Broken Hearts and Baby Birds

In my last post I shared my heart and the fact that, even though I am here, day in and day out, that I cannot heal my adopted children's hearts. If God does not show up, we won't make it. But there's not a chance that He's gonna bail on this. His heart is so for them, it makes my head spin. To think about how much He had to orchestrate to put these two little girls in our family blows my mind. And why He chose me to be their mother is a mystery still unraveling. Day after day I watch as He displays His strength to heal them in spite of my weaknesses.

Today I am not only awed, but wrecked. To tell this story, I will have to back up to May 1997....13 long years ago. My 3 1/2 year old daughter had begged us for a baby brother or sister, but God had not provided one for her and she was hands-on-hips incensed by this! But alas, God heard her prayers and at least was sending her a baby cousin who would live just around the corner from us. She anticipated Baby's arrival with the rest of us and had big plans for him. She talked to him through my sister's belly and waited - impatiently - for his arrival. Just days before Baby was due to be delivered into this world, he went to live with Jesus. My heart was so broken for my sister and her husband. In our own grief, my husband and I had the task of trying to explain to our daughter why the answer to her prayers would not be arriving to attend her tea parties. My heart broke as we tried the best we knew how to comfort her. At three she didn't get "dead". Three year olds do not think abstractly, and death is an abstract concept. She wanted to know why she still couldn't see him, hold him, play with him.....

While I was still making trips back and forth to the hospital, I came home one day and my little girl had found a baby bird that had fallen from his nest. I was really too tired to even think about caring for this little bird, but my daughter was delighted to take him in and insisted that we save him. I wrapped him up in a little box and explained to my daughter that when she got up from her nap we would take him to someone who knew how to feed and care for baby birds who have lost their mommies. Silently, I prayed he wouldn't die. I didn't think my heart - or hers - could take it. She named him Kik Kik and went to take her nap.

While she was napping, Kik Kik also went to be with Jesus.

Believe me, I had words with God. Seriously, Lord? You're kidding, right? Really? I sat there and tried to figure out how I would ever explain to my daughter why God would let this happen. How would I ever defend His character to my three year old when it was in question for me personally? I couldn't imagine what He was thinking.

When she got up from her nap, my daughter ran straight to the baby bird's box. I cringed and began to explain to her that he had died while she slept. I saw total disappointment begin to emerge and my own heart just screamed. But then something amazing happened. She picked him up. And she held death in her hands. She touched it, examined it and experienced it personally. What had been too abstract to resolve the confusion in her little heart over the death of her baby cousin, suddenly became concrete understanding. Slowly, (and God knows I can be really slow in getting His ways!) I began to realize what God had done for my daughter. This dead baby bird had been His gift to my three year old.

Today another little baby bird came into our lives to heal a hurting heart. My adopted daughter, the little one from Central America, had asked me a question out of the blue just as I was about to make dinner at the end of a busy day. It was one of those questions every adoptive parent knows is coming and plans to answer in a certain way and yet is still caught off guard when it happens.

"Why didn't I grow in your belly?"

For the first time ever, I explained to my little girl about her birth mom. I told her her name and how much she loved her, and how she couldn't care for her because she was too sick, and how she had gone to be with Jesus last year. I told her how Jesus knew that she needed a family and how He had allowed her to grow in mine and Daddy's heart so that she could grow up with a mom and dad who loved her and would always take care of her. I wanted her to know that God knew she would need a family and that He had lovingly provided that for her.

She sobbed.

In that moment, I was completely powerless to do anything to alleviate the pain in her heart. I cried out silently to God to come and heal her broken heart. Is this what justice looks like? Adoption itself is not just a story of gain for a child and a family. It doesn't exist without first being a story of profound loss in the life of a child. And here I am. Just sitting and holding this little broken heart....because He asked me to. Not because I can do anything to heal her. Not because I am capable of putting those pieces back together. I just sat and held and prayed.

