Picking up the pieces

Yesterday was one of the longest days ever... After not really sleeping the night after we heard the news about Nazziwa, I began to go into ministry mode. I had to be the one to tell most of our kids around the compound about Nazziwa passing away, over and over I had to say those awful words and hear the exclamations of surprise and sorrow. Knowing how to comfort and minister to someone during this time is hard enough, but when they're kids who have never had to deal with something like this before, it adds a whole new element. One of the most hart-wrenching times for me was when Nazziwa's little coffin was in the church and her friends (Peace, Awi, Joy, and Ruthie) decided it was time to go in there and see it for the first time. Gathered there with my girls was just so hard as I heard their little sobs and wished that I had arms that were six feet long so that I could wrap them around all of them at one time. Then we went to the village of Nazziwa's family for the burial, and we all were pretty stoic for the most part until they brought the casket out and lowered it in the ground and as everyone else had left the grave-side I was still there with my kids watching in disbelief that Nazziwa was there and wasn't coming back. These kids are all under the age of 13, and just seeing how their minds were just trying to process everything was so hard. One of her best friends was Moses...Moses has the most amazing personality and he and Nazziwa were so cute together. I had to be the one to tell him that his best friend had died that morning, and then that afternoon, I stood alone with him looking at the grave and then just taking his head in my hands and tried to convey to him how special he was in her life.

Yesterday, God gave me the strength to be strong for others, to be the shoulder someone else cried on... Today that strength seems to be gone, and my own personal struggles with the situation are hitting me. But I know that I still need to be that rock for my kids, so I just ask for your prayers that I would know how to deal with all of this, both personally and with my kids. This is seriously something that's harder than anything I've ever had to deal with before.