I had to copy this post from No Greater Joy Mom-Whatever God (
http://www.nogreaterjoymom.com/) because it is just so PERFECT! For us, our hearts have been so burdened (that tennis ball lump in my throat is exactly what I feel with streams of tears strolling down my face) as I read stories of children desperate for HELP! For us, God has stirred our hearts for more than just adoption! He has stirred our hearts for those who suffer...especially children...the least of these; the helpless.
I sat at my computer way too late last night. A lump the size of a tennis ball lodged firmly in my throat.
Hundreds! There were hundreds of them. All desperate. All worthy. All deserving.
All needing just one thing.
A family to call their own.
Hundreds and hundreds of children waiting all over the world for someone to come and save them from their absolutely miserable existence.
And I wondered. Again.
Where is the body of Christ? I stared at the sweet faces looking back at me from my computer screen, fighting back tears, and I remembered the lyrics of a Casting Crowns song.
But if we are the body
Why aren't His arms reaching?
Why aren't His hands healing?
Why aren't His words teaching?
And if we are the body
Why aren't His feet going?
Why is His love not showing them there is a way?
There is a way!
I’m going to be brutally honest with you all today. I struggle with all this. That’s not to say that I have always been this way. There was a time in my life, not so very long ago, when I would have taken the easy road at all costs—a time when living a life of complete surrender to my Father in heaven was so foreign to me.
Little did we know back then that His bigger picture for our lives was beginning to unfold. Little did we know that a beautiful seed had been planted in our hearts. God was beginning to change us from the inside out! It was in that season of waiting for the test results to come back that we began to use an expression which has come to be our family motto in life--“Whatever, God!”
And that’s pretty much the way we have lived our lives ever since.
“Whatever, God!”
“God will enable us!”
I smile when people comment about how they could just never adopt a child with special needs and how we are so courageous to do that. While I appreciate the sweet comments very much, I can honestly tell you with all my heart that neither one of those two statements is accurate.
Anthony and I are probably the last people on the planet who would have been God’s first choice to go and rescue children with profound special needs. Seriously! You know how there are some people who you look at and think, “Yeah, they can definitely do that job!”
Well, that’s not us!
People who have known us for years and years look at us and wonder how we ever got to this point in our lives. I know some of them look at us and think, “Really? The Salems? God must have been desperate!" (Just kidding...sort of.)
But...
“Whatever, God!’
We were willing.
Available.
Come. What. May.
God doesn’t look for perfection—He looks for a willingness to follow HIM with reckless abandon.
I would be rich if I had a penny for every time someone said, “I’m so glad there are people like you in the world because I could never do what you do!”
Really? I beg to differ.
You know what I think? I think a statement like that takes the pressure off them to actually DO something about it. I think it’s easy to write it off as being someone else's “calling.” We’re NOT special, or amazing, or wonderful. Nooooo! On the contrary, we’re sinners saved by grace. The most ordinary of ordinary you could possibly find. If we wrote a book on parenting, you probably wouldn’t want to read it because we really don’t have any great insight into how to parent a child. Anthony and I are the fly by the seat of our pants and figure things out as we go along kinda people. We definitely do not have it all figured out.
But we are willing.
And that’s all God needs. Willing hearts.
My heart aches for the hundreds of children who are waiting for someone to come for them. Why? Because I believe with all my heart that we, the body of Christ, have already been “called” to do it.
We really have, you know. It’s right there in the book of James.
But we don’t! We wait. We pray. We ask Him for divine confirmation. We wait for the Lord to come and sit down next to us and audibly say, “Go!”
And yet, I think God looks down from heaven and shakes His head at us. “Have I not already given you the command?” He must wonder.
“Is my Word not confirmation enough of what I REQUIRE?”
If my neighbor was starving to death, had nothing to eat, had no clothes to wear, and was in a desperate situation, I wouldn’t hesitate to rush over there at lightning speed to do everything in my power to help out. Nothing would hold me back! I wouldn’t wait for God to give me a “calling” to do it. Why then do we wait to be “called” when it comes to the orphan? What’s that about? Has He not already given us the REQUIREMENT? Is that not enough?
I think that sometimes we use that word “calling” just a little too conveniently. To say “It’s not my calling” sure can be a great way to get out of something we just don’t feel like doing. But “caring for the orphan” is NOT A CALLING, friends. It’s a command. Huge difference.
When I look at people in the Bible, I see ordinary folks just like us. God never chose people who were born amazing in every way to do the extraordinary things. No, He chose sinners, weak, frail, inadequate, simple people. What turned those humble beings into some of the greatest heroes and role models who have ever walked the earth was just one little word. That’s all it took, really--
“Yes!”
It’s amazing to me how one tiny three-lettered word can turn an ordinary life into something that is so extraordinary, so amazing for HIS glory.
“Yes!”
If you are one of the many, many people who have written to me recently about opening your hearts and your home to a child who has special needs, but are feeling like you are not equipped for the task, please be encouraged today. Know that God is NOT looking for people who have it all together. Nor is He looking for those who have huge homes, adequate retirement funds, fabulous jobs, or empty nests. No, God is looking for those who are willing. He is roaming the earth looking for ordinary folks who are willing to be used by the Almighty Father. God is looking for people who are willing to step out of their comfortable little boats, face the raging sea, and trust that God will meet them on the other side….for the sake of a child who so desperately needs them.
The more ordinary we are, the more His glory shines through our lives. The more inadequate we feel, the more opportunity He has to reach down from heaven and show us that with Him ALL things are possible!
Someone once said that, “God doesn’t call the equipped, He equips the called.” I agree.
Since we’re already called, I guess that means we CAN parent these precious children who so desperately need us.
Yes, indeed. “Whatever, God!”
God is looking for those through whom He can do the impossible --- what a pity that we plan only the things that we can do by ourselves. A.W. Tozer