In just that moment, one of my boys came running in to announce that he had just found a baby bird on the ground outside. My little girl wanted to see. As we got there, God was speaking to me. This baby bird was for her. I showed her how the baby had fallen from his nest way up high in the tree and how the momma bird was powerless to help him. I told her that God had sent us to save him so that he wouldn't die and so that we could get him to a safe place where he would be able to grow up into a fine, strong bird. I placed him in a box and put the box in my daughter's hands.

And this time, my hurting little girl was holding adoption in her hands.

She touched it, examined it and experienced it personally. What had been too abstract just minutes before to resolve the confusion in her little heart over the loss of her first mother, suddenly became concrete understanding. This baby bird was His gift to my broken-hearted five year old.

We located a wildlife rehabilitator just around the corner from us and all 7 of us...I mean, all 8 of us... piled into the van. My little girl held him in her lap the whole way and then delivered him herself into the hands of his new adoptive mommy.

Is she healed? No. Did God begin a healing work in her heart - something I am completely powerless to do - with a little baby bird, just as He did for my 16 year old all those years ago? Yes. And I stand in awe, once again, of His amazing ability to make all things new.

The Cost of Justice - Part 2

We had three kids, and life was full. And then we heard the orphan's cry. We brought home a little girl with special needs from China. It was while we were waiting to go get her, that God brought this second little girl from Central America into our lives. She was beautiful. As we stared at her little picture, God confided to us that her special needs were not the kind that can be plainly seen. We knew. She was meant to be our daughter and we prepared as best we could to bring her into our family and love her with all of our might. Except, as it turns out, we are weak and our love is so insufficient.

With the news buzzing all around us in recent weeks regarding the adoptive mom who put her Russian son back on a plane to Russia, my heart has been so burdened. I have been silent for far too long. It is the time to pour out what has been brewing in my heart for months now. All I can think is that this mother must have felt terribly alone to have been convinced that putting her son on that plane was her only option. But the truth is...adoption is hard. Period. And if you add to that adopting an older child, a child with special needs, or siblings, then adoption is very hard. But that is not what you normally hear. Too many adoptive parents are struggling alone in their own frustration, confusion and despair. They don't want to give adoption a bad name, so they keep quiet. They love their children, but their love is not enough. Many times, when there are other children in the home, the feeling of constant guilt is added to the despair and frustration. And adoptive parents know that they cannot put into words what is really going on with this precious child whom they love and fought and sacrificed for.

For ten months, my heart has wrestled with my daughter. She came to us broken. I have experienced every emotion available to the human heart regarding this little girl who I call daughter. I love her. But my love is not enough to overcome the early neglect and abuse and abandonment that she suffered. Her brain is not hardwired to receive love, but to survive. What God created her to be has been altered by things never meant to be experienced by small children...or anyone for that matter. She doesn't know how to be. She only knows how to survive. She doesn't know how to love or to receive love. She only knows how to fight to try to get what she already has. And I have come face to face with the darkness of my own soul. Truth be known, I do not know how to love this child. And each and every day is a struggle to find my own capacity to love and to hope that somehow it changes her. But I fail. All the time.

So where does that leave us? I'm probably being too honest for some of you. Here's what I know today. Regardless of the facts, the diagnoses and all the reality of how far my daughter has to go before she can return to the person God created her to be, my hope is secure. I know that God is able to heal her heart. I cannot heal her or change her. I can not hug enough, listen enough, have enough grace, or even sometimes lecture enough to bring about a change in this little life. All I know is that God placed her here in our family as the place where HE intends to heal her broken heart. And I am here to say that the cost to our family....is enormous. But she is worth it. Period. He redeemed my own life from a total disaster. And He asked us - as He asks all of us - to step out of our comfort zone, lay aside our fears and get our hands dirty. And we said yes. Is it hard? Excruciatingly. Are we out on a limb way past our comfort zone? You bet. But every single day there is the satisfaction of knowing that we have chosen to lay down our lives of comfort and embrace God...to know that we are only in this place because we asked that "What now" question out of our sacred discontent, laid down our fears, looked past our suburban backyard, and embraced the unknown. And it is a privilege to sit on the front row of God's redeeming, miracle-working power in this little life. I don't have the answers. I can't do it. I am trying my best to love. And God has got it. Is justice for this one costly? Yes. Was justice for me - and you - costly? More than you know.

