Broken & Beautiful

This is my last post on Mexico City, and I have saved what impacted me the most for last.  Maybe because it touched me to the very core.

We went to a place in Mexico City that I had not been to before this year. It is a Christian home for mentally and physically disabled women.

Some of the group had been before, but I had no idea what to expect. I mean, I have been in institutions like this in the US before – they are not always the most pleasant places to be. I was expecting that hospital / institutional smell. I was expecting controlled chaos. I was expecting residents that were not that well cared for.  I was expecting to be saddened.

That is NOT what I found.

This was the most peaceful, joyful place! The staff was happy, the residents were happy. It was amazing to see the residents helping in whatever way they could. But you see, these women are not just "residents". The woman who started this facility has personally ADOPTED each one of the women there - somewhere around 80 women. Her birth children help her to run this facility and another for men.  And we could have several other posts about the ongoing miracles at this place.  But I will stick, for not, to my story of the day...

I had been asked to share my testimony with these women. This in itself was an answer to a personal prayer. I shared Ephesians 2:10:

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before hand, that we should walk in them.

I wanted these women to know that even with their disabilities, they are God’s workmanship, created for good works!  And that word "workmanship" did not just mean something put together & functional.  It implies a piece of art, fine craftsmanship - even a poem.  I shared with them ways that I was broken and how God had spoken to me with this scripture. Funny thing, is when I was done, many of the women came forward and prayed for me!  I am still at a loss for ways to explain how that felt. 

As our time together broke up, we were instructed to go talk with some of the other ladies. I was amazed by God’s faithfulness. You see, my brother in law, Joe, was both physically & mentally disabled. When I joined my husband's family, I really had no experience with someone like Joe. It was hard to adjust to him and his sometimes funny, sometimes irritating ways. When he passed away, I knew he had taught me so much.  I knew that I was a better person because of him.

 As I wandered through the women,   looking them in the eye,      talking with them,

                hugging them,  shaking their hands,  my mind was on Joe.

  The ability to connect with these women demonstrated God’s faithfulness as He turned

 

brokenness into something beautiful

 – his workmanship.