In the valley of the shadow of death: Julia’s perspective

    Today was one of those days where you wake up and the air is different, thick, full and heavy with the promise of things yet unseen; hanging like a tangible weight, as present and visible as the unexpected fog that cloaked the morning.
    Our time at the leper colony today looked very different from our previous visits, which consisted of a children’s program followed by house visitations. For whatever reason, we did not have a children’s program time today, and it became clear that there were other places, other people that we needed to see, and be changed by. When I entered the narrow alley-like compound of the lepers, I was met with the sight of a woman whose face bore the absolute distinction of stolen beauty, a health ravaged by sickness. She is not a leper, however (Her name is Lekshmi, we learned later and that she has stage three cervical caner.) Two of our group, Brittany and Megan were kneeling beside her, praying for her. A man with bright, lively eyes greeted us, saying, “Namaste,” he bowed and smiled a truly authentic smile and I was instantly drawn in and attached to this man. (His name is Vnglesh.)
    We ended up at Vnglesh and Lekshmi’s house, where Lekshmi was laying on the wooden bed (a board propped a foot or so off the ground) which took up nearly half of the one room house. She tried to sit up as we entered but it was clear that any movement caused her enormous pain. Her breathing was labored and he sat next to her, stroking her hair; there was a great tenderness and an even greater sadness , desperate, hungering and aching love with which he performed this gesture which pulled at my very core. We all gathered and prayed over her and in that time, in that moment what I wanted most of all was for her to be well.
    We just sat with them and listened. We were not there to heal, or to help, indeed I have never felt so helpless in my life. I was close to Lekshmi and kept my hand on her back, wishing ease of her pain but it was clear that every movement, every breath labored her body causing her great pain.
    As we sat Vnglesh’s smile began to fade as he talked about his four daughters, how he did not know what would become of his family. He said they had spent a lot of their money on medical treatment for his wife but it had not been helping.  He wasn’t sure how their family would get enough food. Or how he could keep getting his wife the help she needed. They do not have the money… the treatment is costly and not working. She now could hardly or wasn’t eating and barely drinking anything. He encircled her wrist in his fingers with such an obvious overlap and said she used to be fat (meaning healthy in Indian standards.) He said, I can’t raise four daughters on my own, they need a mother… what will I do? As he told us this he put his head down and wept. This man was just like a child, fearful of the darkness quite simply at the very end of himself. And that is where grace begins.
     I don’t know that I can quite convey the array of things that happened in my heart in a fraction of an instance… aching, breaking, unalterable torrents of grief, a crushing, extinguishing and suffocating of the soul. I looked into his eyes as he looked from his wife’s fragile body and then looked up at me and in that moment I wept with him. I looked into his eyes and caught a glimpse of God’s heart. It is terrifying, the power that rests in His love, the way his heart must break for his beloved, how entirely, especially fond he is of the dear ones He’s created. I was reminded of the story of Jesus raising Lazurus from the dead. Before this miracle though, Jesus heart breaks, and “Jesus wept.”   John 11:35
    And in the moment as we watched tears fall from each others faces I felt as if I understood more truly how we do not belong to ourselves at all. This is where grace begins. It was clear why we were there. To see. To witness. To feel. To break. There was nothing to be done… but the very circumstances of meeting their family and sitting with them became the clear purpose of the day. To pass along the story. To share in their pain and acknowledge their pain and to go forward from the encounter incapable of being the same.
    As we were getting ready to leave, Lekshmi began to cry also. He clutched her and their bodies shook and mourned for what they could not explain, for the loss of time, the loss of a family; whole, happy and healthy. Before we left the colony we saw Vnglesh out, working on the roof of the houses nearby. He smiled again and this time I knew why that smile was so achingly beautiful. What a sacrifice, what an offering- how much it took for him to smile at all. It was a miracle and a gift. And all I could think was Grace, every step.