I have been thinking a lot about the prayers we pray and how dangerous they can be. I want to take a few moments to pour out my heart about those dangerous prayers, but first I want to tell you a few stories about our lives and ministry that have occurred recently and apply to those prayers.
Story 1:
About 6 weeks ago I was contacted by my friend, Dick Rutgers, regarding a child with whom he had been working. He found little Kevin some months before, lying in his home alone and covered with urine. He was horribly malnourished and suffering from cerebral palsy. Immediately, Dick found sponsorship for him, and we began providing him with formula.
But he did not improve. We questioned if his family was feeding Kevin the formula or if they might be selling it for money. The answer was unclear, but it was clear that he was getting worse, not better. Dick called me because he had, once again, found him alone in the house and soaked in urine. He was also sick with fever and a respiratory illness, later diagnosed as pneumonia. His mother had agreed to take him somewhere for treatment.
As I heard more about his illness and the severity of his malnutrition, it became clear that he would die soon if he did not get out of his house. We had wanted to welcome him into our home, but we were full. Yet, when Dick called me this time, I asked him to give me a few minutes to talk with my wife. I spoke with Wanda, and we agreed that we would find a way to fit him into our family, even though we did not know how it would work. We had no more room to put a bed. Our staff and interns are stretched thin. And our finances are thinner still. But we prayed and said yes.
It was decided that Dick would find a hospital that could admit him and treat his respiratory illness while he worked with the mom to get him placed in our home through the courts. Dick spent days driving, waiting, and talking with courts, social workers, and the judge. Due to his heroic efforts, they finally got the necessary court order and he came to our home.
It has been around five weeks now. Kevin has gained around five pounds. His face has a pleasant roundness to it, and baggy skin has been filled in with fat. The little guy that would not smile when he arrived now gives a beaming smile to those around him, and even laughs. His high tone spasms have lessened by around 60% and he can sit upright with support comfortably.
In order to make room for him, we moved little David out of the boy’s room. He does not sleep well many nights, so we now put him to bed in the playroom in a crib that allows our night nanny to respond to his needs without waking the others. God is providing financially one day at a time. And, thus far, this story is a happy one.
Story 2:
Last week I was awakened from a deep sleep by a phone call. I stumbled to the phone and mumbled a bleary “Buenos noches.” It was a social worker from the local PGN asking us to take an emergency placement. I was able to wake up enough to activate my Spanish, and the details unfolded. A little boy...severe special needs...severe malnutrition...abuse and neglect...very sick and weak...may not survive. “Can you please take him? He will die in any other home.”
My heart sank. No more room. No more staff. We can’t say yes. So, I gave told them that I was sorry but we had no more beds and no more places to put a bed. They would have to find another home for him.
I hung up and went back to sleep...two hours later. It is hard to sleep after calls like that.
The end of this story is unknown. I likely will not know until eternity, and I fear to learn it.
Story 3:
We have been dealing with numerous malnutrition cases in our rural village ministry. In two cases, the children have recently gotten sick due to their weakness and compromised immune systems. In both cases, the illnesses were serious and resulted in hospitalization.
In these cases, we work hard to monitor the children as closely as possible. In one case, we arranged for the child to be seen by one of our nurses weekly to monitor his health. But a malnourished child can move from stable to sick and from sick to critical in 24-36 hours. We just cannot monitor them closely enough.
At the same time, the choice to place the child in a malnutrition center has its own drawbacks. If you can find space available in one, the family is usually limited in their ability to visit the child. In some cases, they are only allowed to see their son or daughter for a couple of hours once a week. This makes is difficult on both the child and their parents.
So, what can we do? One of our staff offered a creative idea. We should rent a house in our town and open it up to children who are malnourished. They can live in the home with their mom and a director and receive daily check-ups and supervision. The moms would be in charge of their care under medical supervision. Our doctors and specialists would be close by and readily available when needed. Such a great idea.
But it has costs. There is the money (about $3500 of start-up costs and about $1500 a month in operations, based upon 4 mothers with their children). And there is the manpower issues. But it would have the potential of saving many lives.
Again, the end of this story is unknown. We need God’s wisdom to know if we should proceed.
What do these stories have to do with dangerous prayers? The answer to that question is found in Wanda’s and my journey.
