GRACE IN THE MIDST OF HEARTACHE
There are those moments in life that impress in your heart
and change who you are by their presence there.
One of those moments for me came at 16 years old, while visiting an orphanage in Romania.
These children were all hungry for attention, but one child... One face in the crowd changed me forever.
I wish I could tell you his name, I wish I could tell you something great about this boy. But there was nothing impressive about him.
His hair was cut short to keep the lice at bay.
His pants were a size too small and his shirt too big.
What stood out to me was his hunger.
Not a hunger for food, but for love.
An unspoken hunger to be called good enough, worthy, desired.
This boy was deaf, family less, and abandoned.
No other children played with him.
The Orphanage ‘Mothers’ told us that there was no hope for that boy.
Without the ability to communicate his future was clear.
He would not be able to find work on the streets.
His statistical outcome was grim.
He would, in 8 short years, age out of the orphanage.
He would live on the streets begging for money.
He would fall into a life of crime and find himself jailed or killed.
He was 8 years old.
In Romania, boys in group homes age out at 16, he was half way to aging out of the system.
In this boy, I saw the hopelessness of children without love.
That day I made it my personal mission to love that boy with all the love I could muster.
I think of him often.
I pray that the small seeds of love that boy had, in a lonely orphanage in Romania, meant something to him. Maybe that small mission of love somehow could change the path his life was on.
Just maybe, he saw the love of Jesus though me.
The day I met him, I went to bed sobbing. I would never see him again.
The odds and statistics tell me that his life may very well be over before I even pen these words.
That encounter happened over 14 years ago.
One of those moments for me came at 16 years old, while visiting an orphanage in Romania.
These children were all hungry for attention, but one child... One face in the crowd changed me forever.
I wish I could tell you his name, I wish I could tell you something great about this boy. But there was nothing impressive about him.
His hair was cut short to keep the lice at bay.
His pants were a size too small and his shirt too big.
What stood out to me was his hunger.
Not a hunger for food, but for love.
An unspoken hunger to be called good enough, worthy, desired.
This boy was deaf, family less, and abandoned.
No other children played with him.
He sat alone.
The Orphanage ‘Mothers’ told us that there was no hope for that boy.
Without the ability to communicate his future was clear.
He would not be able to find work on the streets.
His statistical outcome was grim.
He would, in 8 short years, age out of the orphanage.
He would live on the streets begging for money.
He would fall into a life of crime and find himself jailed or killed.
He was 8 years old.
In Romania, boys in group homes age out at 16, he was half way to aging out of the system.
In this boy, I saw the hopelessness of children without love.
That day I made it my personal mission to love that boy with all the love I could muster.
I think of him often.
I pray that the small seeds of love that boy had, in a lonely orphanage in Romania, meant something to him. Maybe that small mission of love somehow could change the path his life was on.
Just maybe, he saw the love of Jesus though me.
The day I met him, I went to bed sobbing. I would never see him again.
The odds and statistics tell me that his life may very well be over before I even pen these words.
That encounter happened over 14 years ago.
That experience opened my eyes to evil and injustice.
The normal experience of the abandoned children of the world.
It opened my eyes to the realization that, in this life...
I drew the long end of the stick.
In fact, it put a face to the millions of children whose lives have dealt them the short end of that stick.
It caused me to start to question.
What happens as these children grow out of the system?
Historically speaking, taking care of the orphans was the job of the church.
In more recent times the church has taken a step back and the government has taken the lead.
Why?
My husband and I have always planned on fostering or adopting at some point.
In the recent years, as we've asked questions and began relationships with parents who foster.
The question we've asked is:
How do you handle the heartache?
And there seems to be heartache every step of the way.
How do you handle the heartache of taking in a child who has been so neglected and battered by the very parents who are now fighting to get them back?
How do you remain unbiased knowing that the end goal of fostering, in the best case scenario, is to re-place that child back into the home with the parents who hurt them to begin with?
How do you handle the heartache of parents who give up their rights with that child?
The pain of loving and sacrificing?
Of giving all you have into a child who refuses to let you into their walled off world?
The pain of bonding with a child you cannot keep?
No matter how you look at it, there will be pain and heartache.
If a child stays with me, I will mourn that they have lost their parents.
If they move on from my home, I mourn that I lost them from my arms.
Am I willing to live a life full of mourning?
Am I willing to love a child who may never love me back?
Matthew West wrote a song that has been playing in my head for months.
It’s called Forgiveness and the words are powerful.
The chorus is what my heart echos as I ponder these questions.
