WE'RE ALL CALLED

"I used to wonder if I was ready to be an adoptive parent, until I realized that children are never ready to be orphans." Glenn Styffe

Long before my parents ever even thought about adoption, I watched friends of ours bring their three girls home from Haiti.  I was only 10 at the time, and I still read every blog post, every word she wrote while she waited for the homecoming of her girls.  I was completely & 100% in love with the idea of adoption.

And then they came home.  They came home and we all stood in front of a gate at the airport and I watched them walk down that hallway holding their girls.  I was only 12, but when I experienced that moment, I knew I loved adoption.

I've always been in a Christian home.  Always.  I accepted Christ when I was five.  I went to Sunday school every Sunday.  I sang the songs, heard the stories, and I told myself I loved Jesus.  It was all building up to when I went to Africa, with a group of people from that same church that I grew up in.  I was changed, 100% completely transformed.  I saw the work of Christ in a way I had never seen before.  I saw true hurting and broken people that still loved God.  I saw people worshipping in ways I had never seen anyone worship in all my life.  I realized I was adopted, during those ten days.  All of the songs and the stories and the sermons I heard growing up in that same church for all those years was just leading up to this point in my life.  Where I realized that God adopted me, that I loved adoption because of that, and that I'd want to see how it could change me.

For a while I struggled with the reason why my family was adopting.  It didn't exactly "click" in my brain.  But one day, months before Trey was born, I realized it was because we are called.  

We are called.

I think the one thing Christians miss most is the fact that we are all called to orphans.  All of us.  And that doesn't mean you have to go out and welcome them into your home.  It doesn't mean you have to adopt.  It simply means you are called to the orphan.  And in case you don't believe me...

Isaiah 1:17.  Acts 20:35.  Deuteronomy 24:17-21.  Exodus 22:22-23.  Psalms 68:5-6.  Proverbs 31:8-9. James 1:27.  etc, etc, etc.

The main reason my parents chose to adopt (besides the fact that we are all called) was that God's blessed us in so many ways that there is no reason for us to not adopt.  God gave us a house.  God gave my parents four kids.  God gave us food to eat and water to drink and a place to sleep every night.  And God gave us His word which tells us to love and care for the orphan.

And that's all we needed to know that we had been called to adopt.

If you have been changed by the work of Christ adopting YOU into HIS family, you have been called.  

And I'm telling you right now that if you have not yet been blessed to pray for/care for/follow your calling to orphans, go be blessed.