Today is
my second favorite Sunday of the year, right behind Easter. It is the day the
church, the body of believers, look to the orphans around the world. The thing
is, one day a year will not cut it.
The truth
about orphans is there is around 200,000,000 orphans in our world. In the US,
there are 400,000 children in foster care and 102,000 of them are waiting to be
adopted.
My
question is, how is the church just sitting back and watching this? How can the
body of believers look past the orphans and continue on? How are the those
claiming to be like Christ accept that there are 200 million children without
families across the globe and in their backyards?
It is
because those kids don't have faces to them, it is generalized. "The
Orphans".
They
don't picture their faces, hear their laugh, remember all the little facts
about them. I have a list of 48 Royal Family Kids* from the past 2 years on a
constant loop in my mind. I remember the voice of 'Dr. Higglebottom' from one
little girl. I replay the scene from talent night of a little boy hula-hooping
to train sounds while 3 counselors flew around him like airplanes. I saw how
happy the simple things like playing catch-the-flying-teddy-bear for 30 minutes
straight made two little girls or stacking all the trash as high as possible
made a table of boys. I remember a quiet little boy telling me Friday morning
that I was the only cool girl because I gave out the mail. I remember the joy
of two siblings, who were not living together at the time, got from writing
each other letters. I remember what I felt when a little girl was making her
mom a craft, when I knew she was not living with her anymore. I remember that
helpless feeling when a girl told me how much she hated living with her
grandma. And unfortunately, the thing I remember most is that each of those 48
kids are back in their daily lives, where consistency and affection is
slim-to-none, in many cases.
Their
faces make James 1:27 come alive to me:
"Religion
that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look
after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from
being polluted by the world."
That is
the call of the Lord for us. To look after the orphans.
The way
we do this is by remembering how the Father adopted and is
constantly loving us.
Galatians
4:4-7 says it perfectly:
"But
when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a
woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that
we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his
sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who
calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no
longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you
also an heir."
We
remember that He sent his perfect and blameless Son down to teach us how to
love. He was the example we are meant to strive after. The Father redeemed us
through his only begotten Son's death on a cross. By this, we are able
to claim salvation and eternal life. We are now able to have a
personal relationship with the Father. We are able to call him
Father and he calls us children. We are His heirs. We are able to draw
into him and know his heart. That is how we love the orphans. We thank the
Lord for showing us such gracious love and we draw into him. We learn who He is
at His core and we become passionate for His causes. The call of God for
us to love the orphans is now our loving Father telling us to go show the love
He shows us to those who need it desperately.
My prayer
for the sweet faces I remember so, so often, that make this call come alive, is
simply Philippians 1: 3-8:
"I
thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you,
I always pray with joy...being confident of this, that he who began a good
work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ
Jesus. It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I
have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or
defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with
me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of
Christ Jesus."
We are
called. So let's go. Let's act on our faith because we have a God big enough to
hold us up as we go.
Praise
the Lord, again!
*Royal
Family Kids Camp is a week-long camp for kids in foster care and I love talking
about it! So talk to me about it or check out their website: http://royalfamilykids.org!
