathing. I check his pupils and they are now both fully dilated and fixed. He has no respirations at all. And just like that malaria has taken another one. I talk with the family through and translator and tell them how sorry I am but their child is dead. The nurses go about taking out the IV and cleaning everything up and I go back to another chart, another patient. All women here carry their children on their backs, held there by a piece of material. It is like a better but different baby bjorn. I happen to look over a few minutes later and the family is helping to put the child on the mom’s back so they can take him home for burial. This was not a new site for me, I have seen families carry out dead kids on their backs before but every time, including this one, I just stopped and my heart ached for them….They came for healing and with hope and it was too late….there was nothing to do….the thief of malaria had taken another one. 

Twins are prevalent here….we see them no uncommonly. However recently we had 6 sets of premature twins admitted in our hospital. I am pretty sure that is a record for us.  They are super cute but given their prematurity and all of the potential complications that come with that they are a ton of work. And, it’s very confusing trying to keep them all straight J. Are these the boy twins, the girl twins, are they one boy and one girl. Are you sure this is baby “A” and that’s baby “B”? So, for a long time now, even when our numbers of twins have not been this high, we started wrapping tape around one leg of each to “label” them as “A” or “B.” 

This is one set here that is close to being discharged.

                            Photo used with permission

Sometimes, after they are discharged and come back for follow up appointments, they still have the tape markers on. These kids are usually in the hospital for a month or two so it allows us to easily make relationships with the mom. She is a captive audience so to speak of all that is happening and going on. Please pray for us that we can display the love of Christ to her in how we care for her and for her babies. As we walk through this very up and down course that is preemie care, may these moms see Christ in us. Often, we don’t have the words to comfort or to console but may our actions display His love to them. So, as cute as they are, I am ready for all the twins to stop for a while. JThese kids rack up quite a bill for their stay, especially with twins. We have a fund that helps these families subsidize their hospital bill and if you ever feel like contributing you may do so through www.abwe.org then go to support….missionaries & projects….HOH Togo Pediatric Care. 

Sacrifice to prayer…..

Many of you know and follow my story of Tama and how his family have become Christians since his death. This tribe is GanGam and very spiritually dark. They do sacrifices, have witch doctors, and have some of the darkest practices that I have ever heard about. I remember the first few times I met Tama’s dad and how I could just feel the oppression in him. He was a witch doctor in this tribe before becoming a Christian. There is now a church in their village where the two Bible studies have merged to form this body of believers. I attend when I can and I am not working. So, not often but I try. Here are a couple pictures of the church. 

The service is conducted in a tribal language of which I only know the greeting, so for most of it, I just sit and smile. There is always singing and even without the language, you can hear the joy. This past week, a woman got up at the end and gave a report about how she used to do sacrifices, according to tribal custom, when she needed something or had an affliction in hopes that the sacrifice would appease whomever or whatever and the thing she was asking for or needed would happen. But now, she says that since she has Jesus, she no longer needs to find a sacrifice or to do those rituals anymore because she can just pray about it and bring it before the Lord. From darkness to light is happening here and it is an amazing thing to see the Lord bring these people to Himself first-hand. 

Far from the Shallow....

I know that it has been WAY too long since my last blog post. I apologize for the absence and please know that I do recognize that many of you count on these to connect to what I am doing in Togo. The absence has been a long one and frankly I just was not in a place to impart anything. It has been a time of introspection that has been unbridled and raw. It has also been a time of physical thorns in the flesh given to me and forced me to cry out to the Lord in a new and uninhibited way. One thing that I have learned is that nothing will force your dependence on God quite like physical pain that you are powerless to combat. 

Even though the Lord has been taking me through a season that has left me raw, battered, and bruised (physically and emotionally) I am at a place where I can say that at least now I am in the fight and not merely just a bystander. 

I have come back to where I love the Psalms. I think they display a realness in David especially. He was called, “a man after God’s own heart” and yet he struggled and lamented with the Lord so often. Psalms 42 says, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise Him….” V. 5

I find it comforting knowing that someone so highly esteemed by the Lord struggled as I do at times. 

It is easy, well easier, to go about life half engaged, half-hearted, and lackadaisical. It is especially easy in Togo, because so often the things pressing in are hard things. Hard cases in the hospital that despite efforts just don’t turn out as you hoped and prayed. Patients that show up just too late to save for reasons as trivial to us as they couldn’t find a moto to bring them. Trying to reconcile my mind and heart around these things day in and day out can easily overwhelm.  

We were created to feel, to experience, to savor this life. Why then do I fight that tendency? Because to feel, experience and savor here is most times trying, sad, and just hard. 

So to play off of a very popular song right now, I am far from the shallow….I am way out in the deep end, floating at times but mostly frantically treading to keep my head above water. Even though, at times, I want to stop and sink I know that what I need to do, what the Lord has for me,  is to stay out here….far out here…….

I hope these songs can maybe meet you where you are. There are moments and days when all I have been able to do to connect with God is to turn on a song. These have become those songs for me. 

God of all comfort….Iron Bell

http://youtu.be/gnfvrkz-7Jc

When I fall apart…. You sustain my heart….You rush in…. and begin …..to comfort me

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction...” 2 Corinthians 1:3

You Say….Lauren Daigle

http://youtu.be/oZvKJl1kK8g

You say I am loved….when I can’t feel a thing….You say I am strong when I think I am weak….You say I am held when I have fallen short…..and when I don’t belong you say I am yours….and I believe… what you say of me….I believe