20 Days...

The power just went out...this happens here often...usually it only stays off a few seconds or minutes before our generator kicks on and provides us with lights again.  But no matter where you are in the center...if it's night and the power goes out you can hear the children's screams.  Not just one or 2 babies...all of the kids (about 300 voices)...together in unison until the lights come back on.  I cannot explain why after years of living here and knowing that when the power goes out it will come back on they still scream.  Is it a fear of the dark?  Is it a habit they have adopted from those around them?  Is it the thought that this time the lights may not come back on?  I cannot explain it.
I can however compare their screams in a way to my feelings the last 20 days.  It has been 20 days since I wrote.  It has been 20 days since I had the time to reflect on the world around me and put words on paper (or my computer screen) to make sense of it all.  It has been 20 days of getting to my house each night with the intention of sharing something of my day with all of you at home and flopping on my bed too tired to answer important e-mails (including you mom and dad) not to mention write a blog post.  20 days of VERY long days, and some long nights as well.  It has been 20 days of screaming...not literally of course...but in my head and heart I have been screaming at the top of my lungs.
Why, you're asking?  Because I have forgotten what it's like to have the lights on in a sense.  I have forgotten that even when things seem impossible as if we are walking in the blackness of night with no light to lead us, no visible way out...there is a light!  I have been under a whole lot of stress...some of it self-induced...some of it just because of my surroundings...some of it expectations of others on me...some of it because many of our babies have been sick.  For these 20 days...and probably even a bit before that I have felt like the center kids standing in the dark when the power goes out...not sure when or if the lights will come back on.  I haven't seen a way out; I haven't seen a light to lead me (most days at least).  I have kept going...I have kept working...I have made it through.  That is not the point.  The point is in the midst of these hard days (this stressful season) I feel like I've lost the plot.  Maybe I'm being hard on myself.  Maybe it would happen to anyone who is being pulled in 85 directions like I am...but I want to remember that the lights will come back on.  There will come a day when things are less stressful, when I feel capable of handling life again. 
But, more importantly, even now when I feel like the lights are off, that is a lie...the truth is God is always in the darkness to lead us.  His light is there to guide us on His path!  Now my job is to stand faithful remembering He is leading me.  He got me here, and He will guide me through.
I'd love your prayers...in the flesh I don't see the stressful nature of this season passing soon...but I am doing my best to trust that God has a plan.  He knew before I was born I'd end up here in Mozambique, understaffed, with sick babies, running into possible issues with the license of our clinic (I will explain later), trying my hardest to train a new Mozambican nurse to help in the Baby House, feeling powerless and exhausted...and when He called me here I was not promised an easy road...I was promised His presence and strength.  So now, in that I will stand strong believing that He is guiding my ever step and teaching me more of His faithfulness through this season of struggle.