One World, One Family

Sweet Girl,
Today Mommy is feeling a bit overwhelmed with emotion. In a good way! Most of my day was spent doing normal work, but about an hour ago and I decided to give my brain a break and catch up on my favorite internet blogs. I had been thinking about a family blog that I read probably a year ago, and had long ago taken out of my internet favorites. I was desperate to find them and couldn't remember whose website had led me to them. Then I miraculously (thanks, Holy Spirit) remembered that it would still be in my Recycle Bin! So I came back to this blog about an amazing family in Tennessee that had three children of their own, then adopted three more children from Ethiopia. And what a surprise - when I opened it up, they are in the process of adopting THREE MORE children from Ethiopia. And let me tell you, this family certainly has enough faith and love from the Lord to spread around. They are so inspiring. I have to say though, that it brought me to tears when I watched this video:

If you don't have a heart full of love and compassion for the poverty-stricken children of the world after that, then you just might not have a heart at all.

And then to top it off, I read this blog from Beth Moore's daughter who is visiting India right now with Compassion International. They are the organization that you have probably heard of at Christian concerts, asking you to sponsor a child in a foreign country. She is seeing children that are loved and cared for by families half way around the world, and she is excited to actually meet two children that she personally sponsors. How incredible to think that your tiny amount of money pays for a child to go to school and eat and have medicine? A child that otherwise would be uncared for and left alone to make it every day.

This is the part that touched me. She was thinking why it is that God loves the poor so much. Scriptures say they are blessed and will inherit God's kingdom, yet it is every Christian's job to care for them and protect them. Here is the quote that she read recently that made perfect sense as to why the poor hold such a special place in God's heart:

“Poverty, in a sense, exposes the truth of the human situation in its need of God. It dispels the illusion of being self-sufficient and secure, with no need of God. The poor are those whose material condition enables them to see more clearly than most the human need to be wholly reliant on God. It is in this sense that the biblical poor are understood as paradigmatic in their faith.” (Richard Bauckham, Wisdom of James, disciple of Jesus the Sage, 190)

And I realized that all of the things we consider to be fortunate to have - the big houses, the cars, the possessions - those can all just be hinderances to knowing and depending on the God who knows every starving child by name. How sad to think that we wealthy Americans believe that we can provide everything for ourselves, that no need in our lives must go unmet. It is our loss.

I am glad God hasn't called me to give it all up and move to Africa, but no one can say that you are not called by God to make a difference in the world. To love a child, to show compassion, to pray for their health and safety. I will be thankful for all that we have been blessed with, that you, my sweet girl, are fed and clothed and lavished with kisses every day. But I will also ponder what our part is in loving God's people around the world, one big family of God's children.