Noticed

Mary's song. Did you hear it?
 Her heart is riveted. She is shaken with hope. Listen. Mary sings as a woman who knows of the sorrows, hunger, the corruption of government, and the disparity between the poor and the rich. She sings. She knows who she is, and she knows that God has bent down to take notice of her, notice of a nation, and notice of the world. You can hear it there, in the song, the tiredness of Mary. She was young but oh so tired of the way the world was going without a Savior. 

In the dusty, dried-up riverbed, I felt my stomach twist within me.
It stunk. Everything smelled. The family we were looking for was broken inside and out. Two small children needed help, and it was our task of the day to meet them. If I had realized how difficult that would be, how long of a journey it would take, how desperately entangled my heart would become, I may not have come at all. 

Not knowing which ger belonged to them, we walked through the maze of homes, calling out their names until finally, one little boy no more than three years old waved out to us, announcing he was who we were looking for. The sight of him touched a nerve I didn't know I had until that very moment. It was the nerve of injustice. Until that moment, it had never been meddled with. I'd never been near a child so neglected. And then his six-year-old sister came around the corner to stare at me. She was a lost child, as lost as I had ever known. I soon discovered they had been locked outside their home for the day. They did not know where their mom was or when she would return for them. None of this seemed strange to them. It was I who had to pull my jaw shut and accept the reality in front of me.  

Overwhelmed by the state of their lives, I thought, God! Do you see this? 
DO YOU NOTICE WHAT IS HAPPENING ON YOUR PLANET? Immediately I began to sense the presence of the Lord. While I wanted it fixed, He was sending me to notice. I was overwhelmed with the thought that I was the one sent to notice. There was no one else here besides myself and my missionary partner. Of all the people in all the world, it was us. So now what?

The police were not a safe place at the time. A well-run department of children's services did not exist. I thought of taking them home. I imagined myself inviting the children into the car, driving away, ending up in jail that night for kidnapping. The eyes of the people living in this hellish place were certainly glued to me. I suppose they were wondering what I was going to do. And I too was wondering.... what.... what was I to do?
 

"Let them know you see them." I felt the Lord say. "Let them know you will be back to visit them."
That's it? I wondered. 
Noticing felt weak. It felt pointless, but it wasn't.
Years went by. Years of noticing, and then one day, after all that waiting, the right doors opened, and God made a way to get them into a home where they were safe, loved, and nurtured. The last I heard of them, they were in school, thriving and excelling. I lost track of them over time, and I wonder now if they remember the yellow-haired lady who came too often and who seemed to notice everything. 

And God came here to us not in a rush, not in a hero’s cape. He took notice of our poor and sick state and came with a long-term plan. He came to us here in our mess as a baby who would grow, grow slow, become one of us. He noticed from the moment He called, 'Adam where are you?” to the manger, all the way to the cross...noticing. And It worked. We. Are. Free.