He Doesn't Forget
“How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them they would outnumber the sand. ”
I will never forget the day I got to hold a little girl.
It was a Wednesday. We found out that morning that the “shelter for abused women” we had prayed for and prepared to visit in Egypt was actually not full of women at all. They were girls…children…babies. Small human beings who were living on the street for one reason or the other; many, in their few years on this earth, had been beaten, abandoned, raped, or forced into prostitution. One 9 year-old girl who had just arrived was kicked out of her home and had her arm broken by her father because she couldn’t bring in enough income.
This shelter was a warm bed, a hot meal, an education, a chance to belong, and a refuge. It was changing their lives. However, this safe place was government run and we were the first Christian group that had been allowed to come and visit them. When we arrived we were told that many of the girls struggled with self-esteem and so they wanted us to talk to them about self-worth and play whatever games or activities we were prepared to do. The staff at the shelter also told us that a new issue they were dealing with was “second generation street kids”. In other words, there were 11, 12, 13 year-old kids living on the streets and they were having babies. They were at the shelter too and we were going to be able to play with them as well.
And play we did! We had frisbees and balloon animals and face paint. We jumped rope, had relays, and did the hokey pokey. It was so much fun and I had the grass stains to prove it!
At some point during all the organized chaos the staff let about 15 babies and toddlers out to play with us too. As they all waddled out onto the grass to us, one little girl (maybe 2 years-old) caught my eye from a distance. She was looking at me and was walking directly towards me. As she got closer she raised her arms up like she wanted to be held and kept walking toward me. At first I thought maybe she saw someone behind me that she recognized but then she stopped right in front of me and kept holding out her arms. I smiled and picked her up, ready to twirl her around like I used to want my parents to do when I was small, but before I could she wrapped her arms around me and laid her head on my shoulder.
She just wanted to be held.
At that moment my heart broke in a million pieces. In a place where we weren’t allowed to talk about the love of Jesus, my silent prayers were pleading for this little girl to know His love. I thought about God’s promises and His character. I thought about how my Savior is a “Father of the fatherless” (Ps. 68:5), and a “helper of the orphan” (Ps. 10:14). Isaiah 49 says that though a mother may forget her own child, He will not forget them. He will not forsake them. For about 10-15 minutes I held this child, praying for her soul and realizing I may be the only one to have ever done that. I'm so grateful that God doesn’t forget. My eyes filled with tears as I thought about the abundance of His steadfast love for us. For her.
After a while, she lifted her head from my shoulder and I put her down. Although we didn’t speak the same language we had shared a special moment.
She looked at me, smiled, and then waddled off to play.
“But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.” Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.”