Break my heart for what breaks Yours

For a while now, I have wanted to share what the Lord has been doing in my heart with the women in the community. I expected to write about it one way, but the Lord had something else in mind. Therefore, I come to you here today to tell you about a woman I met here in San Antonio, Guatemala. I would prefer to keep her name in confidence, but also want her to have a name for this blog. Thus, I will call her Mary. 

A bit of a backstory for y’all: I have been asking the Lord for quite some time to break my heart for what breaks His. I want to have a heart like Nehemiah when he heard the wall of Jerusalem had fallen and the gates were destroyed: 

“As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. And I said, ‘O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments….’” -Nehemiah? ?1?:?4?-?5? ?ESV??

I recommend reading the rest of his prayer in Nehemiah 1, but I wanted to focus on the part where he wept and mourned for days then fasted and prayed. This man was distraught over the misfortune of those he loved. WOW! Like what?! After reading that, I sat and told the Lord I wanted that for his people. One day while talking to Mary, I did not know many of the words she was saying, but I just started to cry…I was incredibly confused. I did an internal scan real fast to find out if I was okay and realized I wasn’t crying for myself. I was crying for Mary; the Lord was breaking my heart for what broke his!! It became clear to me after that experience that the Lord could not break my heart for everything that breaks his because I could simply not handle that. Therefore, he broke my heart for what my heart could handle. God knows us so well, it’s wild! While talking with Mary, I asked her if we could come visit her at her house soon and she quickly accepted. 

Mary is a single mom with 4 girls and 2 boys. There is no father in the picture and I am still uncertain where he is. Her kids range from 28 years old to 12 years old. Also, one of her daughters has a daughter of her own. This big family lives on the side of a building with 3 rooms made from cement. Past the rooms, they have an uncovered, small piece of land that has a small outhouse and sink. Their house neighbors a lumber yard. Many days, they are uncertain if they will have a meal or clean water. I could go on and on about what life looks like for them, but I don’t want to get caught up in the material things. I instead want to tell you more about the heart of Guatemala and its people. Despite having so little, it is clear Mary wanted to give me so much. I visited her home with a close friend here in Guatemala and got the opportunity to sit in her home for a couple hours and talk. During this time, we spent too much time poking at a half alive frog and talking about life. Through my little knowledge of Spanish and my dear friend from Guatemala who is learning English, I learned that her family has recently had a medical emergency. Mary’s daughter, who is 20, had to get her gallbladder removed or it would have exploded. This emergency surgery costed 8,000 quetzals, which is $1,025. In order to pay for this, she needed to get a lease on her home in order to pay for it. With that, she must pay off the lease in 2 months or the interest will begin to increase. Financial quandary if I don’t say myself! With no husband/father working and a busy family life, this kind of money is going to be hard to find. But, as I said, I wanted to tell you more about Guatemalan people and their heart. Mary, after sharing this incredible hardship, offers my friend and I coffee, bread and eggs…sorry but what!! She has little to nothing and wants to give us some of that which she does have. All that came out of my mouth was “NO NO NO no no! Esta bien” because there was NO WAY they were going to give me that which they had little of. I had already eaten and could get coffee later but she insisted. After a funny Spanglish conversation, she gave us some coffee and we sat and talked for a bit more time. Boy was I a mess after this visit. My heart BROKE. I did not know what step to take next. I felt the Lord tell me though, quite clearly, “you can either take control or see how I want to show up in this.” Taking control is easy but letting Jesus have it is hard. I didn’t sign up for this to take the easy path, as much as I desire to. 

With all the being said, I come here to ask you all to spend time in prayer. Please pray that Mary and her family may be provided for in this tough time. Pray for quick healing over the daughter that got surgery and that there will be no more complications. Lastly, please pray about helping Mary paying off the sudden medical bills: $1,025. If you feel called to donate money towards her, please Venmo me and I will make sure she gets it! Thank you and God bless!! 

My Venmo: @Victoria-Mateer-1