Orphans...

It is the month of leprechauns, pots of gold and green shamrocks, and for all thirty-one days of March, every time we go to the grocery store, our cashier asks us if we'd like to donate a dollar to help fight muscular dystrophy.

Now, you know that if you just hold out for half the month saying, "Oh, not today.", first to the cashier, then to the child beside you wanting to put her name with everyone else, whose mommy broke down way too early. Then, about the middle of the month you pay your dollar, or whatever, your child gets her name on the wall and for the second half of March, you can respond to any and all inquiries with a kind and modest smile, "Oh, we gave already, thank you."

Well, it was into this absurd formula of life, my Arowyn shined her little light.

About two weeks ago, a Florida man apparently had been doing atrocious, unspeakable things to his adopted children, killing a ten year old girl, then drugged the other twin, dowsed him with burning, toxic chemicals while the child slept. About the same time, a woman gave birth to a baby boy in a coliseum, leaving the newborn in a bathroom toilet. (Yesterday I heard of another Florida man who got stopped in an airport with two dead children stuffed in his suitcase.)

We started an adoption fund immediately. Simply put, all emotion aside~ and there is plenty of that~ I figure, if the children of this world adopt for their own purposes, how much more should we, the children of the kingdom, seek for ways to adopt or, at the very least, help orphans. That's what God says is pure religion, James 1:27.

We had/have only a few dollars in this "fund", a little blue-green planter with the words "Grow in Grace" penned in yellow on the outside. We even, gasp, skipped a meal out so we could give extra.~ I write out of irony, not pride, and a reminder, because today's meal out was awful and I could have fixed a much better meal at home, and should have ~

Anyway, my daughter has taken off with this fledgeling idea of saving for an orphan. Use to be any change she happened upon in our home went right to her huge yellow crayon, an enormous piggie bank. Now, she seeks out coins to put in the little planter. I've watched her do this for a few weeks, and have found the desire in her growing, not subsiding. She either has a heart for orphans or a total belief that her every need is taken cared of, even some of her wants. Or perhaps this passion is an amazing combination of both. Oh, how I want to be that simple...and that mature in Christ.

There are struggles that come to light when children are present in the home. I've never know myself to be this selfish, harsh, demanding and critical as when Arowyn hit three and a half/ four years old. ~Wow, has it really been only 2 years of me realizing how bad "me" is? Feels like a decade.~ Someone on a Lysa Terkeurst's post said her kids have a handicap...and that handicap IS having her for a mom. My heart cried out, "You think that too?"

But this situation in Florida gave me a hand smack to the middle of the forehead feeling. For years I've been thinking about this whole "adoption thing" wrong. Apart from the giving love and family to call their own, I think, what if we keep them, an orphan, from a better home, both financially and Godly. I've never thought about saving orphans from entering a horrible situation. Truth be known, I really haven't thought about those left in the ophanages. Sad to say, to me they are in kind of a holding pattern, waiting to land. But they're not. They are living their lives out too. Just different from anything I've ever known.

My husband and I are so far from perfect, it's not even in our solar system of thinking, but the desire to be Godly is growing, real fruit has come and the hope of being changed into the image of Christ is based not on a vague idea, but a promise given by God himself. This promise is a distant star, but there and growing brighter in our sky. Does that mean we are filling out adoption papers and scanning the orphanages for THE child (gulp~children) to have in our home...

Uh, no. But it does mean there's been a turning of hearts in our home...the "No, that's not us" has changed to a hesitant, hopeful "Could this be?". What will God do if we start putting money aside for such a thing as this?
 
And so it was into this perfect "storm" our unsuspecting cashier, asked innocently, "We are collecting money for muscular dystrophy. Would you like to buy a shamrock for a dollar?"

My perfunctory reply came fast and sure, my "firm" look on to stop any plea from my daughter before it had a chance to reach her lips. I payed for my groceries and as I helped bag them, my child voiced her question loud and clear, for any and all to hear.

"Well, we're collecting money to buy an orphan. Would you like to give us money?"

God bless her little light!