The Cost of Justice - Part 1

It's difficult to put into words what has transpired over the past 15 months since I last posted to this blog. Shortly after I penned those last words on Habakkuk, we got an email saying that the little girl that our family had been trying to adopt for the past 2 1/2 years had been assigned to another family. As the story unfolded it became clear that much foul play had been involved. We were suddenly faced with fighting a very corrupt attorney general in a foreign country, and we knew NO ONE who could help us. Truth be known, we might have just let her go - with much pain and heartache - had God not specifically made it clear to our family that this little girl belonged with us. That in itself is a long story, but suffice it to say, we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God did not want us to walk away and thus we were thrust into a 6 month long battle of epic proportions.

Now let's be clear on one thing. God loves the orphan. And as His body we are called to do no less, whatever that looks like. Oh, how much easier said than done this is! To love the one child God had placed on our hearts, we have paid a much higher price that I could have imagined when we first began this journey. When we made the decision to say yes to God, to bring justice to this one little girl, we had an idea that things might be difficult. The country she lived in was not really open to adoptions. Our agency had never facilitated an adoption from there before. She would be four by the time we got her home, so we would be dealing with adopting an older child. Indeed she turned out to be nearly 5 when we did bring her home at the end of a three year long process. We knew some of the sad details of her little short life and figured there would be emotional needs beyond our capability to deal with...that we would have to rely fully on the Lord's guidance, wisdom and healing for her. But truly we had no idea that adopting her would mean standing up to a foreign "king" and trusting God to save us...and her. That it would mean 3 months of nearly 10 hours a day of emails and phone calls and letters desperately fighting to see her placed where we knew God wanted her. That ultimately God would part the sea in front of us just as the enemy was bearing down on us. His deliverance of our little girl into our family is nothing short of a total miracle.

But today, as I sit here, I know that she would not be here had we not engaged this battle. Ultimately, God would be the One and Only reason she would be here, but He asked us to fight. And so we did. And....we paid a huge price. financially. emotionally. physically. But we emerged carrying treasure. Words can't express the feeling of really knowing the weight that God carries in His heart for one child. I can't really even begin to explain what it is to know that how we fought for our daughter is how he fights for us - each of us - as the enemy wages war against our souls to deliver us to a destination that was not meant to be ours. There is something holy about the battle we engaged as we had the unique privilege to glimpse God's heart in a way I don't believe we ever would have otherwise. And we are changed.

But can I confide something in you? The battle that we fought to bring our daughter into our family, as crazy and unbelievable as it was, is nothing compared to the battle we have fought since we got her home. Look for Part 2 as I share something that God has laid on my heart to share as I emerge from the past 9 months of battling the darkness inside my own heart and my daughter's.

Habakkuk's Plea

Yesterday I sat with a dear friend who is in the same boat we are right now – waiting for a corrupt foreign government official to put his signature on a piece of paper releasing a child from life in an institution to life with a family. For months, in two different countries, separated by oceans and continents, two men have taken a child’s life into their own hands by refusing to offer freedom by the stroke of a pen. Pride? Indifference? Who knows what keeps them from doing this simple task that would secure life, peace and protection for an orphaned child. As we sat and talked, we visited an age old question. Where is justice for the children?

I was lead to Habakkuk this morning, and to my amazement, I found a man who, 2600 years ago, was asking the same question of God! Habakkuk’s name means “Embraced by God”. Interestingly, he was the only prophet that asked questions of God, rather than just reporting what God said to others. And the questions he asked were the same questions my friend and I found ourselves asking once again yesterday, “God, where is your justice for your children?” And God embraced him.

His people were being oppressed and held captive by an ungodly government. Take time to read the book of Habakkuk – it’s only 3 chapters long! But here is a summary: “God, where are you? Don’t you see this? I’m crying out to you for justice, and you are not doing anything!! Why do you show me this injustice if you aren’t going to do anything about it (Hab 1:3)??? These ungodly people prosper while your innocent children suffer!”

