The first of my ramblings

I started this blog as an outlet for all my thoughts and my passion for orphans and adoption. I have dreamed about writing a book but there are others who have done that so much better than I could ever do - many of the ones that have influenced my life are in my profile under favorite books.

There is so much to share about adoption and what the Bible has to say about it - I am not sure where to begin! I pray that as you read my ramblings that God will stir your heart and that you will join me in advocating for the fatherless. When I first felt called to adoption ministry, I felt that if more Christian families knew how great the need was, and if someone was willing to hold their hand during the process - that more Christians would step out in faith and answer the cry of the orphan.

Here is an article I wrote that sums it all up:

The Unheard Cries by Lydia Tarr

“Innocent eyes filled with fear, arms aching to be holding on, hands reaching out but no one is there, how long, how long must this go on? Listen can you hear their falling tears, Can you feel their pain? Does your heart reach out to them, or do you turn away? Precious lives tossed aside, they don’t fit in our perfect lives, Innocent ones don’t understand why, their innocence just slips on by.” Rachel’s Children written by Joy McClain.

As I begin, I fervently pray that I can help people to hear the cries of the waiting children all over the world. My heart’s desire is to open the ears of the church to something that we have turned a deaf ear to - the orphan’s cry. It is a sound that will forever haunt me and will continue to call me to action. I do not stand in judgement but hope only to send a wake-up call to those who hear the master’s voice.

UNICEF estimates there to be 135 million children who call the streets of the world their home. Recently I heard that this group of children were the largest unreached people group for the Gospel, what are we doing as Christians to alleviate the problem? Are we sending our twenty to thirty dollars a month to sponsor a child? Are we donating to mission funds? Filling a shoe box? All these things are wonderful and needed efforts to reach out to those children in need, but ultimately it only meets the physical needs of those who God calls “the fatherless.” Millions of children all over the world are waiting and crying out. Some of them not even realizing what they are so desperately lacking, only knowing that something is missing.

If these 135 million children are growing up without having their most basic needs met, they become a shell of a person only surviving, but not living. With no one to nurture their souls or respond to their emotional needs, their hearts are hardened to the world. The emptiness of their life is perpetuated, and the cycle repeats. Following what they have been taught, more and more children face the bleakness and hopelessness of the generations before. What will the world be like when more and more of the hardened souls grow up - should we expect mercy and understanding from them?

We are all made up of three equal parts: physical, spiritual and emotional. What are we doing to help the millions of children worldwide who have no one to hold them and comfort them? What are we doing for those who do not have the love of Jesus lived out for them? How will these children recognize the love of our precious Savior when there has been no love demonstrated to them? My heart aches every time I picture what it would be like to see my child lonely, scared, and in need and no one to see, hear, or even worse.....care.

I am not a Bible scholar nor am I any one of fame or great importance, only a mother whose heart aches for those that have neither father nor mother. I love my children so much that I can’t stand the idea of them hurting, and when I learned that God cares for me like His child, I finally caught a glimpse of the depth, breadth and height of God’s love for me. How often have we looked upon our children at peace in their sleep and felt overwhelmed with love for them? Can you fathom that God loves us even more than that? WOW! It awes me to think that is true!

There are so many verses that address the needs of the children that is hard for me to
comprehend how the church has missed caring for the fatherless as we were commanded
to do. “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And
we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” (I John 3:16 - 18) This verse speaks so clearly to me - if we have the love of Jesus living in us and we have something and see someone in need and turn our heads and hearts - that is going against what Jesus taught. Denying them is the same as denying the love God gives us . It doesn’t simply mean to feel sorry for the needy and go about our own business, ignoring their need by living our life of comfort. It means SACRIFICING to meet their needs. Likewise Proverbs 3:27 says, “Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is within your power to act.” The way I understand this is that if we are able to help someone - we are supposed to, right? The key word would be “able” - not if we “desire” to act.

Then according to these two verses, shouldn’t we be doing more to alleviate the hurt and to fill the void that these children face? I recently read a statistic on Families of Promise’s website that really shocked me, yet encouraged me, “If only 1% of professed Christian families would adopt one child, there would be no more children to adopt here in the United States and over 1 million children world wide would have found a home.” Founder of Family Life, Dennis Rainey says, “I believe that as adopted children in God's family, believers should be the first to reach out to orphaned and abandoned children around the world.” I agree with Mr. Rainey in that believers should be the arms that are reaching, and the light that is shining unto the earth.

