Last Monday we had our first home study meeting with our caseworker at Bethany Christian Services. It was good to get started, even in the midst of a pretty crazy week getting our apartment packed up to move into our new house on Saturday. This meeting was a tangible step forward to get to our child. Every morning when I wake up, I pray for my husband and children, including this child. I pray for God to sit with him, so he will know he is not alone. One thing you hear most often about children in orphanages is that they often have attachment issues since they are rarely held and this will probably be true for our child and thus the prayer, that even if human hands are rarely holding him, that God's hands will.
One of Isaac's favorite books and movies is Dr. Seuss' 'Horton Hears a Who'. For those of you without 3 year olds who may be unfamiliar with the story, the gist of it is that Horton the Elephant discovers the people of a whole town, Who-ville, living on a speck of dust that has landed on a flower and he believes it is his duty to protect the people of this town from being destroyed. There is a sour kangaroo in the story who cannot see or hear the people because they are so small and thus believes they are not real and wants to destroy the speck of dust in beezlenut oil to teach Horton a lesson about making up stories. Horton has all the people of the town begin shouting, 'We are here! We are here! We are here!'. The pro-life cause was not the one Dr.Seuss had in mind when he wrote this story, but it is the one I always think of when we read the story or watch the movie. Actually, when we watch the movie and the people of Who-ville start shouting 'We are here! We are here! We are here!', it is hard on my heart to think of so many precious unborn children shouting those words with no one to hear them. The story of course has a happy ending. The kangaroo and the other animals of the jungle finally hear the people of Who-ville and they are saved.
This Sunday is 'Santity of Life Sunday' in many churches around the country. As we journey on towards our adoption, I want to stop and remember the unborn, as well as the orphans around the world. No matter where you stand on these issues, please take a moment to listen to these sweet voices that were 'fearfully and wonderfully knit together in their mother's womb' (Psalm139) and you may just hear them.
Recently, I read the book 'Unplanned' by Abby Johnson. Abby was once the director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas, but now works with the organization 'Coalition for Life' to help moms in the crisis of an unwanted pregnancy learn that abortion is not the answer for the life growing inside them. One day she witnessed an ultrasound guided abortion and watched the baby go from moving in his mother's womb one moment to being gone the next and she was forever changed to believing that baby was a child and not just tissue. She now stands outside the Planned Parenthood clinic where she once worked, praying and giving these women options such as material assistance if they choose to keep their child or connections to adoption agencies if they believe that is the best option. She speaks much of God's forgiveness and her own journey to healing. It is a really powerful book and I recommend it for those on both sides of the fence.
Ricky and I believe that adopting is a beautiful way to affirm our faith in God's view of the sanctity of life. It is possible, although not probable, that the birth mother of our future adopted child is pregnant right now (it is more likely that she has already given birth), but if she is pregnant, I pray she will know someone across the world wants her child to enter their family, that he is wanted and he is a precious life and that he will know that our hearts hear him and the millions of other orphans around the world crying out 'We are here! We are here! We are here!' and that we are acting on their behalf.
"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves...defend the rights of the poor and needy." (Proverbs 31:8-9)
