Could it be today?: A adorable shirt!

A bloggy friend of mine has these A*W*E*S*O*M*E shirts! I love them and they are so cozy and soft!!! Please if you feel led, help her out bring Michael home!!!

http://becauseweareled.blogspot.com/

Soap box ahead......

I have been thinking alot about adoption, orphans, poverty, justice and such. Thinking about Jesus' heart concerning these issues. I have noticed and realized that my view of God was so safe, so small, so little. So typical of the American lifestyle.

I had God in a bubble. Safe and sometimes shallow.

I have cared for the least of these since I was a child. I always wanted to work with handicap children. My heart felt for them. I have ooodles of compassion. I cared. But I was in a bubble. A great big bubble encircled by this country we call America. My world was safe. I didn't see the injustice. I was protected. I was not aware of the magnitude of hurt beyond my bubble.

I don't know if it was because I was not exposed to the realities of the world or maybe I just really didn't want to dig that deep. Maybe it was both. I liked my blinders on.

What I did know with all my heart is that God called us to adopt in 2001. I started to see the injustice with the when we adopted from S. Korea. Children cared very well for, but no family. It was sad. Many children with no love, to be forever an orphan. Then we adopted from China. Many injustices. Many. I remember seeing a little girl from C's orphanage. She had droopy eyelids. Every time I see child on the waiting child list, I wonder if it is her. What happened to her? Does she have a family? I remember the rows of cribs laying with newly abandoned babies. Eerie silent, they laid there. Then we adopted MM. Oh my goodness.

...my American dream came crumbling toward the ground.

Suddenly the pain, the hunger, the fear, the poverty, the sadness.... it wasn't removed or far away... It wasn't on some TV show asking to send in a few dollars each month.

it was about MY DAUGHTER!

MY DAUGHTER slept on a urine soaked piece of plywood, a diaper held by a rope and not one bite of food in her first 22 months of life. Her ears were rotten on the inside. She had scabies and eczema that drove her absolutely crazy itching. She did not know how to put her legs around me when I picked her up. Had anyone loved on her ever? This wasn't some picture in National Geographic. This was our daughter. My child. The child I love as my own. The child I would die for.

That could be your child. Imagine if you had to abandoned your child, because you were forced to? Imagine adopting a child like this. If left, she would have probably died. I know she would have lost all hearing. Never had her palate fixed. Never had her eyesight fixed. She came to me not being able to hear, not being able to see very well at all and never had eaten solid food. She only had her mouth fixed because a wonderful American lady took her for a month and found someone to sponsor her surgery. Then she went back to her orphanage. Back to being lonesome, hungry, cold.

I changed in that moment of time. Deep inside my soul, God changed me. I will never be the same. I am not the same. I am changed.

I wonder what God thinks when he sees his people doing nothing. Nothing. Living their life of luxury, not even given the time of day to a thought other than their own. Full of self. Raising children full of self.

I cant go on pretending it didn't matter to me anymore. It wasn't OK. Its still not okay.

God had changed me. It all came together. God was more real to me. I am closer to Him. My relationship became more personal. I wanted to know God more. To seek Him more. He told me to wake up. Take note. There is work to do. These children need the gospel. They need to be taught about the one who created them. They are real beings. My thoughts, passions went to the orphan. The least of these. The one who can not fend for themselves. That child.

But it really isn't about child, the orphan. Well yes in a way it is. But really it isn't. These children are what taught me. It started to become clear. The haunting eyes. The stomachs bloated from hunger.

The comforts of life started to make me more sick than they used to. The fancy cars, big boats, woman who spend way to long caring what they look like for every yahoo of a man, instead of their husband. The people who care about number uno, first and always.

It became about the heart. About glorifying our God.

I want to be His hands and feet. I wanted Christ glorified through me. Always. Through good and bad times.

There is NOTHING I do that brings me greater joy than obedience to God. To serve Him and have my life point to Him, not me. To bring Him glory.

My God is the defender and protector of the orphan and widow.

My God is GOOD! All the time. Not just in good times, but all the time.

He may ask you to do things that are not the norm in this place called America. Not comfortable. It will, make others feel uncomfortable. The bible says obedience is better than sacrifice. Obey.

It will stretch you. Make you grow in Him. Strengthen your faith. It will give you a relationship with the Lord that will amaze you. It will give you a peace that will surpass all understanding. It may not be easy. Oh, I can tell you its not easy. Some days its plain hard. Sometimes a struggle.

Its much easier to go through life not thinking about the orphan, the widow, the missionary.

Sometimes you get tired of the questions. The "your doing it AGAIN?" "Don't you have enough?" Its especially hard when it comes from those who say they love the Lord.

I saw on a blog a gal asked this question. I like it.

Are we really serving the God of the Bible or one we have created?

If we TRULY LISTEN and obey like little his children, where will He lead us? Where will He LEAD YOU? Are you willing to TAKE THE RISK? Are you willing to GROW? If you want to learn about a bunch of people who risked for Christ, who went out of there comfort zone, who paid the ultimate price, just read your bible.