We've spent the last three days at the beach with our kids, Eli and Julie. As I watch them play in the ocean, I marvel at the miracle of creation. That our Creator, who made the ocean in all of it's expanse and the beauty of the night sky, also knit together two precious children in my womb. He made them and knows them intimately, even more so than I do, the Mom who's been with them since before birth. God allowed them to be born into a family who loves them and into a Nation where freedom and prosperity reigns. These two beautiful children have certainly been blessed by the circumstances of their birth. Blessed with love, freedom, family and friends. They have never known a day of need for anything and have a Mom and Dad, who go out of our way to make sure they have the things they want, too.
As I watch them playing and laughing and enjoying life, my mind wanders to the other side of this great ocean, where my other children wait. Joseph and Samuel grew in another belly in another country. The circumstance or accident of their birthplace left them with little freedom and no chance at a long healthy life. I know you caught it...I don't believe in accidents. God knew what He was doing when he allowed our boys to be born in EE. He was allowing them a chance at life. Had they been conceived here in the land of the free, they would most likely have been aborted before they could breath their first breath. Instead God purposed for them to be born. He created them with a plan. From the foundation of the world, God knew these boys belonged to Marty and I. He just had to figure a way to get them from conception and into our home.
Our boys live, now, in a place where they have no freedom and are treated as "less than." They are outcasts. They have known pain, loss, hunger, need so great it would crumple some strong American children. This is their reality, for today.
But God. God is orchestrating a beautiful song out of the lives of Joseph and Samuel. It's a song about how He sets the lonely in families. A song about how He loves us, Oh, How He love us! A song that says no matter where you are born, when God's people do what they are called to do, what they were redeemed to do, then we will see that every child is created equally. God's beautiful plan to prove that every life has value is a plan of redemption, a plan of adoption. It so perfectly mirrors our own adoption into the King's family.
Joseph and Samuel are fearfully and wonderfully made, they just don't know it yet. Joseph and Samuel are loved, they just don't know it yet. Joseph and Samuel are sons of the Rhodes' house, they just don't know it yet. They won't realize what's happening when we bring them home. They, like so many of us, may never fully understand the circumstances we will save them from or the blessing that we will bring them home, too. That's okay with us. Just like it's okay with God. He loves us more than we can imagine and He has created us equally.
Two sets of children, born oceans apart, bound by the location and circumstance of their birth. Each set, each child, loved by God. Each life telling a story that only it can tell. Each one created with a plan and purpose, to show the world, How Great is our God! I do believe all children are created equal...it's just up to us to show them.
Love an orphan...it will change your life,
Mandy
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