I must return again to the cross and cry out:
Show me how to love the unlovable
Show me how to reach the unreachable
Help me now to do the impossible
Forgiveness
Help me now to do the impossible
Forgiveness
Show me how to reach the unreachable
Help me now to do the impossible
Forgiveness
Help me now to do the impossible
Forgiveness
Go now and be amazed
By what you see through eyes of grace
The prisoner that it really frees is you
Forgiveness
By what you see through eyes of grace
The prisoner that it really frees is you
Forgiveness
Show me how to love the unlovable
Show me how to reach the unreachable
Help me now to do the impossible
Forgiveness
I want to finally set it free
So show me how to see what Your mercy sees
Help me now to give what You gave to me
Forgiveness.
Show me how to reach the unreachable
Help me now to do the impossible
Forgiveness
I want to finally set it free
So show me how to see what Your mercy sees
Help me now to give what You gave to me
Forgiveness.
There are too many children in
Foster care.
There are not enough homes and sadly a lot of the homes available
are not loving homes.
For every one success story of a foster kid who made it through,
I have heard many more stories of further abuse.
What do we do with the children no one seems to want?
I am writing this because I do not have all the answers.
In fact, the closer I've stepped into following God’s leading the more I see how inadequate I am for the task.
But my heart cries out...
What if that child was me?!
What if I was that lonely boy in that orphanage, who everyone had given up on?
What if I was that little girl who’s history tells her that no one will ever truly love her?
My heart tells me to keep loving the unlovable and to keep reaching the unreachable.
To throw my fears and pain at the cross and watch and see what grace can accomplish.
Because it’s not about you and me.
It's not about what we can or cannot do.
It’s about following where God leads you.
It’s about trusting the God who leads you.
Another blogger wrote:
“God's ability to be good to her in a difficult environment is far greater than any good we could offer her in a comfortable one. No amount of "good" we can give her can compare with the goodness of the sovereignty of God in her life, wherever she may end up living it. There are no guarantees in foster care, except one - God is sovereign in the life of this baby girl. He is good, and He will be good to her always, no matter where she lays her head at night.”
For every one success story of a foster kid who made it through,
I have heard many more stories of further abuse.
What do we do with the children no one seems to want?
I am writing this because I do not have all the answers.
In fact, the closer I've stepped into following God’s leading the more I see how inadequate I am for the task.
But my heart cries out...
What if that child was me?!
What if I was that lonely boy in that orphanage, who everyone had given up on?
What if I was that little girl who’s history tells her that no one will ever truly love her?
My heart tells me to keep loving the unlovable and to keep reaching the unreachable.
To throw my fears and pain at the cross and watch and see what grace can accomplish.
Because it’s not about you and me.
It's not about what we can or cannot do.
It’s
about love.
It’s about following where God leads you.
It’s about trusting the God who leads you.
Another blogger wrote:
“God's ability to be good to her in a difficult environment is far greater than any good we could offer her in a comfortable one. No amount of "good" we can give her can compare with the goodness of the sovereignty of God in her life, wherever she may end up living it. There are no guarantees in foster care, except one - God is sovereign in the life of this baby girl. He is good, and He will be good to her always, no matter where she lays her head at night.”
God may not be calling you to take in an orphaned child, but
God is calling you to something.
The closer you get to surrendering yourself to what God is asking you, the more you will question your ability do what He asks.
You may question how you’ll handle the pain and hardship that will surely follow the road you walk down. Friend, if you are following Jesus, He guarantees us there will be pain and heartache.
My prayer for you is that you find strength to surrender your plans to God.
There is grace at the foot of the cross.
Step forward knowing there is never a ‘right time'.
The right time is the moment God calls you.
Is He calling you?
Have you reached the point in your struggle with God’s calling that it is actually more painful to keep holding His plans for you are arms distance then it would be to simply fall at His cross and surrender?
We have to take that step of faith and accept the road of suffering in our lives.
There is a freedom that comes when you quit struggling to keep God at bay in your life.
He will never quit asking you to trust Him more, and surrender yourself to Him more.
He never calls us to do something that He has not already agreed to equip us for.
The closer you get to surrendering yourself to what God is asking you, the more you will question your ability do what He asks.
You may question how you’ll handle the pain and hardship that will surely follow the road you walk down. Friend, if you are following Jesus, He guarantees us there will be pain and heartache.
My prayer for you is that you find strength to surrender your plans to God.
There is grace at the foot of the cross.
Step forward knowing there is never a ‘right time'.
The right time is the moment God calls you.
Is He calling you?
Have you reached the point in your struggle with God’s calling that it is actually more painful to keep holding His plans for you are arms distance then it would be to simply fall at His cross and surrender?
We have to take that step of faith and accept the road of suffering in our lives.
There is a freedom that comes when you quit struggling to keep God at bay in your life.
God is relentless.
He will never quit asking you to trust Him more, and surrender yourself to Him more.
But God is also loving.
He never calls us to do something that He has not already agreed to equip us for.
