Isn't She Beautiful?

The other day I was driving around downtown Asheville, and I had a pain in my side. The gut-wrenching reality is that God was initiating a movement of mercy that is only now beginning to make sense. I felt the flames of a burning bush, and the invitation to remove my shoes... I was entering into a holy moment. In overwhelming clarity, the inaudible Voice of the Divine insisted, "turn left."

I pulled my car into the parking lot of Mission Hospital. What now? Where was this Voice leading me?The magnetic pull of the gravitational Force led me to into through the emergency waiting room. I kept walking and waiting and walking until God revealed what He was doing in this moment. I had this overwhelming ache; a burden to share His love with someone in need. I did not know who needed to hear this, or where this mystery would lead me...

I walked the seven floors, up and down each hallway. I glanced in waiting rooms and halted for further leading. "Turn left." - The Voice pulled me toward the hurt.

In the waiting room of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit was a lonely widow. She was sitting in the corner and staring at the clock when I entered the room. I sat down across from her and after a brief enquiry, she opened up to the reason for her waiting:

A few short moments before I had arrived, the Child Protective Services had come to investigate the newborn, premature infant that had been born to her daughter, a drug addict. The baby was 2.7 lbs, and  the test results revealed signs of crack-cocaine in her bloodstream.

I sat across from this crying grandmother, and I said, "God sent me here to tell you that He loves you, and you are not alone." That is all know. That is all I have to say.

This ache of this situation has haunted me, and my heart has been abruptly dismantled in the wake of an infant baby who is threatened to become a 'Ward of the State of North Carolina'. Social Services have created an action plan to intervene - and this delicate baby is struggling to breathe. Into a broken world, she was born. She did not ask for this, and if she lives, she will have been launched into a cosmic struggle of love and hate, darkness and light, heaven and earth at war over her soul.

And I am committed to the struggle beside her, in prayer. I have returned to the hospital to visit, and this afternoon I got to hold "Haley" for such a time as this. I just prayed blessings over her, a hedge of protection to guard her heart and mind. I prayed the blood of Jesus Christ to cover her, and Spirit of the Sovereign Lord to breathe the Pneuma of Life into her lungs.

And then I told her that I can't help but to love her.
Isn't she beautiful? Beautiful.