God answers with an acknowledgement of how bad things are and then tells Habakkuk that it is going to get worse. Habakkuk cries out to God again: “But aren’t you GOD??? How can you watch this – you are holy! Aren’t you going to DO something??? I know you could stop this, God!” I can so relate to Habakkuk in this, can’t you? It’s so easy to be completely overwhelmed by the injustice in this world – to get intimately involved with only one small child whose life is being sucked out of them by crushing injustice is more than we can handle. And then, how do we go beyond that? When we hear that there are 140 million orphans, or 2 million children being trafficked every year in the sex trade…it overwhelms our hearts and our concept of God to think of one child being subjected to this kind of torment, much less millions of children. It overwhelms us with sadness, but even more, I believe, it threatens our concept of God as loving and just. So we push those threatening thoughts aside, and as we struggle to forget those emerging questions, we struggle too, to forget the children that brought those questions to the surface. And the children pay the price for our fear and our indifference.

But Habakkuk was a man who wasn’t afraid to ask God those questions. And God embraced Habakkuk because justice is so much a part of who He is. In fact, He is the one that wired justice into us. He wants us to ask the hard questions. We need not be afraid to go deeper into the hard stuff – the realities of injustice on this earth and to look for God in those places. He will answer us there, just as He answered Habakkuk.

After Habakkuk’s second desperate plea for justice for the children of God, God responds with a revelation of what is to come. God tells Habakkuk to write the vision and make it plain – though it tarries, to wait for it….and He goes on to describe the justice He will bring to his people in the end in detail. He shares with Habakkuk that there is an appointed time for justice to come.

The end of the book is Habakkuk’s prayer – basically “Ok, I knew it! You are holy! You are sovereign! You DO care and you WILL bring justice! Even though things are terrible and I don’t know when and can’t see it now, I will rejoice in you, my strength.” He ends knowing that God is indeed just and that God will provide strength to wait until that time when He finally does bring justice to his people.

God sees, He knows, He cares, He is sovereign, and He is just. He will bring justice to this earth: “My righteousness draws near speedily, my salvation is on the way, and my arm will bring justice to the nations.” (Isa 51:5) Are we willing to stand for that day? Are we willing to get our hands dirty and have our concept of God redefined in order to do all that He is calling us to do to plant seeds of justice, though we may not see the fruit in this lifetime?

“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, He enables me to go on the heights.” (Hab. 3:17-19)

God embraced Habakkuk in his desperate plea to bring justice to his people, and He is embracing us in our desperate pleas to bring justice to this earth.

“Then the Lord replied, ‘Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.” (Hab. 2:2-3)

Justice waits……

The Kingdom of Me

We reached a point in our family where we were tired of just going to church and doing the same thing over and over. While we were grateful to be saved and to be able to worship freely and to have loving, Christian friends, there was an emptiness brewing in our hearts. Gary Haugen referred to this feeling about going to church as "Groundhog Day" after the movie with the same title. That was exactly how we felt. We knew that we were blessed bountifully for a purpose greater than ourselves. But what? We just kept doing the same things every week, every season. Our lives were full of activity and stuff, but the nagging emptiness did not go away. If the Church is God's answer for a lost and dying world waiting for justice and you and I are the Church, what is stopping us from actually carrying out this call on our lives? What is keeping us in church "doing" church instead of "being" the Church to this world? I think there are a handful of real answers to that question, and today I want to talk about one of them.

I believe that there is such a vast gap among western Christians between their reality and their awareness of the world. What I mean is that in our culture it is easy to insulate ourselves from the reality of how the rest of the world lives. We do this by choice. We prefer not to know about suffering - perhaps because we feel powerless to do anything about it, perhaps because we do not want to feel guilty for how we live in comparison. We've become skilled experts in avoidance. It's easy to watch the evening news or put down the newspaper and then go back to our dinner table discussions that have nothing to do with a suffering world and everything to do with our own little kingdoms. I love Kay Warren's phrase "the kingdom of me". Truly our lives are built around our own problems, our own challenges and issues that we deem a threat to our own personal lives of comfort. We have grown to expect our lives to be easy and we squirm and fight when something in our lives becomes the least bit inconvenient. We are consumers of ease. We are suckers for the latest product that makes our lives "easier" because we perceive in our limited field of vision that our lives are difficult and that we have a right to want them to be easier.

