Foxes Have Dens

I tucked them in, squeezed them each tightly, and whispered love into the creases where I kissed their little cheeks before bed.

I crawled into the bunk bed with my oldest girl, Lindia, and watched through my mosquito net as they fell asleep. Soon, the dim candlelight withered, and the room fell to the night. And I was filled—filled to the utmost with contentment deep in my being.

I was home.

Home with 19 children who hold shackles to my heart. Home in Chrislove and Wood falling fast asleep against my chest. Home in the constant buzzing of Creole and the absence of my first language. Home in being surrounded by little people and in the distant kompa music as night falls. Home in leaning against Richard, in tickling Micheline, and in being tangled in a mess of tiny limbs and brown eyes every hour of the day.

Joy nestled itself against the walls of my chest and threatened to unleash my heart from its place.

But then the night wore on.

And on.

And the conditions threatened to make me miserable. The rancid smell of urine coated the beds, their clothes, and the entire house. Utter filth covered my entire body, and I couldn't distinguish between what was dirt, sweat, or mosquito bites. Mosquitoes screeched next to my head. But most of all, it was HOT. With ten bodies in a little, unventilated, equator-weathered room... I lay there, my body soaking in sweat, my skin burning as if scorched by the sun itself.

I must have laid there for hours. Hours full of longing and a parched soul, talking with Jesus in my sweat-drenched sheets.

He was with me in a way I so wish I could form into words.

I was home, in the truest meaning of such a word. I had returned to a place of communion with Jesus that was intimate, sacred, and full of desperate neediness for Him. I had returned home, where I look a whole lot less like me and much more like the One who is able to form such places inside of me.

> "Foxes have dens, birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."

> *Matthew 8:20*

This scribe came up to Jesus and said, "Teacher, I'll follow you wherever you go." And yet, this is how Jesus responded to him.

I say this to Jesus all the time. And just as He knew, this is what I constantly find myself wrestling through.

Home is something I think about often—maybe because I've been transitioning almost nomadically over the past three years, or maybe because I can't really call any place *home.* When I lived at the orphanage, I began to understand—to intimately know—what it means for Jesus to make a home inside of you, for *that* home to be the truest meaning of such a word.

But now that I'm not living at the orphanage anymore, I'm learning how to reach that place again, even when I don’t feel desperate, needy, and lonely.

So far, my experience in Haiti this time is drastically different. I am seeing new parts of Haiti, constantly on the go, experiencing new things every day. It's strange to be living with people who know my language and culture. It's even stranger not to be waking up every morning to nineteen kids calling my name.

*Strange* isn’t the right word for that.

It’s *hard.*

It’s hard to be so close to them and yet unable to see them every day. But thankfully, I am able to spend more time with them than I had anticipated, thanks to Jesus making the way.

I'm learning and seeing so much that I find it almost hard to process and retain everything—from learning basic everyday life skills to different legal processes to experiencing riots in the streets against the capital. So many of my questions are being answered, and yet, so many more questions are just beginning to form.

But I am eager and excited as I consider what possibilities may lie ahead for the kids and as Jesus whispers more and more about what He may have planned for me to do here.

It was overwhelmingly hard for me to leave the States this time.

The month leading up to my return to Haiti, I felt the weight of what I was actually preparing myself to do—of what it meant to give up my entire world, of realizing the extent of the sacrifices I would be making.

To leave my family, my friends, my community.

To be ushered into a life of so many unknowns—void of the culture I was born into, the language I was filled with, and the people I dearly, dearly love.

*"I bet you're so excited!"*

Over and over, I would hear those words. But little did everyone know that a deep warfare was upon my soul, where my flesh and deep wanting for Jesus collided.

I *was* excited.

But more so, my being was heavy with mourning all that I would be sacrificing.

This rich young man runs up to Jesus and kneels before Him, as I did. He seeks life—life in fullness that lasts forever—and longs to know how to follow Him more deeply.

> "And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, 'You lack one thing: Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.'"

But the man walked away in sorrow.

He made the choice to keep what he had.

I was excited—so excited—as I looked into Jesus’ eyes. As He opened His hands and beckoned me forward.

He invited me to renounce what I had so that He could give me what I *really* wanted and asked for—to know Him more deeply.

But I felt it.

I felt all that He was asking, all that He *really* meant.

I guess I had thought that *people* were the one thing Jesus would never ask me to give up for Him.

Because Jesus is about people, and community, and a kingdom.

But He did.

He looked at me, loved me, and asked me to give up the one thing that would actually produce real sorrow and turmoil in my heart.

I felt the sorrow of that rich man.

But the rich man did something I *could not.*

He walked away.

Instead, I carried all of my grief, fell hard at the feet of Jesus... and somehow, my King put me on that plane.

This is where I am supposed to be.

That is the overwhelming truth in my heart.

I am filled with excitement, readiness, and relief.

Relief in *feeling it all again*—in knowing that I am exactly where Jesus has asked me to be. That as much as I stumble and clumsily chase after Him, I’m there, right at His heels.

I have never been more scared, baffled, and hopeful in my entire life.

He’s doing it again—healing my human heart.

The past nine months have been full of beatings as He overthrows my heart and tethers more of His ravaging love and inhuman being to my lowly body.

I am both feeble and strong. Torn by my mourning and ignited by my hope.

Scared of what He is asking of me, yet longing to surrender *everything* at but a word.

I feel both small and unlikely, and yet emboldened and competent.

This must be what it feels like to be both incredibly human and sinful, and yet have the Spirit of the Living God breathing and living inside of you.

> "...but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."

Following Jesus... it's beyond painful.

It is to welcome discomfort and sorrow into your life.

To not have a place that is *home.*

And yet, it is beautiful and full.

He loves us *that* much—to not let us back out or choose otherwise. He is a chasing, pursuing, forever-beckoning God who jealously holds us tight against Him.

He doesn’t leave me to myself.

He doesn’t abandon me in my struggles with my flesh.

I am not alone.

And He proves that to me over and over.

He is here.

Before me, beside me, within me.

He unravels the ground beneath my feet to lead me toward Him—toward *home.*