blessed
Warm greetings in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, wishing you success in your labors.
Elisa’s letter open in my hand, I walk into the kitchen, taking in the shape of things, the accumulation of emptied lunch boxes, the scattered crumbs from my children’s after school snacks. Elisa lives in poverty in Equador, the child of subsistence farmers. We first met her, have come to love her, through Compassion International, an organization that rescues children from poverty in Jesus’ Name. Elisa’s salutations always remind me of the New Testament letters, which were written by the beaten and the imprisoned and the hungry, men only wealthy with Jesus. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. When Jesus is your wellspring, everything comes from Him.
I look up from the letter to find Riley sitting at the bar, furiously rubbing her eyes with the back of one hand, as though in an effort to scrub away some blight to her vision. The skin around her eyes looks angry and mottled.
“Are you okay?” I ask, noticing the way she blinks, widening her eyes, carefully trying to focus.
She looks toward me and begins to cry. I drop Elisa’s letter on the counter top.
“What is it?” I say, moving over to where she sits, wrapping my arms around her shoulders. I make a shield out of my skin and bones, as though her grief won’t just seep right through my own cracks.
“I’m just so tired,” she says. “My medicine is making me tired.” The syllables fall apart at the end; the letters crumble. And I know she’s not just tired; she’s half blind.
Riley has epilepsy; she has to take medicine to control her seizures, most of which come and go undetected, invisible thieves that steal seconds from her conscious memory. Her medicine does sometimes make her sleepy, and it also sometimes interacts with other medicines she takes, creating a chemical cocktail that her brain identifies as toxicity.
“Do you have a headache?” I ask, playing detective, running the palm of my hand down her spine and over her shoulder blades.
“No,” Riley says. “I’m just…tired. I don’t like it when my medicine makes me tired.” She sobs, her shoulders shuddering beneath my hands. Riley lives in poverty too, but hers is a poverty of spirit, and I am one of the few people that ever sees the tattered, wind-blown shreds in the place where she lives. Blessed are the poor in spirit, Jesus taught, but if that’s true, we all live by a different definition of blessed.
“I know. I don’t like it either,” I say. “I’m so sorry.” I pull her into my arms, and she presses her face into my chest. I feel her tears soaking through. “You’re going to be okay,” I tell her. “I think you should just take a nap.” She nods, turns away, feels for the stool where she’s been sitting at the bar. She sinks her face into her own folded arms. I think of Elisa’s letter, of the way she always starts with Jesus.
“But first,” I say, smoothing the loose, silky ribbons of Riley’s hair with my fingers, “we’re going to pray. Zoe and will pray for you.”
Riley says nothing, only lifts her head so I can see the tears traveling down her cheeks before she wipes them away.
Zoe, who has only just descended the stairs, raises an eyebrow at the sound of her own name, and then walks over and takes her sister’s hand. Grace and peace to you, those New Testament authors wrote. Those exact words fall from our lips and over Riley’s bent head, her eyes squeezed shut. Grace. Peace. That peace, it leaves our hands and rests on Riley’s shoulders. That grace, it dries the tears on her face like Christ’s own hand as we invoke His Name. Jesus is the vast, unlimited wealth of impoverished people, who, having nothing held so tightly in their hands, possess more and more of Him. And so they’re blessed, and maybe we’re the ones living in poverty.
How many times have we witnessed the change in her face? More now than I can count. We plunge hungry into prayer, and Jesus lifts our heads in peace. And on my refrigerator, I have all the pictures of Elisa we’ve ever received. In the first one, her hair hangs ragged about her face. Her eyes look as empty as her stomach. But in the latest photo, seven years since she became our family far away, I can see only peace and grace.
I pat Riley on the back, gesturing toward the couch, a place for her to take a nap.
“Mom?” She stands but stops still, as though she has to say this first.
“Yes?”
“Thank you for praying for me,” she says carefully, filling each word with such significance that one by one, they slice right through the calluses on my own heart. If only I valued prayer the way she does. If only I understood the economy of God’s Kingdom the way that she does. Blessed are the poor in spirit, Jesus said, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 5:3). God–our sight when we’re half-blind with grief; our comfort when we mourn; our peace; our bread; our grace; our breath when we feel completely choked with pain; God is the vast wealth of impoverished people.
“Thank you for praying for me, Zoe,” Riley says, because this must be acknowledged before she sleeps. I settle Riley’s head against the pillow. I tuck a velvety blanket–purple, around her shoulders.
Quietly, I move back to the counter and pick up Elisa’s letter. I always feel thankful to God for his great love for us, she writes. I flip over the translated letter so that I can see the Spanish words faintly written in pencil in her own hand. I imagine her at the Compassion Center in Equador, bent over the paper. She doodles butterflies all over her letters because she knows I like them. I can pick out the words Dios–God, amor–love, grande–great. God’s love is Elisa’s wealth. I flip the letter back over. I love you all very much, she says. I want to dedicate my current favorite Bible verses to you. I pick up my phone, open the Bible app, type in the verses.
Proverbs 16:3–Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and He will establish your plans.
Philippians 4: 12-13–I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
My finger lingers over those words, “whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” In her lifetime, Elisa has known more hunger and want than most of us can imagine. I look back down at the page. Her words stop me still; they steal my breath; they undam my tears. Oh the grandiose plans to which we apply these verses; the contests; the achievement. These are my favorite verses these days, Elisa writes. Even though life is very hard, these verses give me more will to live. Jesus isn’t Elisa’s cheerleader or a boost of energy to win a race. Jesus is Elisa’s survival. And so, she’s blessed. And we are blessed. Because even though life is very hard, we have hope.
Maybe it’s time we exchanged our short-sighted definition of blessed for the Truth–not the truth that has become a relative, private commodity, but the person, Jesus Christ, the vast, immeasurable, glorious wealth of impoverished people.