Back in 2004, I began to pray my first truly dangerous prayer. It was simple. “Lord, break my heart for the things that break yours.”
This prayer sounds noble, even romantic. You picture yourself being sensitive to and responding to the things that make God sad. But that is a shallow understanding of the prayer. And it is ignorance regarding what it truly means to have a broken heart.
The result of that prayer was I found myself being exposed directly to human suffering that had previously been limited to news stories or distant anecdotes told by missionaries. I was not prepared for the reality of the world, and my heart broke. It shattered. I was not prepared for the dreams or the tears. I would experience weeks where I could barely function because of the grief. I was broken.
And, in the midst of that time, God gave me a shocking realization. The grief that I was experiencing was just one drop of the ocean of grief that my Jesus carries. Every orphan without a home...every starving child...every grieving mother and father...every abuse and injustice...my God sees it, knows their pain, and feels it in His being. “Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows...”
So, at 4:30 in the morning after a particularly painful dream of a dying little girl, I cried out to God with my second dangerous prayer. “Okay! I understand! The world is broken and suffering! I get it! I can’t take anymore! I will do anything you ask me to do, JUST HELP ME MAKE A DIFFERENCE!”
Just help me make a difference.
If I knew then what that prayer would mean, I am not sure I would have found the courage to pray it. This simple prayer that I began to pray many times a day would completely wreck my life, and then rebuild it.
I did not recognize the cost of making a difference. To stay where I was then would have been easy. No uprooting my family. No trying to speak a different language or learn to relate to an entirely different culture. And no excruciating decisions. I did not realize that, in order to make a difference, I would have to put myself in a situation filled with choices that really mattered. Overwhelming decisions. Scary decisions. Crucial decisions.
I did not realize that, in order to save some children, I would have to hold other children while they died. I did not realize that it would mean nine instances of performing CPR in five years, and losing seven of them. I did not realize that making a difference would mean treating maggot filled bedsores or holding a teenager while he cried out in excruciating pain.
And I certainly did not know that making a difference would mean deciding to let some people die. I did not know that opening a home would mean saying no to so many dying children. (I have stopped counting how many because the pain was too great.) I did not know that I would be faced with decisions of whether a good ministry that can save so many is the right decision.
But that is exactly where I live and exactly what I do.
One of my favorite books is “The Insanity of God” by Nik Ripken. I am reading it for the third time as I write this. It resonates with me, because the author gets it. He understand. He writes the following:
“I was often forced to choose which villages we would go to, and where we couldn’t go because of limited staff and resources. Many of my daily decisions determined who lived and who died. These decisions were weighty and terrifying. It was an overwhelming responsibility.”
Those two prayers have led me to where I am today. It has also led my wife and children to the same place. My children have watched children die repeatedly and then wept at their graveside. Those prayers have assured that my children will never be safe or comfortable or callous to the suffering of the world. Our teenagers and young adults have experienced suffering in a way that few people ever will.
I had no idea at the time, but those two prayers are two of the most dangerous prayers we could ever utter.
So, living where I live and doing what I do, am I glad that I prayed them? The short answer is, “Yes.” The longer answer is, “Yes, most of the time.”
I won’t lie. There have been times in which I have regretted it. I regretted it as I held Thania’s lifeless hand in an emergency room after a frantic fight to save her. I regretted it the next morning as the morgue handed me her corpse wrapped in a garbage bag. I regretted it when little Maggie died on Christmas Eve after a 35 minute battle to save her life. There have been brief moments when, given the chance, I would have turned back the clock and stopped myself from praying them.
But 99.9% of my life is filled with a quiet thankfulness that I prayed those prayers. Even with the life-and-death decisions. Even with the grief. Even with the overwhelming need that surrounds us. I am glad that I prayed those very dangerous prayers. Because, at the end of the day, I really do want to be broken by the things that break God’s heart. And I really do want to make a difference. I want my life and my family to matter, not just for this life, but for eternity.
And for that purpose, I will leave behind comfort and easy decisions for the things that really matter. I will do it imperfectly and will regularly fall short. But I will do it with an incredible wife and children around me.
Will you? I hope so. Pray dangerously!
Blessings from Guatemala!
Daryl, Wanda, and the Crew
