the long arm of the Father

I used to be able to keep DHS at a distance. As in, it could remain objective, just an acronym for an agency I knew of. When I worked at a boys' home, I knew kids on the other side of the DHS call, long after the kid left home, long after the first frightening days in a strange foster home. I knew the far side of the system. But the sad and present experience of the phone call and the investigation and the removal of a child from his home...I could choose to keep that as distant as I can keep the child dying of AIDS in some African village.

One of our kiddos just spent those frightening few days in a strange home. We didn't know where he was, or where he would go. We just knew that he must be terrified. This time, the distance between me and DHS is short. I know what his face looks like when he's scared. I know what he sounds like when he cries. Imagining it brings real tears, not just a general hurt for the injustices in the world.

Life in the trailer park can feel messy sometimes. All those broken things in our society can no longer be kept at arm's length. They are happening not to "the poor", but to our neighbors, whose names and faces are a part of our lives. Thankful though I may be to be where I am (and I am SO thankful), some days the brokenness feels overwhelming.

Yesterday, when it all seemed so heavy, I felt like God kept bringing to mind a particular verse, one that I haven't read in a long time: "Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save" (Isaiah 59:1).

These days, I need that reminder so much. When I look at a bitter heart and desire to see God restore her to the woman she was created to be. When I see a child whose self esteem is attacked every day, and I need to know that God can heal. When I witness a broken family, and I hunger to see that God can redeem. The answer is yes, he can. His arm is not too short to restore, to heal, to redeem. I live and breathe and have my being in a God who is sufficient for all the broken places in the world.

May God grant us the grace to truly believe that, and then to step into those broken places and stand in awe as we hear him say, "Surely, child, my arm is not too short to save."