Today we are honored to have Shelley Brumfield share her heart with us. She is a wife, mother, grandma, and dear friend who lives in Northern California, but travels to Romania summer after summer to share her heart with children there.
It happened again this summer— the breaking of my heart. My mind scrolls through the faces and smiles of the children at the orphanages like a slideshow, and I am grateful for the indelible memories of them. Coming to Romania for the 5th summer, I saw familiar faces from past years. Some have grown taller; those that were once little girls are now young ladies, and “little” boys are now looking me in the eye. There are others that have not changed all that much, remaining much the same size and stature as in years past because malnutrition and neglect has had a long term effect on them. Then there are always the new little faces, with scared eyes, reluctant to approach, yet desperate for a lap and to be engulfed in arms of safety, comfort and love.
Why, you might ask, after having your heart broken that first summer, do you go back?
Why, when you know you will experience it all over again?
Yes, that’s it.
That’s exactly it: You know you will experience it all. over. again.
When God breaks your heart, He is letting you experience in a small way, what He experiences, and your heart, in His Hands, becomes a little more like His. In that moment, you see with His eyes and love with His love.
This breaking of the heart is done by the Master Surgeon, who then, with His Divine touch, does the miraculous: He allows your heart to remain broken and changed, but healed too.
That first summer when I mustered up the courage to go to Romania, I did so not knowing the degree of brokenness my heart would experience–and that is probably a good thing. A mission trip in most people’s minds entails going to a different country/culture, helping with physical needs there, and sharing the Gospel. You step out in faith into the unknown and trust that God will be there, that He will use you, and that He will bring you home. Then, when you go, you discover that He is there! And He does all that you thought about and planned, and much more: You are the one who is changed; you are the one who is transformed.
John Piper writes, “Faith has an insatiable appetite for experiencing as much of God’s grace as possible. Therefore, faith presses toward the river where God’s grace flows most freely, the river of love. What other force will move us out of our comfortable living rooms to take upon ourselves the inconveniences and suffering that love requires?”
So, each year I go. I go expecting God to break my heart in a new way. And each year it happens: God breaks my heart anew. But the amazing thing is, my heart is not a shattered mess of a million pieces. No, it is enlarged. The breaking is to enlarge it, allowing it to be bigger, allowing more room to see God and His ways.
And each year, while the breaking of my heart is expected and happens, I have noticed that something else is going on too. The pain that my heart experienced on the first trip, is not the same, it has changed with each trip that I have made. Because I am able to see God at work over time and glimpse a small unfolding of His plan, the pain is more bearable. The eyes of my heart see more clearly what the Lord has done and is doing in the lives of these children in Romania.
“Faith loves to rely on God and see Him work miracles in us. Therefore, faith pushes us into the current where the power of God’s future grace flows most freely — the current of love.” ~John Piper
– Shelley Brumfield