Mercy Toward the Afflicted

Sometimes I forget how different our children's lives would have been if God had not intervened and placed them in our family. In many ways, things just seem normal -- they're our kids.

I read a blog the other day about a girl who was just adopted with her siblings from Ethiopia. At some point while she was still there she had received a blow to the back of the head that caused her to fall and break her two front teeth. Apparently she had been running away from someone or something. Her momma shares her heart in a moving way...

I mentioned before that our kids have begun sharing some of what happened to them in Ethiopia. To say that I'm horrified is a huge understatement. It's their story to tell, but without a doubt, it needs to be shared at some point because they represent millions that are still destitute---- and even the word destitute doesn't do their past justice.

Everything that we were led to pray for them during our wait had a specific purpose in the physical sense. For example, when we were praying for chains to be broken, I never once envisioned that those were literal chains-- I was wrong.

When we received sad pictures of them and I was worried--- there were many well meaning remarks from friends saying, "That is just their normal. They don't know any different." They were saying this to comfort me, but I knew that wasn't true then and for sure know it now.

Suffering, hurting, starving, abused children know that they are suffering, hurting, starving and abused with no one looking out for them or defending them. Everyone they are supposed to be able to trust turns on them at any given moment and they live in a state of terror. When they first began speaking about their life they would say, "Scared Mama, everything scary! Always scared!"

We continually marvel that they are even here---and with the stories they have begun to share with us it is a miracle 4 times over that they are even alive. Their hearts -- and mine--break for the ones left behind.

Oh Lord, as Psalm 82 says, "Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. Arise, O God, judge the earth; for You shall inherit all the nations!"