Love for an Orphaned Country

This morning my littlest boy was staring into his iPad on our ride to school, singing the same phrase over and over again.

"Not my will but Thine."

"Not my will but Thine."

He must have learned the tune somewhere else, because I didn't recognize it.

This son was born under a government even more corrupt than the one I have brought him into. People just disappear in that old country. Freedom is not even expected

As a newborn he was found in a cardboard box in a bathroom, and that sounds like the worst thing that could happen to a kid until you think about the fact that he could have just as easily been thrown in a river or smuggled off to a child abuser. He still has scars on his cheeks where he would scratch at himself until he was bloody, because nobody was there to hold him when he cried.

When I first told my son about Jesus, the idea of a loving God wasn't new information to him. "Yes," he said casually. "He's the one who came to see me in China," he said, "He used to kiss me goodnight."

For a long time I didn't tell anyone that, because I am a cynic, and that's the sort of story I never believe. But you can tell when a child is talking about fairies and when he is talking about someone he knows, so if he is wrong about what he saw, I know he was at least trying to be sincere.

What I do not understand is why the Lord would appear to my son, or why He allowed some of the grief He did allow in his life, or why God seems to help some kids get rescued while others are bruised and lost.

Those questions are even harder for me now that I see how every orphan is capable of being my own child. I knew that intellectually before we adopted, but now I know it by the smell of a sweaty boy who has just run inside with a handful of crocus for me, or by how he twirls a curl of my hair while sitting in my lap at church, or by the sound of his belly laughter when he suddenly gets the punchline of a new joke.

Just because I believe in Jesus and love Him, that doesn't mean I understand everything He does. There are times when I wonder how He will ever redeem the horrific sadness of this place.

"Not my will but Thine,"

"Not my will but Thine."

Another thing I don't know is how the Lord puts in the mouths of our children exactly what we need to hear in the minute we need to hear it, but this happens over and over again. Maybe kids are just so relaxed and so open, they make cleaner lines for divine transmission.

Five-and-a-half years ago we landed in New Jersey after the long flight from Guangzhou. I took out the little copy of the United States Constitution that I'd brought with me all that way and back. I pulled it out of my travel bag, and I knelt down to give him a Dum-Dum and that little book, and I said, "Nobody can take what is in this book away from you now," I said. "You are free to chase life, liberty, and happiness."

That's how adoption law works. My son became a citizen when he touched American soil.

But I might have made that promise too soon.

Patriotism has generally gone out vogue in the hearts of those who have benefited most by it. The bratty, the whiny, the entitled tend to talk out their noses, regurgitating the sins of our nation. The founding fathers screwed up. They had slaves. They abused the Native Americans. Our country became rich at the cost of the vulnerable. I get all that. Is anyone surprised that there are some ways humans have royally goofed up over the past 200+ years?

But that's only a partial story. In America, alongside and despite some terrible horrors, a seed for something beautiful also grew. So many of us have forgotten to be thankful for her merits.

I would die for my country if I could, regretting that I had only one life to give to her. But dying is easier than living for her.

Living for a cause involves risk. It requires humility. It pushes me past consumerism into confusion that requires trusting a God who sometimes brings nations back to health and who sometimes lets them die. I can give my life away, but there are no guarantees that will produce the results I desire.

And I am not alone in this risk.

Not a single soldier who has sacrificed his life for me has had the luxury of serving a perfect cause. Not a single soldier who has died for me has been promised success as a fruit of his wager.

Battles are often an inefficient waste, which is odd, because you'd think that when people were giving away something so precious as their only earthly life, the science of sacrifice would be a little more perfect. But it's not. Every time that ultimate gift has been offered, it has been given without knowing what would come of losing everything for the love of another.

"Not my will but Thine."

"Not my will but Thine."

Adoptive parents know that risk is an inherent part of love. We go out into the realm of darkness seeking life, spending more money than any of us have, doing paperwork we can't decipher, asking forces we can't trust to grant us the opportunity to embrace a child who will be in some sort of danger every second until we arrive.

And when finally we bring that child into our hearts, more troubles are likely. Abandonment leaves scars, so the risks don't end once you're home. It takes work and time to heal a serious wound. Sometimes it takes a lifetime, and even then, the work is still not finished.

"Not my will but Thine."

"Not my will but Thine."

So many children inside our own borders have been abandoned. They do not know their names. They do not know the rights or ramifications of their citizenship. They are wandering around like sheep without a shepherd, disoriented, craving what will kill them.

And even though I don't know why Jesus seems to appear to some people in need and not others, I do know He has placed those who carry His name throughout the world, and He has told us to be His hands and His feet.

So where there is opposition:

"Not my will but Thine."

Where there is danger:

"Not my will but Thine."

Even if my cause gets thrown in the river:

"Not my will but Thine."

Even if my work is abused by evil men:

"Not my will but Thine."

We do not live in a safe time, but it does not follow that an unsafe time is also a bad time to live.

This is the best of all times to live, because it is the best of all times to give. We are needed to live out not our wills, but His.

So like Christ in Gethesemane, let's kneel and ask what we might give for the sake of the weak, for the sake of those who will come behind us. Let's bow and yield ourselves so that we might apply ourselves to the sowing, the tending, the preservation of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.