There are days when clinic goes so smoothly—days when the most serious thing you see is a snotty nose, and you leave with a smile on your face. Last Saturday was, to be sure, not one of those days. And I knew it from the start when the first kid that came in sounded like there were rice crispies in his lungs.

The sick people kept on coming—one after another. At this point, it’s no new thing for me to feel worried or super heartbroken for those that come in; it literally happens almost every single clinic day. What was new to me was being completely shocked by something that I saw. I guess there’s a first time for everything.

This lady came into the clinic with her four children. She handed me the smallest of them, which I thought was surely a premature newborn at best, and relayed to me that the baby had “fire in her mouth”. I looked at it and, sure enough, it was filled with white patches of yeast all over. This little one had thrush, which is honestly not so uncommon and definitely treatable. But my jaw almost hit the floor when I found out she was two months old. At first, my brain heard dos semanas instead of dos meses, because two weeks old made way more sense to it. But she repeated herself, and that’s when I experienced my first shock.

All I could think was this: I don’t care what third-world country I’m in, a two-month-old baby should never weigh five pounds. Not ever.

The longer she was there, the more I started to realize why this baby was not eating or gaining any weight: the other children in this family were completely out of control. Nothing out of the ordinary, just everything that comes with having three toddlers under the age of four. It was hard to watch this momma try to juggle all of them at once. Knowing that the baby was probably difficult to feed because of the thrush and seeing the chaos that she probably experienced daily made it clear that she literally didn’t have time to try to make the baby eat. What she overlooked is that eating is not a luxury; it is absolutely essential to sustain life.

We fed the baby as much as we could and asked her mom to keep returning for more formula. She came back once, but since then we haven’t seen her. Now the what if’s are starting to creep in…

But I can honestly rest in the fact that God loves her far more and can care for her far better than anyone on earth is able to, myself included. While I spent a few brief minutes with this baby, He actually created her— fearfully and wonderfully made her in his own image. I’m just in awe that He would still provide me with this peace that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7). How inexplicable and incredible is that? It’s kind of hard to even fathom having true peace about something that is beyond my understanding. Not understanding things doesn’t seem like it would give me any peace at all, but here I find myself resting in His kept promise, praying this verse for myself and for her:

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Romans 15:13

Side note: I can’t help but see the parallel between the physical and spiritual realms here. This baby was near death because her mom presumably wasn’t able to spend enough time trying to feed her. Like literal food, time spent with God is spiritual food. It is absolutely not a luxury, but more like the manna that was provided for the Israelites: it’s our daily bread, food for our souls. So, do whatever it takes to encounter him. Make the effort necessary. It’s what we were created for, and it’s the most important thing we can do in this life.