The Journey

I was saddened to hear news this week of a Christian "leader" and his thoughtless comments on adopion.  It is disheartening to hear such ideas spewed forth with so little consideration of the damage caused, especially given the platform that he has.  As indignant as I became at this situation, I was reminded again that it is not my place to judge.  I am responsible for my words and my actions and my attitudes - not everyone else's.  I am required to show love, even when the recipients seem undeserving.  That concept seems to go against all natural inclination.  It is easy to love people who are kind or attractive or generous or any other positive quality.  It is not easy to love people who are rude or dishonest or malicious or simply ignorant...  Here is love defined: 

1 Corinthians 13: 4-6 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

As a Christian, I want to love others the way that God does - unconditionally and with no regard for what I will get out of it.  I want to be able to see them through His eyes.  That is not something that comes naturally for it requires me to get over myself.  Luke 9:23-24  Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it."   That is tough stuff! 

Someone asked me yesterday how the adoption was going.  I gave her the update and told her that I had no idea how much of a toll it would take on my emotions.  That has been hard.  The flip side of that is that it has caused me to really examine my heart and I have seen things that are not good that need to be changed.  I am working on that.  I definitely have a long way to go, but I honestly believe that I would not have come to this place had we not said "yes" to this journey of adoption.  When we first began this process, I read a lot of adoption blogs that had the subtitle, "Our journey to..."  My initial understanding was very literal - it was the process of going to another country to bring home a new family member or members.  Then life would go on.  As we have travelled this road for almost 10 months now, I have come to realize that the journey is so much more than the literal one.  It is a spiritual, emotional, and (we pray soon) a physical one in which we will eventually board a plane bound for Ethiopia and our precious girl.  And then the real journey will begin.