A Beautiful Broken Heart

It’s a beautiful thing for us to have our hearts broken over the things that touch God our Father’s heart.

Not too long ago I was browsing the internet looking again for a recording of some music we heard in Russia in 2008. The day before we finally picked our little boys up from the Baby Home, we were with them for an afternoon visit. Their caregivers let us take them outside to play while all the other children were inside getting ready for their naps. It was a warm day in June and the boys had been riding little plastic scooters around on the bumpy asphalt that surrounded the orphanage. They must have decided that their usual route down the sloped sidewalk toward the building was getting boring, so they took their scooters over to the empty play area for the toddlers. There was a very large wooden playpen near the sunny side of the building and next to an open window.

They thought it would be a good idea to put their scooters inside the playpen, and then they proceeded to climb inside as well, driving their scooters around in that little 4x4 play yard. We assumed we were watching them get away with something they ordinarily wouldn’t be allowed to do, and we were about to try to get them and their toys out before someone saw what they were doing. But then one of their “mama’s” inside that open window saw them coming to play, so she placed a cd player in the window and turned on some music. The boys instantly stopped what they were doing, and sat on their scooters, transfixed as they listened. Then they started to sing along. I have never been so glad to have had the video camera on and running while all of this was happening, because I can’t describe how beautiful the moment was. I knew as I watched this little scene unfold that it would be one of the memories of Russia that would be seared into my soul (there were a few of those!).

The music, we found out, was of a Russian children’s choir singing the songs of Chebrurashka (a favorite Russian children’s character). It was so very beautiful – so haunting, the way Russian music is, and the boys sang so innocently, so purely. It didn’t send them into a wild, dancing frenzy, or bring out their “air” guitars, or cause them to start clowning around. It was just a moment of perfectly sweet childhood and there were a thousand thoughts for us to think in that moment… So, since we’ve been home I’ve been on a quest to find that elusive music, which brings us to tonight.  

I found it, in all places, on YouTube. There were a number of black & white video recordings from 1973 of the Russian “Big Children’s Choir” singing the very songs we were looking for. So as I sat on my bed perusing through my music choices our girls were walking past in the hallway and the unusual sound brought them in to see what I was doing. We all sat there watching these vintage episodes that must have run on USSR television. Kind of surreal. Our oldest, 14, started singing along with one of the songs in English, as we have an English-dubbed Chebrurashka video at home. The girls left after a few minutes to go get ready for bed and I kept searching for more songs. Then she came back in the room. “I don’t like that music.” She was very focused on my face as she said it. “Why not?”  “I just don’t like it.” She kept her eyes on me. I was confused. She loved the boys’ Russian videos, their Russian music, and I knew she liked Chebrurashka. What’s going on here?? I also knew that look on her face, but I couldn’t quite figure this one out. “Help me out here a little, sweetheart. What’s the matter?” “I just don’t like that music!” More intense staring. “I don’t do anything!”  What?! Then the tears started to come. I pulled her over to me. She said, “I can’t do anything about those children! They’re trapped! They are locked up in an orphanage and no one knows, nobody cares, and I’m too young to do anything about it!” She started to sob. Oh, Jesus. Be near.

Precious daughter, God will use you. Your heart has been broken and that makes you tender and ready to be shaped in His hands. I want you to be used by God, even if that means “losing” you to some mission field on the other side of the world. Have your heart broken, over and over again, because those children who are locked up, forgotten by the world, have a Good Shepherd whose heart is broken for them. Go get them! Bring them the message of a Savior who loves them (and then bring them home).

I hope she dreams about Russian children tonight. I hope I do too.