Today I saw the suffering Christ......again

Today, once again, I had the opportunity to sit and minister to the suffering Christ.

Tonight I am writing to share my experience of how this ministering is affecting me and who I am and who I am becoming as a result of it.

It is a very disheartening thing for me to see a small child in such emotional pain. This small child is going through some rough things due to the abuse he has suffered in his short life.

To see his face crunch up in terror and emotional overload makes me want to jump in and rescue him. I try. We all do. But today, after his episode was over and he collapsed on the floor in a ball and just wept, crying out for his "mommy" in an exhausted, weak sort of way, all I could do was talk reassuringly to him, rub his back, and gently wash his face with a cool washcloth. He eventually sat up and was able to hear my voice, make eye contact, and move on with his day.

To see children every day who through most of the day appear like normal, healthy, silly children, then suddenly become terrorized due to some hazy memory of being sexually abused, or hit, or abandoned, or not fed, or neglected can sometimes be very very hard.

This is one of the main reasons I go to church so often. I have to bring these things I see to Jesus and I have to let his Grace flow over me and strengthen me for the next day. It is the only way I can make sense out of what I see each day through my work. It helps me see that the children I try to help each day are really my suffering Jesus in disguise.

The sad part for me is that every single day, in some form, I see Jesus being crucified and sometimes I don't see resurrections, only the sad parts. Then I think of the future these little ones will probably have and it can sometimes be overwhelming.

Still, the call is there...."whatsover you do, you do to me" - "he who receives a child receives me.".....

I can't ignore their cries because then I would be ignoring Jesus who is my everything.