Children Across the World

My sister's facebook status this morning said this:

Praying for my future nieces and/or nephews in Ethiopia today!

And it included this picture:

So many thoughts come to mind when I see this picture and when I read her status. First, I love my sister! Second, I hope others who have bought these bracelets are praying too when they look at their wrists- praying for the man or woman who made the bracelet in Haiti and praying for our children in Ethiopia, their birth parents, and us as we navigate through this journey to adoption. 

But mostly when see the status and the picture it is a reminder of a real people and difficult circumstances somewhere across the globe. In the craziness of this adoption process and the other daily distractions in our lives it is easy to lose sight of this reality: we either have now, or will have soon children that we do not yet know living apart from us in another part of this world. Children that will one day be deeply known to us, children we will one day cuddle and read books to at night, children we may teach to walk, children we will pick up when they fall and laugh at the funny things they will say. 

If our children are not yet born their birth parents are and living today. They could be facing deeply painful circumstances and decisions at this moment. Adoption is born out of tragedy. Orphans are not God's plan they are one of the many devastating results of a fallen and broken world. So, I feel it is safe to assume our children's first parents are facing painful and hard things. 

It is a helpless feeling to think that I have children somewhere else in the world facing hard things. The pain they possibly are facing losing their first parents is heartbreaking to me as I sit across the world unable to comfort or help. 

The only thing I can do is pray, because while I do not know what my children or their birth parents are  going through- my God does. They are deeply known and cared for by him. 

We are learning so much about trust as we walk through this. We are trusting the Lord for his provision financially, for strength, and we are trusting him to care for our children in Ethiopia. 

So, we pray and we ask that you would join us in praying for our children and their birth parents. Pray that they would be safe and protected, pray that they would be loved and nurtured. Pray for their birth parents- that they would know the Lord and feel peace even in their hardest moments. And maybe pray for us- that we would be brought to our children soon and continue to have what we need persevere and finish the race! 

"Listen to me, O House of Jacob, all you who remain of the house of Israel, you whom I have upheld since you were conceived, and have carried since your birth. Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you."

Isaiah 46:3, 4