Held While Holding

Summer of Celebration Series …

Celebrating the Faithfulness of God in Ordinary Places

There is a quiet kind of ministry that rarely appears on a stage.

No spotlight.
No microphone.
No applause.

Just a weary woman sitting in a rocking chair, holding a baby no one else came for.

Over the last two and a half years, my friend Tanisha has been serving as a missionary in Cape Town alongside her husband and two teenage boys. Like many missionaries, her days are filled with pouring out — discipling, serving, parenting, studying, encouraging, adapting, and carrying burdens most people never fully see.

Missionary life is beautiful.
It is also costly.

There is a loneliness that can come from living thousands of miles away from family, lifelong friendships, and familiar support systems. Even surrounded by people, it is possible to feel isolated. Add graduate school, motherhood, ministry responsibilities, grief, exhaustion, and the normal weight of life, and suddenly the strongest people can begin running on empty.

When Ministry Feels Heavy

This past year has been especially heavy.

Emergency surgery brought an unexpected trip back to the United States. More recently, her grandfather — a man who was like a father to her — passed away. Grief settled in alongside the already existing weight she had been carrying.

And somewhere in the middle of all of it, God quietly led her to Hannah’s Place of Safety.

A place that rescues abandoned, vulnerable, and medically fragile babies.
A place where tiny lives are held, comforted, fed, and protected.
A sanctuary for babies who desperately need love.

But perhaps also a sanctuary for weary volunteers too.

At first glance, volunteering there may not seem extraordinary. She goes simply to hold babies. To rock them. To pray over them. To sit in the quiet and offer comfort to little ones whose lives began with hardship most of us cannot imagine.

But the more I began to understand what she was doing there, the more beautiful it became to me.

Because somewhere along the way, while she was helping care for abandoned babies, God was gently caring for her too.

The God Who Ministers to the Minister

Isn’t that often how He works?

We show up thinking we are bringing something valuable to others only to discover Heaven has prepared healing for us in the process.

When Tanisha recently tried to explain why Hannah’s Place matters so deeply to her, her words carried the weight of exhaustion, honesty, and quiet revelation.

“I’m tired. My body is tired and my spirit is weary. So when I hold these babies it reminds me that I am a child of God.”

And then came the sentence that stopped me in my tracks:

“I am looking at these babies seeing how God sees me.”

What a sacred realization.

As she rocks abandoned babies — babies without parents, babies longing for comfort and belonging — she is reminded that she herself is fully seen, fully loved, and fully held by the Father.

“When I hold these babies that have no parents, this is how God sees me — that I am His child.”

The work of ministry can feel lonely and overwhelming at times. There are days when obedience feels heavy. Days when the physical exhaustion and emotional weariness press hard against the soul.

Yet even there, the Gospel remains personal.

“He sent His Son. He sent His Son who died on the cross for my sins.”

And somehow, in a room filled with cribs and tiny lives, that truth becomes tangible again.

Not through a sermon.
Not through a conference.
Not through a platform.

But through the simple act of holding babies.

Ministry in the Ordinary

“I look at them and I just know that it is worth it. The physical and emotional weariness is worth it.”

That line feels important.

Because so many people serving in ministry quietly wonder if the exhaustion is worth it. Missionaries are often viewed as endlessly strong, endlessly capable, endlessly giving. But they are human too.

They miss family.
They carry stress.
They battle discouragement.
They grieve losses from far away.
They grow tired.

And sometimes what restores them most is not a vacation or applause, but the gentle reminder that they too belong to God.

Tanisha went on to say something that beautifully captures the heart behind Hannah’s Place:

“If I am called to do something, I want to do it with a Christlike attitude and a Christlike mind.”

Then with striking honesty and tenderness, she added:

“So when I hold babies, I am reminded that the Savior died for me and all I am doing is sitting holding babies because I am worth it to God and someone prayed for me.”

Isn’t that the Gospel?

Someone prayed.
Someone showed up.
Someone carried love into broken places.

And because of that, lives are changed.

Even in the ordinary.
Maybe especially in the ordinary.

The Ministry of Presence

There is something deeply holy about the ministry of presence. About showing up for people who cannot repay you. About offering comfort without recognition or visible results.

Sometimes ministry looks like preaching to crowds.

Sometimes it looks like changing diapers, rocking babies, and getting peed on while whispering prayers over tiny lives.

“Giving back, holding babies, getting pee’d on or poop in your hand — it’s worth it.”

And somehow that may be one of the most honest pictures of Christlike love there is.

Messy.
Humble.
Unseen.
Tender.
Sacrificial.

“That’s why I go. It reminds me that I am worth it to God and I love babies.”

The God Who Sees

I think about Jesus often when I picture this story.

How many times did He stop for the overlooked? The forgotten? The vulnerable? How often did He move toward people others passed by?

And how beautiful that He still does.

He sees abandoned babies in South Africa.
He sees exhausted missionaries.
He sees grieving daughters.
He sees overwhelmed mothers.
He sees volunteers quietly rocking children no one else came to hold.

Nothing escapes His attention.

That is what makes places like Hannah’s Place of Safety so powerful. Yes, babies are rescued there physically. But there is also emotional and spiritual ministry happening in ways no spreadsheet or ministry report could ever fully measure.

Because when people come close to brokenness with the love of Christ, God tends to heal everyone involved.

The babies are held.
And somehow, the volunteers are held too.

A Summer of Celebration

This summer we are celebrating the faithfulness of God around the world. Not only through dramatic testimonies or visible miracles, but through quiet moments of obedience that reveal His heart.

A rocking chair.
A whispered prayer.
A tiny child finally safe.
A weary missionary finding sanctuary while offering it to someone else.

Only God could weave together something so tender.

And perhaps that is the greatest reminder of all:

Sometimes when we feel we have little left to give, God gently leads us into places where His presence restores us while we serve.