12:42am

At times I wonder

if I die tomorrow

Would it have mattered that I was here?

Two years of faltering

trying

Bearing witness

coming up short

I returned from India in 2004

Watched Hotel Rwanda

Cried for two hours

Why did we do nothing!!@!@

They were dying

Slaughtered

Suffering

And we sat here, doing nothing

That moment the roots entwined with the bedrock

God had planted a seed six years earlier

a Mark 8 bible study and a word just for me

He watered it with every year of faith

Fed it in Inglewood

Pruned it into a vision in India

but it was that moment, watching that movie, that the roots grabbed bedrock that they could never let go

I will not sit here while they die there

even if all I can do is stand in front of a machete and say NO!

become one more life cut down

I will do it

in the hope that my life given, my “No” voiced, would inspire one more crack in the dam

one more witness

one more NO!

Because Jesus didn't stand in the gap, refuse to strike, love the other, impale on a cross

so we could sit here in a backed-up reservoir of “God's provision”

while billions suffer in a dried out desert below

begging for the scraps that fall off of our table.

[Face contorted. Sob into my mat. Choking on it]

I want.

To crack.
This dam.

I would die for that.

And when I set my hand to that plow

I never, ever thought of turning back.

But an outcome I never considered

What if

[Sobs again. Mouth open. Shoulders wracked. Get my head under the mat. Dont wake them up. Don't let them hear.]

What if I got here

stood in front of the machete

and its wielder, the true enemy, just smiled and passed me by

What if I didn't die?

and they still did.

The father. The uncle. The teenager. The neighbor. The baby.

and I did nothing

nothing that made a difference

And they still died.

I know that if I am faithful for ten years, it will make a difference

in a life. or a thousand. or ten

but what if I die tomorrow?

what if I don't get ten years?

do I know how long I have to watch them die around me?

my little crack in the dam

dries up before the water can even reach the ground

and no one looks to make any more cracks

This is reality

we are here

We are here.

God is Faithful.

We are here.

Come, Lord Jesus, come.

I might die tomorrow

and I know that's not the worst thing that can happen

because I already see worse now

The text read “baby died”

And there was nothing I could have done

nothing I could do

so tonight I cry