Our Home is Waiting...
November 21, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
It’s Sunday morning and I have just gotten home from church and put our 2 year old son, Calvin, down for a nap. It’s the first time in a while I have gotten a chance to think in quiet about what the Lord is doing in our household these days.
If I were to compare this day, to say, a weekend last year, I would have to say there is a new pain in my heart as a Dad, and as a man. This pain is unlike most of my pain in life, for it is coupled with a great joy and anticipation. It is the pain for my daughter which I am to care for, protect, love and raise as her Daddy.
I haven’t met this daughter of mine. In fact, I am not even sure she has even been born yet. But what I feel for my firstborn daughter, Thompson, I am now feeling for her. She is, or will be soon, born on a different continent, have a different skin color than me, and not carry my DNA in her bones or blood. She will be born in a place which is much more destitute and poor than any place I have ever lived in, and I doubt she has ever heard an English word spoken in her ears. So many differences, but even now I consider her my daughter.
Since my wife Taylore and I were engaged we spoke of one day adopting a child. It was more fanciful thought back then, perhaps more a thought of charity than anything else. But there was no pain in it like there is today. What was once a nice conversation to have as we dreamed of a life together as a family is now more than a mere thought. I now feel as a Dad who has a daughter who is alone. No Mom, no Dad, no home. No family. And no voice of her own to do anything about it. She is just there…alone. It’s an awfully painful experience.
What I want her to know is that I am here, a man on a mission to rescue his daughter. To free her from her world of aloneness and abandonment. To hold her, hug her, let her big sister and 2 little brothers love on her. To let Mommy rock her to sleep, and fall asleep with her as she sings songs of God’s great love to her. So I guess, we are all waiting. Waiting for paperwork to be filled out and checked over. Waiting for the powers that be to tell us we can go get her and bring her home where she belongs. What pains me now is not just that she is alone, but also that she doesn’t know we are trying to come get her. She has no idea that though we have never met, her Daddy loves her and is doing everything he can to bring her home where she belongs.
I now have a new understanding of God’s heart for the oppressed. For those who couldn’t fight for themselves, who didn’t have the ability or means to do anything to get out of that place. I think about what the Scriptures tell us when Cain killed his brother Abel. Abel was innocent. He didn’t do anything to deserve the actions of Cain. He may have fought back, I don’t know, but what I do know is that he didn’t have the strength to fight for himself in a way that would save him. He died, an innocent victim, at the hands of evil humanity. But I love how God responds. The Bible says that his innocent blood cried out to God from the ground…and God heard it. Innocent blood, crying out for help, and God in His great love, heard it. This is the heart of God for those who get the brunt end of life from a broken world. Those who have no family, no home, no means, no nothing. Their cries rise up to God’s ear and heart.
In fact, this is why God made provisions for these kinds of people in the Law. How many times is it repeated in the Law for God’s people to not harvest all the way to the end or corners of their crops? Why did He command this? To provide for the means and sustenance of those who had nothing. He wanted His people to be the means to care for the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, the widow and the orphan. Leave some fruit on the vine, leave some food in the field. Let those who have care for those who don’t have.
This is what God is calling us to as a family. To give to one who doesn’t have all that we have. Not just a bed to sleep in in our house, but everything. A place at our table, a room in our house, a Mom and a Dad, a sister and two brothers. An inheritance that is just as much hers as it is Thompson’s, Owen’s, and Calvin’s. A name that we all share, and a family where she is just as much a part as anyone else.
For many families who adopt, it is the Mother’s “motherly instinct” which leads the way. As much as that is a part of our experience, there is also another element at play. There is a “man’s instinct” to lead, rescue, fight for and protect, and to love. This is what I feel now as I write and as we all wait. Because God has aligned our hearts to His in this area, this home is waiting for her.