But our perceptions are an illusion. We are so insulated that we are comparing our lives not to the rest of the world, but to the person sitting next to us in our cozy pew at church. We have to broaden our awareness of the world.

To do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God. That is what the Lord requires of us. But how do we do justice if we are so insulated from the injustice in our world? How do we love to administer God's mercy to a dying world if we can't see or connect with that world and can only relate to a world that is within the context of our own little kingdom? I truly believe that the Church today is God's answer for the injustice in our world, but we are living in our own little private worlds and can't even see the suffering world so how can we be the ones that God chose to deliver justice to a world we can't or won't see?

Statistics are not enough. I could sit here today and list some alarming statistics about our world and yet by dinner time you will probably have forgotten all about them. If I told you there are 143 million orphans on the face of this earth we live on, what effect does that have on you? Do you know any orphans personally? Maybe, but probably not. So, how can you relate? That number - 143 million - it sounds like a lot, but do you really stop to think about how many that really is? Do you contemplate that each of those children was created by God for a purpose here on earth and consider what is being lost by these little lives being wasted?

We are not completely heartless though. We do hear stories or see a muliti-media presentation at church that will stir our hearts beyond lunch time. We have given of our finances to some of these things, but I love what Kay Warren says in her book, Dangerous Surrender:

"Giving financially loosens the grip of materialism and selfishness that we all struggle with, but it can be a way of quieting our conscience while keeping our distance from those in need. Can you point to the sick, the poor, the prisoner, the orphan, the widow, the immigrant you are personally ministering to in Jesus' name?......As long as suffering people are a mere statistic to you, you will never become ruined for life as you know it. When suffering becomes personal - with faces and names - and when you hear their stories, you won't be able to remain disconnected."

We can't do justice unless we can see injustice. And we can't really see injustice unless we are willing to step outside the walls of our little kingdoms and go see and touch the suffering world. If the Church is God's answer for injustice in our world today, we have to be willing to embrace suffering and injustice and to get our hands and feet dirty. Sounds a little scary, huh? We'll talk about that next. Today, ask the Lord how to find the suffering world that lies just beyond the gates of your personal comfort zone and go there, just for a bit. I promise, though your kingdom may begin to fall, you will not regret what it will cost you, for truly, whatever you do for the least among us, you do for Jesus Himself. There is no greater way to experience Him.

Sacred Discontent

For some reason, I have had this weird nudge from God to relentlessly read stories of missionary heroes to my children. I wasn't raised that way. I was raised to fear everything. Like most people, I used to be more than content to have that life where I went to college and bought a house in a safe part of town and raised my kids to be afraid of anything that was too different - anything that would have the potential to "lead them astray." I made a lot of my early parenting decisions, I'm sorry to say, based strictly on....fear. Fear of my kids getting hurt, fear of them picking up bad attitudes or habits, fear of what other parents might think. But at the same time, I had this weird notion that I needed to read stories to them about missionary heroes - people who constantly laid down their lives and faced peril and danger to follow God and to reach the world with His message of truth and love.

I found myself wondering why I was so driven to give these stories to my children. Was it because I really wanted to live a life like that? Well, deep down inside, I think the answer for me was... YES. Did I think that I could or actually ever would live a life like that? Um, no. Did I want my kids to live dangerous lives for the Lord? Well, definitely not! I wanted them to live safe lives for God. :)

But is that possible? Contemplate that one for a minute. Is it possible to live a "safe" life for God?
Sure, I guess. Is it the life we are meant to live? Um, sorry....but, no. I don't think so. When I say "safe" I am referring to my comfort zone. Doing and being all that God created for me to do and be without ever feeling uncomfortable or unsafe - without ever risking my reputation, my finances, my life...