Tim Stoner in his article “The Orphan’s Cry” puts it like this, “The answer to the foundational question: what is it these needy ones lack? is given in the very term the scripture uses to describe them: fatherless. This is what they stand in most need of, more than food, clothes and a bed. This term includes both the protection and defense of a father and the nurture and encouragement of a mother. God discharges both tasks on behalf of the orphan.......To all of us as a community of disciples He says: “Take care of the orphan who is ensnared in an oppressive web of injustice with no one to rise up to defend him. Imitate Me and extend the blessing of adoption to these little ones who are enslaved by poverty and despair and embrace them with a father’s blessing and say, today I have chosen you and call you my own.”

Adoption is such a beautiful picture of God’s love for us. We as believers are co-heirs with Christ, adopted by our Heavenly Father. Isn’t it time for the church to hear the cries of the fatherless and take seriously the Biblical mandate of James 1:27, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress ...". My goal is to help Christians reevaluate their families and consider adoption. I do realize that not everyone can adopt - but so many more could who have never really thought about it. I hope to help them remove the barriers such as fear or finances and open up more hearts and homes for the children. Even more people can fulfill the needs by assisting those who are willing to open their hearts, praying and advocating for those who, by no fault of their own, have no one.

Children are one of our greatest blessings from God, but sadly society has taught us children are a burden and not to be valued. Large families are subject to ridicule, not held in esteem as the Bible suggests. In ancient Roman times children were sacrificed to the gods for prosperity. Aren’t we doing much the same today? Having fewer children so we can live a more comfortable lifestyle? On a talk show by the late Larry Burkett a caller shared about wanting to expand her family but her husband was concerned over finances. Larry replied that we should NEVER limit our family size to our finances because in doing that we are not trusting God to provide. How many people live their lives limited by a God too small to meet their needs? Sadly, a quote I found by Doug Phillips sums it up so eloquently, “The Bible calls debt a curse and children a blessing. But in our culture, we apply for the curse and reject the blessings. Something is wrong with this picture.”

On the other side of the spectrum, Michelle Gardner of Kingdom Kids Adoption Ministries shares that today we have a generation of IDOL kids (no, I didn’t mean idle). Children rule our lives and we cater to their schedules, whims, and desires - struggling to meet their every wish even at the expense of what God has purposed us to do. Doesn’t that sound like many of the families that we all know, or could it reflect your family? Do we teach our children that God comes first, or do we teach them that soccer, dance or what ever they would want to do comes first and that God will understand?

People were shocked when we announced that we were adopting a child. We had three beautiful healthy biological children. Family, friends and people that we would meet could not reason why we would even consider adopting. We received questions like, “Why would you do that to your own kids?”, “How could you spend that kind of money?”, “How are you going to send your kids to college?”,“Where did you get an idea like that?”, and “What will you know about them, aren’t you worried?”. Unfortunately people look to their own reasoning in these matters and not to the heart of God. You can imagine what they thought when we announced that once again we were adopting two children - bringing our total up to 6 children!

God knows the name of every child who waits without a family. He sees their every tear. He is the father to the fatherless. Do you think that He is concerned about your finances, your children’s college fund or how YOU are going to be able to do something? No - the Bible tells us that we can do all things through Christ and that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. Do you think that if we present our needs to our Heavenly Father, that He will have to check His budget to see if He can squeeze us in? No, there is nothing too big for God. In Isaiah 58, God asks us if this is not the fast He called us to - to spend ourselves on behalf of the oppressed, the hungry and those who are in need? He tells us that if we do our light will break forth like the dawn and the glory of the Lord will be our rear guard. That when we cry out to Him in help He will say “HERE I AM.”

He took a shepherd boy and made him king, a group of misfits and fishermen and made them the heroes of our faith. All God asks for is a willing heart. It isn’t YOUR ability but HIS. He uses the simple to confound the wise. The questions are: Are you willing? Can you really trust God? Can you believe God? Are you willing to trust and believe?

In Matthew 25:34-36, Jesus said, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' On the day of judgement how will you answer Jesus when he asks, “Where were you? For whatever you did (or did not do) unto the least of these....You did unto me.”