battered & broken.

Battered.

A reoccurring word to me the past week.

This summer I am working in a low cost clinic as a part of my Masters Internship, that I absolutely adore. It has been so eye-opening to me, and I have already learned so much. Learned so much about the heart of God. The women over the clinic are prayer warriors and I am so incredibly thankful for them. It is an amazing opportunity to work in a place that I am free to pray with my patients, and speak openly about the Lord.

Well the past week the Lord has been really re-breaking my heart by brokenness. My heart is for girls to reach the potential the Lord has for them, to their "promised land" here, to understand their identity, their worth, and how much the Lord lavishes His love on them. It has been for some time. I had kind of lost sight of that in a season of hardship, refinement for me. Lost sight of the Lord's heart in me for theirs.

However, I have had a rare situation this week with a theme amongst my patients. Two things; most of them have been female, most of them are abused, and not only abused - but severely. It's hard for me even to articulate what I have seen this week so I won't really try. But these are beautiful, incredible women, whom you would look at & not for once second guess the horrendous acts that are happening to them and their beautiful children. As my last patient of the day, whose "husband" stabbed her 18 times in the arm - and to put it gently and as pieced together as I possibly can, looked like she has been attacked by a lion, walked out of the room, I ran upstairs and just sat there and cried. Yes, I had seen a concentrated amount of women that day who had had this happened to them, but HOW MANY TIMES do I turn a deaf ear to this because it happens every single day.

The Lord really begin speaking to me about His heart for His people like never before. What His heart breaks for everyday. The things that pull at His heart strings, that He cannot take His eyes off of... And the thing that was hard about it for me is that I had to watch them walk out of the clinic and not know if I was going to see them again or check on them, or see if they were okay. I felt helpless.

And that's when the Lord just so sweetly said, "Yes Taylor, break for them because that is what my heart breaks for, and right now be sad, it's okay - but you can't carry this around every day and let it steal your joy and make you sad, because then you will not be effective for me. You will not be a light. Use your brokenness to propel ministering to these girls, and other girls just like them. Let it be the lenses you look through and see hope, not their circumstances. Encourage them. Affirm them. Help them. Be me to them." And my perspective just changed in that little moment to what He sees everyday, yet in all of that is still in of Himself, HOPE. It's incredible, really.