Edinam. If you’ve kept up with the posts here, then you’ve already “met” her. If not, feel free to check out the post "Meet Edinam". =)
Last night Edinam and I had a very emotional conversation. It started by a translation mistake.
We were talking about school and I asked Edinam,
“Are you nice to people at school or not nice?”
She said she was not nice.
I pressed for her to tell me what that means but she just buried her face into the bed. She wouldn’t look at me and she wouldn’t say a word. I tried to rephrase the sentence several times before I forced her to sit up and speak to me.
We had just finished talking about Jesus’ miracle in John 4 about how He healed the officials son by merely saying, “You may go. Your son will live.” We discussed why Jesus healed the son and how Jesus loves people so much and wants to know all of us.
The aforementioned conversation came about because I began talking about school as a way to discuss how Edinam could practically show Jesus’ love to others. I was shocked when she told me that she wasn’t nice to people. Edinam is the sweetest kid I know here in Ghana. I have never seen her be mean to anyone, not even an animal.
But here is the conversation as it is translated into the meaning that Edinam understood:
“Are you beautiful to people at school or not beautiful?” In other words she heard, “Do the children at school say you are beautiful or ugly?”
She answered ugly.
Edinam has eyes that are crossed. When one looks straight the other is turned inside. Its nearly impossible to overlook, unless one has known her for years and becomes accustomed to it.
Edinam hates pictures. She doesn’t even like to look at someone straight into the face in conversation. I think if she would walk around with a shroud at all times she would. She suffers, mostly inside.
When I came to understand that our definitions of nice were different, I went ahead and continued the conversation about her eyes. I asked what people said. She said it’s mostly boys who make fun of her. She cried. I held her and cried with her. And then I realized, Jesus didn’t even see the son’s official when He healed him. He didn’t touch him. He didn’t do anything but state that he would live.
I wanted to share this with Edinam. But Edinam isn’t the first little girl that I’ve wept with here in Ghana over her pain.
At least three years ago, Agnes and I left a church that was charging people around $10 to be “healed” in Jesus name. Halfway home we stopped and sat on the ground and wept. Neither of us understood why God had her in that state and why she had to struggle so much. We prayed. She still struggles.
God has answered our prayer for Agnes that night. He just didn’t answer in the way that my heart longed for Him to answer.
I didn’t know if Edinam could handle us praying for healing and God answering the same way He did with Agnes I didn't know if I could handle it. But I felt that God had given us that miracle story for that moment. So I told her that there was nothing we could do. We are in Africa! But God can do anything. Just as Jesus did with the boy, He can simply speak from where He is seated at the right hand of the Father, and command her to be healed. He can provide a doctor here in Ghana or elsewhere. He could also decide to only heal her on the inside.
And so right now my prayer for her is two-fold:
1. 1. That God would miraculously heal her, giving her a life-long testimony and causing her to forever be committed to the One True God!
2. 2. That God would show her who she is in Him, allowing her to smile big and look straight at the camera as her confidence is in Him. I pray that she will be able to look people in the eye in conversation, even if she can only do so with one eye.
3. 3. Actually its three-fold…she is struggling to see up close. They don’t read much in school but when exam time comes, she struggles to see the paper. When I put some reading glasses on her to see if they would help, she said she couldn’t even see out of one eye. Please pray that her sight will not decrease as we seek God’s face on what He will do with her.
4. 4. Let’s make it four-fold…I would like to ask that all who read this would pray for our hearts to be ready to receive whatever it is God has in store for Edinam. The prosperity gospel invades everything and I want Edinam to understand that God is not a genie-in-a-bottle, but a Sovereign ruler who really knows what’s best for His children, even when it doesn't make sense to us!
My heart is heavy for this special little girl!