When my daughter started choosing stories about martyrs for her recreational reading when she was nine years old, I have to admit, I was alarmed. Was God preparing my daughter to be a martyr? Certainly not. I pushed that thought away and figured it was a phase she was going through that she would get over. For some reason, I continued to read stories to her, and then to her brothers about brave missionaries. Why?? For years I didn't know, but now I do.

I truly believe that when God created me - and my children - for this time on earth, He specifically wired us to be bring His heart to this present lost world. I was not born at another time. I was born for this earth at this time. I was also created to yearn for a life that matters. Pause. Think about that - deep inside each of us is this desire to carry out our God-given purpose here on earth - to live a life that matters. True?

When we begin to ask that "Now what?" question (see previous post), we come to a place of new understanding. Again, Gary Haugen gives voice to this understanding:

"This, I believe, is the voice of divine restlessness. This is a voice of sacred discontent. This is the voice of a holy yearning for more. This is the moment in which we can see that all the work that God has been doing in our lives and in the life of the church is not an end in itself; rather, the work he has been doing in us is a powerful means to a grander purpose beyond ourselves... This is the critical transition - when we who have been rescued by Christ come to understand that our rescue has not been simply for ourselves but for an even more exalted purpose. Indeed our own rescue is God's plan for rescuing the world that he loves."

My friend, the Church is God's answer - YOU are God's answer to a world waiting for justice. You have been set free for a purpose. You have been blessed for a purpose. You were born for such a time as this!

What is holding you back from making this transition - from rescued to rescuer? Ask yourself, "Why was I put on this earth at this time? Do you feel the tug of this divine restlessness to make your life matter? What is stopping you from living that brave, heroic laid-down life of a modern day hero?? It could be lots of things. Don't you think it's worth getting to the bottom of this question? I do, so I'm going to keep on.......

NOW WHAT?

There has been this storm brewing in my heart now for almost five years, and I am finally able to verbalize this chemical change that has happened in my heart and in our family. For these past five years God has led my husband and I down an unexpected path. For years we have been troubled by the oppression and injustice in our world, but like most western believers, we had no idea how to do anything about it. We would have those sad discussions about children being sold in the sex slave trade or about the overwhelming numbers of orphans on this earth, or about kids starving to death in Africa, or the AIDS epidemic....and well, none of those things personally affected our family. But beyond that, we cared. We just didn't know what to do about that caring. We could offer meager amounts of money towards people out there trying to make a difference, but somehow that never felt like enough. We reached a place where we had all the things we thought we ever wanted...and yet, we still found ourselves lacking. I owe so much of my ability to verbalize all of this to Gary Haugen, President of International Justice Mission, who writes in his book, Just Courage:

"Now what? Indeed, there comes a time in the life of every believer and of every church where a voice inside us simply asks, Now what? After we have been introduced to Jesus and have found peace with God through him. After we have been following Christ and have gradually been surrendering the compartments of our life to him. After we have asked him to redeem our past, to heal our wounds, to reconcile our marriages and safeguard our children. After we have asked him to purify our thought life, to sanctify our ambitions, to soften our hearts, to comfort us in tragedy, to lead us in wisdom through confusion at work, at home, and in our hearts. After he has filled our minds with the Scriptures, and taught us his Word, his songs, his ways and his love for us.

After all of that, there is a voice that remains and simply asks, Now what?"

Would you consider walking this path with us? This path leads to unknown, scary places that aren't "safe". I'm asking the hard questions here, and I want to try to answer them with others whose hearts are struggling with the "Now what?" question. To answer this question, I believe we have to answer so many other questions first. Questions like, "Can I really live a brave life for Christ and still be safe and know that my children will be safe?", "What can I really do about the terrible injustice that consumes our earth that we live in?", "Why was I the one born in the land of plenty, and what is my responsibility to others that is implied in scripture based on the abundance I live in?" (Hint: It is not because God likes me better than that precious mom on the other side of the ocean from me who is dying of AIDS while watching her children starve and wondering what will become of them when she passes.), "What do Jesus and the Father think about my church?", and other hard questions. Hard....but worth asking if they can lead us to find the calling and purposes stored deep in our hearts, placed there by a loving Father when he was forming us for such a time as this.