Sick to My Stomach......

Did you know that there are over 147 million orphans world wide.  How about that over 27 million people live in slavery today, in this day and time.  There are more slaves now than there have ever been in all of history.  Children are being sexually exploited right now.  Little girls and boys taken away from their families and raped by men.  The poor are taken advantage of in their desperation to provide for their families and forced to live in slavery to those with money.  They are treated cruelly and they have no way out, they don't know what else to do or where else to go.  They are suffering.  How many meals have I eaten and never given a thought to the millions of people who are going hungry.  How many bowls of rice have I consumed not even considering if a poor feeble man was forced to work in a rice mill, so that all of us rich westerners could have plenty.  I know that this blog is about adoption and it is assumed that I will write warm and wonderful things about our journey and all the amazing things that are happening in our hearts as we experience the miracle of adoption.  This is not warm and fuzzy but it is no less wonderful.  Why? Because the Lord is changing me, in deep ways.  There are children out there, not just faceless numbers who are suffering.  They have big eyes full of sorrow and a longing to be loved.  They are hurting and broken.  These children have names and they were created by God with purpose and destiny.  The Lord is breaking me to do something.  How can we just sit back and enjoy a life of comfort and plenty and do nothing to help them.  Can it really be said of us that we are "disciples" of Christ if we do nothing.  I don't want to do nothing any longer.  I want to be awakened to the suffering and hurting world. I wonder what we will say to the Lord on the day of judgement.  Will He accept that we had to modify His commands to fit into the trends of the modern church.  How is it that He clearly calls those who want to be His disciples to give it all away, to care for the orphan, the widow, the least of these and yet we can just brush it off as if we have to hear yet another more superior call from the Lord to do something that radical.  Is there anything superior to His word?   We are to live lives that are constantly aware and engaged with those who are suffering among us.  I am sickened by the many times I found a reason to not adopt these past 8 years.  I feel nauseous at the complacency I have had toward the millions of children who are hungry, abandoned, abused, and unloved.    In fact, I don't just want one orphan.... I want to help as many as I can.  Why not?  Why should we ever just be content to live a comfortable life in a big roomy house and raise our 1.5 children.  Giving them every luxury affordable.  I am sick to my stomach, because there was a time when we first came back from Africa that I just wanted a neighborhood and a garden in the back yard.  I just wanted to raise my kids and not wash my clothes by hand anymore.  I wanted to turn on a light switch and know that their would be electricity.  I wanted to drink water from the sink and not get sick, or go to a doctor and not worry about a needle infected with HIV.  I just wanted the American dream. However, the Lord in His infinite mercy and grace did not let me reside in that dream for long.  What I want now..... I want to be His.  I want Him.  I want Jesus.  I want to love the hurting and I want to give it all away.  This stuff that only distracts us and keeps us from having to rely on the Lord for our provision, it has just lost its luster.  You see I thought Todd and I were going to save a child, but it turns out that the Lord is already using this child/children to save us.   It is a warm and fuzzy story after all.  The Lord awakening hearts and opening eyes to see His purposes and to take part in His redemption.  You are not reading this blog by chance, I pray that the Lord will begin to shake your walls and the comfortable fort the enemy has encased you in will fall.  I know He can because the Lord is tearing down my walls.  I know and trust that the day I get to look into my sweet Ugandan child's face, I will have experienced and seen the mighty work of  God!