Uuuuugh...
I hate receiving the quarterly newsletter from Diakon in the mail.
This year it came with, “The Home Decorator’s Collection” magazine, of which I have been thumbing through, feeding my discontented wants. “The Voice of The Martyr” quarterly also came too.
Double rats!
A few things struck me as I read through the cover story of a medically fragile child that had recently been adopted and died.
The first thing was how hollow my faith is compared to my convictions.
This adoptive mother with her son is not the richest person in the world (I’m pretty sure), does not have more time than I do, or is magically less busy than me. And she didn’t enjoy her medically fragile son any less than I enjoy my children simply because he wasn’t a “normal” child.
She was pictured in her sweatshirt, holding her son’s head in her lap—his eyes shut, smiling, with his trachea tubing visible. The article tells of how her specific dreams of having a son were fulfilled in him—reading to him, singing to him, and watching sports with him, even right up to the day that he passed away.
It was one of those articles that hurt to read.
I pressed on, squirming inside as disgust in myself mounted.
John 16:33 has been tattooed on my mind lately, “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows.”
The second thing that struck me while reading her well-written story was how much of my life is spent trying to avoid sorrows and trials.
Why on earth did this woman adopt this child that was medically fragile?
Why did she choose many sorrows in adopting a child that would pass away quickly?
Better question is: Why haven’t I?
Why haven't I, as a Jesus-following, Scripture-believing and acting individual?
Am I not called to care for orphans in some way?
Am I not commanded to be generous and think of others better than I do myself?
Am I not called to die every day to my wants and desires?
Aren’t I supposed to be a living sacrifice?
I know God is working those things out in me.
But I wonder what I can do now—today.
After Tim and I were up for our annual review as permanency parents, our agency decided it would be best for us to try this again when we had…uh hum…more adequate accommodations. That greatly disappointed us. We worked at our certification like it was a full time job. Our family worked hard too, watching our children in order for us to go to these seemingly endless trainings.
Okay. So what are we called to now?
We can pray to God on behalf of the orphans in the United States. Some statistics have them at over 400,000 in the United States alone. Millions world-wide.
Pray for their protection.
Pray for their forever families.
Pray for God to stir the hearts of His people to care for the least of these.
Just PRAY.
Period.
The third thing that I was struck with as I looked through the Diakon quarterly newsletter was the photos of finalized adoptions.
It looked amazingly similar to what God, my heavenly Father had done for me.
“So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” (Romans 8:15)
“God sent Jesus to buy freedom for us, who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children.” (Galatians 4:5)
“God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.” (Ephesians 1:5)
Those photos looked eerily familiar to me.
It looked like me, when I asked Jesus to save me from myself and bring me into His family.
I imagined Jesus standing next to me, with His arm around me, saying,
“This is MY child. She is in MY family now.”
So, maybe adoption isn’t too unfamiliar of a concept for us to grasp.
Apparently, it’s not for me.
I pray that it isn’t for you as well.
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