So something has happened to me since becoming a mother. (The kind with a biological child of my own who lives with me and who I hold in my arms as well as my heart.)
I can't even deal with the harsh truth about the thousands of babies without mothers to hold them.
Not that it was easy before. And there are plenty of children I consider "mine" in my heart although I will never get to really be their mom as I wish I could.
But since carrying that precious little life inside me, feeling and watching her grow, bringing her into the world, and experiencing the incredible bond that instantaneously is just there between my daughter and me...
It has changed me in so many ways.
Not the least of them being it rips my heart out all the more (if at all possible) to think of precious orphaned children than it did before I became my little girl's mommy.
Maybe it's because now I know in a way I never fully understood before all that these motherless babies are missing out on. Maybe it's even partly because I can feel with SO much more empathy for the mothers who go through everything necessary to give their baby life and then have to rip their own hearts apart for the sake of that baby's best interests. (In many cases this is what happens.) Whichever way you slice it, it means hearts breaking and leaving and loneliness and emptiness and pain.
My hands and heart have been just a little pre-occupied these last 5 months, and with good reason. But in recent days our good God has been doing something in me as my husband and I have spent time together reading and praying. He never lets us go...never lets us give up...never lets us forget - when it's a dream, a vision, a passion that He has given.
I want to look beyond myself and my little family and our safe, cozy corner once again. I don't want to push away the memories and the videos and the reminders and the tears anymore. I want my heart to be vulnerable and my arms to ache for babies with no mothers and mothers who must let go of their babies.
When I watched this video my heart broke for the grief of the tiny one with the silent tears slipping down her face even in her sleep. But as deep as the pain is, so the joy of adoption, of being wanted, being sought after and fought for...of belonging runs even deeper. The beauty of the mother holding, loving, forgiving, healing the once motherless is earth-shattering and mind blowing. It's the gospel lived out. And that's why I know without any doubt that THIS is what I am called to do. Hubby or no, with kids or without, these babies that God has placed in my heart, this miracle of seeing them come home, this is where it's at for me.
Passion for my own little, distractions within my small circle, discouragement in the waiting period may rise up to drown out the sound of their voices. He always brings it back to right here. To this struggle to lay down, to pick up, to fight for love and for hope and for joy - the joy of ALL peoples in Him forever.
Love is worth the fight.
http://youtu.be/D3twWpo6DfA
