She was eight years old, wandering the streets, begging for food, because there wasn’t any at home.  She was abused, unloved, and unwanted.  She went to bed, having daily nightmares–afraid of what tomorrow would hold.  They brought her to safety.  Recently, she gained a brother.  Both need a home.

significant trauma…abuse…older child…parent death…cerebral palsy…epilepsy…HIV+….premature…poverty…

developmental delay…autism…down syndrome…ADHD…vision impairment…starvation…alcoholism…neglect…

abandonment…

Just a brief glance over the children currently available for adoption, and waiting, reads like a book full of the worst of life experiences.  Many of these children have waited for years to find someone, anyone, that will love them; unfortunately, often many of them wait in vain.  They’ll age out of the system into a world that is not welcoming.  Their medical diagnosis, their past, haunting their present hope for a future. Why is it that we evade them, waving the problem off, as if it is not our own? Do we not believe that Christ is the ultimate restorer–the healer of our past?  Can He not redeem them too?

God has given us a unique opportunity to raise children that were not supposed to have any knowledge of Him, whose existent was supposed to be hopeless, and who never should’ve been ours, and bring them to a point, where they know how to have a relationship with their Father and Lord, who loves them immensely more than they could ever fathom.

Adoption of a waiting child will likely not be an easy thing, but we are called to do hard things for Him.  At the end of his life, Moody looked back in reflection and stated:

“If I could relive my life, I would devote my entire ministry to reaching children for God!”

So  as Matthew 19:14 says: “Let the little children come to me…”, because after all, it is our duty to love like Him.