Wholly Broken

Wholly Broken

People often wonder if I left my heart in Swazi, why don’t I go get it?  Why don’t I move there?  Why don’t I live there if I miss it that much?  Sometimes I don’t know the answer to that; many times I wish I did live in Swazi; sometimes I think about moving the next chance I can.  I bury myself with my job here and busy myself with life so that the pang of separation from loved ones and desperate sting of longing to hold my children would go away.  But it never does.  The wound will never be healed; my heart will never be whole because I live in two worlds—two worlds starkly different from each other, two worlds that can’t possible coexist together, two worlds that hold two halves of my very soul, two worlds that will never mend a broken heart.  So the real question is, which world would I rather live in?

My heart leaps at the answer, “Swazi” but there’s a gentle voice inside my being that stings, “stay.”  The choice is daunting, and the longer I stay the more I burn.  Sometimes it feels like self-infliction.  How can I possibly live like this much longer?  How can I embrace life with an injured wing?  How can I stand in front of a room full of my high school students with my Mimio board and all the technology I want at my fingertips, yet ache so passionately to be standing in front of that hot, colorless, boxed in room with a piece of chalk and a blackboard, teaching students who giggle at my accent?  All the technology in the world means nothing next to teaching a 14 year old prostitute the ABCs.  All the parent teacher conferences and staff appreciation mean nothing next to a fatherless teenage girl who thanks me for giving “hope to everyone.”  All the money I get in my lofty teacher salary means nothing next to paying for a bright young lady’s education when she had been kicked out of school for being pregnant, though she had been raped.  All of the comforts of family and friends being a phone call away mean nothing next to holding a baby that has been nick-named in my honor.  So if my all is in Swazi, why is not all of me there?

As I stand in front of my American students, I look into their eyes—no, I search their eyes, and I find my answer.  Are these two worlds really that vastly different from each other?  The eyes of my students say, “look deeper, look beyond your pain, and look at mine.”  The worlds are unquestionably contrasting, but the need for love and hope in both worlds are in fact one and the same.  I need look no further than the young faces before me to see that they ache for the same things my Swazi children ache for: to be noticed, to be wanted, to be loved.  My American students’ eyes hold my answer, their eyes hold my purpose, their eyes hold my broken heart.  Some smile and joke and laugh to cover the scars; some never try because they’ve been told they’ll never be good enough; some are loud and obnoxious, overriding the sting of feeling forgotten; some are quiet and reserved, never volunteering an answer in fear of their classmates’ laughter; and all, all of them come with a wound or more that still needs healing.  Some wounds are physical, the scars of bloodied arms from a razor, the scars of self-infliction, the scars that say physical pain is better than emotional damage.  Other wounds are invisible, unless you search their eyes.  Some eyes tell of untold horrors, of abuse she has witnessed, of abuse she has endured.  Some eyes are dry from the waterfall of tears that soak his pillow at night because he can’t cry in front of anyone else.  Some eyes search mine, begging me to see what they don’t want to say.  And when their eyes can’t say it any longer, the brave ones put it on paper.  Their writing moves me, breaks me, consoles me, and shows me I do have purpose here.  They show me that their hunger is more than bread and butter, it’s for truth and love.  They show me that they aren’t so different than the ones I desperately love in Swaziland; they give me a reason to stay when my heart groans, “go.” 

Maybe these worlds aren’t so vastly different from each other after all.  I was a vessel of hope for my students in Swazi; I am a vessel for healing in students’ hearts here; I was a mother to many children in Swazi, and I am tenderly nicknamed “Mama Kate” here.  Yes, my heart is split between two different worlds, but I am a teacher, a mother, and a lover all the same.   And maybe that’s the whole point.  My purpose here is not to be whole, my heart is not meant to be mine; I am called to fulfill His purpose for His people everywhere, and He means everywhere.  Therefore, I glory in my brokenness and put my heart in my heavenly home, because only then and only He can make me whole.