So What? Part One

"I used to think that cowardice was the worst

of human vices.

I've changed my mind; it's apathy!"

--Megan Carpenter

I think she's right.

The immediate context of her pronouncement was our conversation about orphans, but we had been wondering out loud together why, in general, so few people will actually do anything about situations that clearly need attention.

I think there is a cycle of reasons.  First, we avoid being confronted with needs.  If we do manage to be confronted with a need, we refuse to look into the faces of the need, so as to not get emotionally attached.  However, if, in spite of our best attempts to remain unentangled, we are stirred to do something, we pacify our urge to get involved by choosing the easiest and generally least costly way, so we can feel we've made a difference with relatively little inconvenience to ourselves.  Once we've convinced ourselves we've done our part, we return to our busy, self centered lives where we leave no room for further intrusion upon our priorities. Unfortunately, the cycle repeats itself again and again, whether the need is an orphan, the unborn, broken lives who don't know Jesus, or the sorry state of affairs in our nation.

Honestly, if we claim to follow Jesus, then this cycle is the greatest tragedy ever played out on the world's stage.  Tragedy:  a play dealing with tragic events and having an unhappy ending, especially one concerning the downfall of the main character (can we see ourselves or the church here?).  In contrast, I find a totally different picture of Jesus in Matthew 9:35, "And Jesus was going about all the cities and the villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness."  No avoidance of needs here.

Matthew 9:36, "And seeing the multitudes, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast (harassed and helpless, says the NIV) like sheep without a shepherd."  Jesus was willing to look into their faces, and into their hearts, and let himself get emotionally entangled with them.  Compassion:  feeling and understanding someone else's suffering, combined with the desire to do something to alleviate it.

Jesus refused to choose the least costly way.  Philippians 2 says, "...although He [Jesus] existed in the form of God, He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. . .He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."  "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends," He explained in John 15:13.  And, for our souls, He was willing to be spent in the most costly way, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done."  (Luke 22:42)

As His followers, we are called to more--more than contentedly enjoying ourselves while oblivious to needs all around us.  Jesus said the workers are few.  Paul said of Timothy, "I have no one else of kindred spirit who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare.  For they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 2:20-21)  What an indictment!

So what are we going to DO about it?  Breaking the cycle begins with opening our eyes.  It's time to not look the other way; it's time to get on, not off, that newsletter list that places needs before our eyes; it's time to take the time out of our busy schedules to find out what's going on outside the safe walls of our homes.

Will you seek with me to see like Jesus sees?

Please, Lord, direct our eyes to see what You want us to see.

So Incredibly Alone

I should be in bed, but sleep won't come yet.  My heart is aching, but it's not for myself.  It's not even for anyone I'm related to.  The person on my heart doesn't even live in this country.

He lives in Ukraine, he's sixteen, and he is an orphan.  We met him when he was just ten when we were in Ukraine to adopt our daughter.  Over the years, he has watched so many of his orphan friends walk out of the orphanage forever with the families who adopted them.   And this dear young man has asked over and over why nobody came for him.  He gave his heart to Jesus a couple years ago and has been praying earnestly for a family every day, and praying, too, for the strength to handle it if God has a different plan.

More than any of the other children we left behind in Ukraine, this boy captured our hearts.  Such a cheerful boy, and we hear God's been shaping him into a leader other children look up to.  Over the years, God wouldn't let us forget him, and we, too, have been praying earnestly for a family for him.

After years of longing, the answer to his prayers was about to happen this fall.  Just before he turned sixteen, a family filed the necessary immigration papers so that, even though they couldn't come 'til after his sixteenth birthday--the cutoff age for being adopted by Americans--they could still adopt him.   A friend told us that, of all the children she's seen looking forward to being adopted, (and she's seen lots of them), he was the most excited of them all.

Tonight, however, we heard that the family, who had been in Ukraine intending to adopt him, had to leave him behind.  We don't know details yet; but, we have heard that Ukraine's government agency that handles adoptions had closed and nobody knew when it would open again.

This precious boy has no family to comfort him.  He has no earthly father to hold him and tell him that they will get through this together.  The one thing he ever wanted most on this earth was to have a family, and the only American family who can adopt him (because he is now over sixteen) went home without him.

I don't know about you, but I'm afraid I can't even begin to imagine the depth of disappointment he must be feeling right now.  Only Jesus knows how he feels--He knows what it's like to be forsaken, as He went through it for us on the cross.  This dear boy has no family to pray for him, so how about we be his family right now, and ask our Heavenly Father to pour out His comfort. . .

Oh, dear Father, please wrap Your arms of love around dear A.  In Ukraine, his Monday has already begun.  Be his strength.  Reassure him of Your love; don't let him begin to doubt You.  Help him to be able to focus on his school work and trust that You are still in control of his life.  Please be his provider and his refuge.  Help him to understand that You are not looking the other way.  Help him to trust Your heart even though he doesn't understand what You are doing just now.  In Jesus' name we ask these things.  Amen.

Parenting By Heart

Okay, I confess; I'm too often task-driven.  I find myself frustrated around those who are so wrapped up in their "to do" lists that they can't entangle themselves long enough to stop for a bit of conversation beyond the surface, yet I fear I subject my precious family to the same frustration at times, by my own behavior.

Yesterday, I read something that has made me pause to re-evalute, as I often need to do, my modus operandi.  Our adopted daughter, Vera, whom we adopted from an orphanage in Ukraine just before she turned fourteen, is working on a persuasive speech about adoption.  Yesterday afternoon, I read her first draft, and I would like to share a few lines with you.  Speaking of math class at the orphanage, ". . .When you don't get it, and everyone else is waiting for you to finish, the teachers scream at you that you are dumb and will never get it.  Can you imagine hearing that almost everyday for four years?  You start believing that they are right.  No one in the orphanage sat down with me to lovingly explain to me how to get it done. . . .I was wishing that I could belong to someone who would call me theirs and not be ashamed of who I was."

Wasn't there someone who would take the time to minister to her heart, to listen to her heart and to give, without reservation, the abiding reassurance, the safe refuge, the patient encouragement, and the tender love she so desperately needed?

She no longer lives at the orphanage.  She came home with us in 2006, to join a younger brother and sister.  We wanted to give what she needed, and we resolvedly rearranged our lives to attempt to supply it, yet real life can get awfully hectic, and in the hustle and bustle of life, I find I have to keep asking myself, "Am I still listening to their hearts?"  All three of their hearts have urgent and weighty needs every single day.  Every heart in every one of our homes does.

Do I really know what my children need most?  Am I tuned into their hearts enough to sense when they desperately need a tender encouraging word instead of a stern reminder from a task-oriented organizer?  Oh, Lord, forgive me!  Give me Your eyes to see their deepest needs.  Show me how to minister to their hearts as You would.  Love them Your way through me!

Slow me down, sit me down, with a smile, and not a frown, that I would love with no reserve and no regrets.


"Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it."  ~Proverbs 3:27