My eyes snapped open and I could feel my own heart pounding. "What happened to the top of your foot?"

She mumbled something in that way that endears you to a three-year old but doesn't give you a clue as to what she's talking about.

"Does it hurt?" I gently reached down and touched her mangled foot. She just looked back at me and smiled with a mouthful of half rotten teeth.

My medical knowledge tops out at Band-Aids and antibiotic cream but even that alone seemed better than nothing. So I sat on her living room floor, in the middle of the inner city, and bandaged the foot of a little girl I didn't even know. I looked up at two of the teenagers lying on the couch, "Do you mind if I wrap this?"

The older girl shrugged, "Go ahead. I don't care. She won't keep it on."

In all that foot washing Jesus did, I wonder if he ever came across anything like this. And if He was standing right here in this room would he zap that wounded little foot back into working condition? It's hard to say because the God who can keep infection and pain at bay acts and reacts in ways that are puzzling. Though he can heal everything from a scrape to paralysis, that's not always what he does. Seems somewhat odd if you consider him good. A lot of his children are swathed in bandages, have broken bodies, unimaginable realities and weary minds.

So it's back to that foot washing scene two thousand years ago. He could have cleaned up everyone in a jiffy, with a snap of his finger and a flick of that towel. But he didn't. He got down on his knees and gently cradled each tired foot in his hands. One by one he washed his disciples. Twenty-four mud caked feet, on this the night before he died. Why? Because a miracle in the name of Divine Power is one thing but manual labor in the name of love is quite another. He tastes our humanity so deeply that sometimes, even still, God does things the slow way. A way that, to us, seems painfully inefficient and human. And sometimes in the process people die, faith gets lost and relationships fail. It takes an inhuman amount of faith to believe that this God is both good and powerful. Our reality continually collides with our faith. But perhaps what seems a contradiction is really only a mystery.

That final night as the disciples untied their sandals, it wasn't just about hygiene. And though it was a show of human compassion it was more than that. It became the overture of everything his children had hoped and waited for. The very Creator of bone, skin and soul decided to whisper, because his roar of a voice is too magnificent for the ears of his creation. He shades his glory just enough so anyone willing to listen will hear him speak softly, "Rise up. Leave your old life. Follow me." A refrain we could join in on because of the reality of the cross. God who knew no sin bent down and washed our hearts. And he did it the long and hard way. No lightening, armies of angels or heavenly fire. Nothing instantaneous or eye-popping. Just his son doing a very human thing, dying. His son doing a very divine thing, giving his perfect life to a world so broken by sin.

Is this my response to suffering? Hardly. That dialogue lacks a satisfying answer and the process just takes up time. I'm too busy fixing lunches and bandaging toes…the slow way. But one thing I'm certain of, in the face of injustice and ache, God moves in ways that defy the laws of time. He is simply greater than the boundaries he created to hold humanity together. It's not always clear how he's going to mold the moment into a miracle. Or when. But know that he will.

That afternoon when I met little Angel there was no adult home. On the couch were a young girl and a 17 year-old boy, making out. Two other young couples were at various stages of inappropriate behavior. They didn't even stop as I, a perfect stranger, stared. Nor did they care when I came back to the apartment an hour later with the first aid kit from our church's kitchen drawer. I felt anger, unbelievable sadness and a stab of despair all in the same moment. But when a little girl is in pain, there is no time to consider if God is still God. You just get on your hands and knees and do what you can do. And perhaps, Jesus being all the way human too, had a moment when he wondered why, but then he saw, not those twenty-four dirty feet, but those twelve stained hearts, and he got down on his knees.

Understanding God is often an enigma, but our call to touch and empower the hurting has always been clear. In a world that's so urgent we must go with what we know and add to that knowledge that someday all the mysteries will unravel into a beauty we can't yet imagine. Because the God who snapped his fingers and made instant buffet for 5000+ is the same God who starts an oak tree from an acorn and molds and nurtures it for decades until it towers above his creation. Both miracles. Always know that God is doing something, his silence is rarely what it seems.

Angel's foot is better. I checked last Tuesday. A slow healer but healed none the less.