i'm cold tonight.

i'm cold tonight. it's not that my heat is out or anything, but it's a cold night in El Paso. it snowed today. the wind is supposed to be up to 50 mph. it's gotten worse the later into the night it's gotten. i love cold weather, and i hate that El Paso is so hot all the time; especially this winter, it's barely felt like winter. but the thing is, when it's really cold, or when the snow comes even just in flurries like it did today, i can't completely enjoy it; none of the people i work with can. because somewhere in the excitement that a GA girl has in jumping up and down when it's snowing, is the thought in the back of my head that families are freezing; especially at night. there is nothing worse than being so cold you can't sleep; then having the wind bang against your house so loud that it drives you crazy. and even thinking of this, i've only slightly ever had this experience. and i definitely have no idea what it's like to be afraid that those winds might actually blow the wall of my house down. i'm friends with a family in Mexico that had this happen in a storm. the wind blew their wall over right on top of the bed their kids were sleeping in. no one was hurt. their house was destroyed. thankfully we built them a new one before very much time passed.

so tonight i'm cold, not because my heat is out or because i don't have a means of being warm, but because knowing that so many families don't have the option to just flip a switch and be warm tonight, i just can't bring myself to turn on my own heat. i don't know what else to do. per God's leading i've headed up efforts over the past two years to raise over $17,000 to give heaters and electric blankets to families in Mexico. i'm doing everything i know how, but tonight i can't stand to think of how cold and miserable families will be, and i can't bring myself to be warm and toasty when most don't have that same option. i mean i live in an apartment that holds the heat in with all of the other apartments around it. i have solid walls with no cracks or holes, i can't hear the wind outside, yet still tonight i'm cold. i just put a thermal shirt on. two shirts and a hoodie now, and i'm still cold. i'm not freezing, i'm just not nice and warm in my home like i normally am.

i've struggled with this before. at times i'm so burdened by the fact that i know families are freezing at night, that honestly i block it out. if i don't think about those kids and parents that are my friends, then my heart doesn't have to carry that burden for them. i know that's wrong, but it's the truth. and honestly, lately that's been the case. in the past i've mentioned to my sister how i have a hard time being so warm when others are so cold. i've thought about not turning on my heat before. my sister's response was, "what will that do Britt?" "how can you being cold help them? God has blessed you, you can't feel guilty for that, just do all that you can." to this i wholeheartedly agree. which is the reason i've never come home on a cold night and left the heat off before. but something is different tonight. and it's not guilt i feel, it's the need to sympathize with maybe even just 1% of what those families feel right now. thankfully i work for an organization that has spent 15 years giving families in Mexico solid homes so they can be warmer on nights like tonight. and i'm so grateful that is what my hands have spent the past 4 1/2 years doing. but my heart is going out to those whose solid walls produce shelter from the winds but no warmth. or those whose homes are still pallets with no where for the wind to go but straight through. i can rest in knowing that over 3,200 families across that border do have solid walls and homes tonight because of Casas por Cristo. i can rest in knowing that of those with homes, hundreds either have heaters or electric blankets that we have given them and they are being used right now as i type. i will crawl in my bed with my electric blanket on tonight at least knowing that i have the same heat that i have given to them.

our situations are completely different. i could never know what nights like this are like for a family across the border. but tonight on this side of the border i am burdened. i can't change someone's night right now any more than what i've already done. but as i walk through this apartment and am colder than normal tonight, i will be constantly reminded about those that don't have the shelter i do right now. i will offer up prayers tonight more readily than when i get so caught up in my world and completely forget about what's outside these walls. i will be more grateful for an electric blanket that so many of these families have too because of the hundreds of generous people, maybe even some reading this, that have the same burden on their hearts and have given money to help buy these blankets and heaters. i cannot make tonight warmer for anyone else, but i can pray for those families across the border not to breathe in too much carbon monoxide from the stoves which will inevitably be burning all night. i can pray that children will be warm as families huddle together and know a childhood different than i ever experienced. i can pray that the heaters and electric blankets we have given them will not only keep people warm or save their lives tonight, but that they will know those gifts of warmth are from God above because He has burdened my heart and so many others to give. I pray that in a tangible way tonight they will feel God's warmth and know that it is from Him and that He is right there with them even as everything else they hear and feel around them is the bitter cold and terrible howl of the wind that they pray will end.

honestly, I'm grateful to be colder tonight than I normally would be, because i care tonight more than i normally would. my heart also hurts more tonight than it normally would, because tonight, i don't get to just forget. but that's okay, because neither do they. i'll finish up what i'm doing and go crawl into a warm bed with no fear of anything but turning down the heat on my own electric blanket. and i can do nothing but trust the God that laid this burden of warmth on my heart in the first place two years ago. trust that He is big enough to take care of these families even tonight. trust that i have done all that He has directed me to and all that i know how to do. trust that He hears my prayers for them, and they are enough. and maybe i'll begin to understand an ounce of the God that i see in them. and perhaps that is why. because the God they know is one that covers them in warmth when there is no other escape from the terrifying and freezing winds. yet i am my own God as i crank the thermostat up and jump into my warm bed without a need for the God they are desperately relying on tonight for everything. so tonight i'll rely on the God that they do daily. and i have a feeling that as seems to always be the case, i will gain so much more from this night than i ever gave up.

(if you are interested in helping these families, please consider giving towards the Heat Fund that I have created- maybe one time or even monthly. it can be done on our website http://www.casasporcristo.org/ or through facebook and 100% of donations go towards providing a source of heat for these families in Mexico)