“I was scared and lost heart, but when I collected my head I realized I wasn’t dead.”

My life has been full of complaints lately. I injured something that wraps around my ribcage making it nigh impossible to do anything without painful grunting. Complain. I incurred the injury by ineffectively wrestling Jett to both stay out of the house and stop chewing my shoe simultaneously. Complain. The dog is being a dog. Complain. Willa has stopped being the Incredible Sleeping Baby (it was an awesome superpower while it lasted) and needs to be held non-stop during waking hours. Complain. The toddler is being a toddler. Complain. I don’t feel like I have enough time to do the office work I committed myself to. Complain. It’s hot. Complain. The washing machine cuts itself off and subsequently beeps obnoxiously over and over and over and over until I go all the way outside and down the steps to punch the restart button… when the dog is barking, the toddler is whining, and the baby is crying because she pooped out of her diaper onto me. Complain and maybe some tears.

I could keep going with all the things I complain about in a day, but I won’t. Because it’s embarrassing. When a friend came for her usual Friday morning round last week, she seemed unhappy. She’s missed a bit of work recently, but I assumed it was due to illness or needing to care for a child or some such issue. After the obligatory greetings she gathered Willa into her arms and sat down slowly on the couch. For a time she was completely absorbed in the placid face of the baby. Mary* talked, sang, and rocked while Willa rhythmically sucked on her binky intently watching Mary’s face. I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but I just let it happen. Any time someone wants to love on my baby, I let it happen. Eventually she stood up and as she carefully passed Willa back to me commented that her back hurt.

I’ve lived in PNG off and on for ten years now. Ten years it’s been one of my homes. And yet I still stumble through conversations with Papua New Guineans. I still don’t know so much. When Mary addressed her back pain I wasn’t sure if that was an open invitation to find out why her back hurt, or simply an indirect request for some Tylenol. I decided to reply sympathetically, but not to press for more information or immediately pass over the pain relievers. She stopped any further mental debate by quickly moving ahead and pouring out the events of the past few days with a resigned frustration. A few nights previous she had gotten into an argument with the man she lives with. He distracted her with a light and began hitting her repeatedly on the head and back with the blunt side of his bush knife (machete). The following morning she went to the police, which is not always a successful venture for abused women. I don’t know how she felt walking into the building, but I assume she wasn’t confident. Despite the evil she had endured in the night, God was watching over her. He kept her alive during the attack and when she went to the police station he put in her path the daughter of one of our national coworkers. This woman recognized Mary and was assigned to take down and file her report. Mary felt comfortable with this woman and confident something would get done, which it did.  The man was arrested and told that if one more report like this was filed against him he would be thrown in jail immediately.

It’s not unusual to hear stories of women being killed with bush knives by their significant others, so it’s not surprising that Mary thought she would become one of those stories. I had no clue what to say, but I felt compelled to pray with her. Some people are so natural at corporate prayer; without thinking they would instantly react to her pain by sitting down and praying with her. That’s not me. It was a conscious thought for me that I pushed away. I didn’t want to. I wanted to just tell her I would pray for her and then pray later that day by myself. Privately. In English. Wouldn’t that be good enough, God?? But it didn’t feel right. The manner in which she recounted her tale was so unnerving in it’s matter-of-factness. Something about it screamed that she needed to know God cared. And that I cared too. I was pretty sure a pat on the arm with the promise of some future vague prayer wouldn’t accomplish that. We sat back down on the couch with Willa perched on my leg, held hands, and prayed. In my estimation, it was a disaster. All my language learning flew out the window and the thoughts jumbling inside of my head crashed against my tongue. I heard a string of Pidgin words coming out, but they didn’t fit together properly. When I finished I apologized for not making any sense and said that it was all stuck in my head. She laughed and said it didn’t matter. That praying with her in Pidgin was an encouragement and God would sort it out. I’m certain he did.

It’s hard to listen to God in the moments when I’d rather just hide in my happy shell and get my feel-goods by promising private future prayer rather than engaging in corporate now prayer. It’s altogether uncomfortable to pray for someone when you yourself don’t understand why God allowed such a thing to happen. How can I pray about this when I’m only just processing it and have no words? How can I hope to encourage and strengthen her faith when my own faith that God is good collides with the reality of a fallen and broken world? And in another language? Seriously?!?! But he is good. And whether or not any of us believes that he is good, he still is. In the act of praying with Mary, I felt his presence wrap us both up with one truth clarifying itself and remaining steadfast in my mind amidst the jumbled words and confused thoughts: this is never what I intended for the world I created and I’m hurting with her too.

Since Friday I’ve thought a lot about Mary and her situation. I’ve complained a little less. I’ve trusted a little more. Trusted that no matter what happens to us in this life, no matter how painful, he is walking it with us and he is feeling it more than we ever could imagine. And I’m listening a little more intently for when he’s asking me to be uncomfortable.

*Name changed