Weak vessels

Watch the news lately? Heartbreaking pictures of the desperate, fleeing through the seas, thousands never again setting foot on solid ground, alive. Sadly, this desperation drifts frightfully close to my front door. Persons desperate for hope, longing for something more, have shakingly stepped onto those makeshift vessels, some, never to be heard from again.
I tell her, I tell her there's more, that the path is dangerous, she assures me she won't... but then she's left. Climbed into that dangerous carriage. Thankfully, the storms weren't so bad that day, and now she lives on that other side.
I look at the faces of those images. I wonder what their eyes have seen, what horrors can't be communicated through a one-sided glance. I think of that weary mother, whose little son lay lifeless on the sandy beach. I have a little son, whose life too is cherished. I think of how much she must yearn to play again with her little boy, receive the flowers he picks from the fields or however he displayed that precious little boy love to a mother. Life no more. But reality and wars no longer offered that life to her or to them. Could you imagine feeling you had no other option, that the choice was either danger for a few hours or danger every single breath every hour?

I wish there was something I could have done for her, wish I could just make everything better. My heart is for no mother to mourn the time too short of their little ones. There's nothing I could have done for her family, but there is much I can do for those outside my door. I think of some neighbor kids, kids just desperate for love and attention, who greet me feverishly every time they see us. Their mother, tired of her life, has left them behind, seven precious souls. They're staying with their father and their stepmom, as their family eeks out a living on a income produced by a small tea hut. We go and see them, bring food scraps for their livestock and tell the hearts too young to understand all that's transpired in their short lives that they're precious and important. They smile and ask if we'd like to pet their goats. They run off, grab one by the horns, proudly bring the slowest one back, grinning with delight as our little girl and little boy squeal with delight, running their fingers over the coarse fur (the other little girl is too is squealing but from terror of the furry docile creatures).

We try to help them prepare for those droughts, that they don't have to leave their homes and join the endless pool of the jobless in the capital, when the water runs out.
Sometimes I get overwhelmed with all the needs of those around me, how insurmountable the task seems, how little my contribution feels. I feel like that little weak boat, trying to support too much, for what it's built for. So I bring this weak vessel to Him and I'm comforted by the fact that I've never been asked to have all the answers but rather to be faithful to those which He has called me to. Pray for this for me, it's my prayer for you too.