I'm Thankful I'm Not an Orphan

Some thoughts have been on my heart and I thought I would share.

The title of this blog may offend some I know, but I meant for it to be an attention getter. Those of you that know my heart, know I am one of the orphan's biggest supporters. There are millions, in fact over 145 million of orphans that cannot make that statement. They are ORPHANS. They are FATHERLESS. This breaks my heart.

I am behind sometimes in the media arena, but I just now got around to watching "Slumdog Millionaire"
I was not expecting what came across the screen. I was not expecting the story of an orphan rising above his impossible circumstances by persevering and never giving up on love being found.
The storyline in "Slumdog Millionaire" though fiction, portrayed so well the trauma and the life that a majority of orphans have to go through. Most never rise above their terrible circumstances. They end up living in the dumpsters, being exploited as beggars and prostitutes, or doing anything they can do to survive and eventually living lives of crime if they ended up living that long.
Jamal in the movie, got a lucky break and knew every answer in that game show because every experience of his life had given him the answer.
Viewing this movie through my worldview, I saw that God took every trauma and every suffering that the enemy used to kill the heart and soul of this child and turned it into good. Yes, Jamal made choices of integrity and God honored him in that.
Orphans like Jamal though are rare. They are not strong enough to withstand the hardships and overcome the people who prey on them. They have no one to live for. They have no one pursuing after them, no hope of anyone coming to their rescue.
Where are they? Where are the ones who will pursue them? I constantly ask God this question. Where are the ones who will sacrifice of themselves to save the girls from the pimps and the human traffickers, and the boys from gangs who use them to kill, steal and harm? Who will scoop into the garbage dumps of India, Guatemala and Africa and protect them? Who will go into the brothels and bars of India, Europe and Thailand and rescue them? Who will go to the bush villages of Africa and give the homeless children a home? Where are they?

Even the rare ones who do make it and don't become criminal or prostitutes, are just existing. My older children have found some of their orphanage buddies on Facebook and you know what they told them in their limited English? " We don't like our lives." Yes, they are alive and working, but they have no family. They have no one to share the ups and downs of their lives with, they have no one to celebrate Holidays with. They live with that sense of rejection, always wondering if someone in the world could ever love them.

I must admit, I think we the church people have failed in this as a whole. We turn a blind eye, hoping we won't see or hear about it. the church's thinking seems to be that there are special people who can take care of those kids, God has to call you to do something like that.
Now, I agree that God calls certain ones to be his hands and feet to the least of these.
He calls those who are HIS SONS AND DAUGHTERS.
He does not call a CERTAIN FEW to do this. He call those who have been adopted by Him to impart his love to the orphan, the widow and the poor. This would be the whole church. this would be every family in the church. This would be YOU.
You CAN do it by the power of the Love of God living in you.
In fact Isaiah 58 tells us about God's thoughts on the subject.
All those people you see supporting a child, adopting a child, fostering a child, helping widows, feeding the poor, living overseas rescuing child prostitutes, loving the gogo and brothel girls, living among the poor and healing the sick through their prayer and love, not just in a one time mission trip but who are sacrificing daily to give the Love of God to others, have one thing in common. They really are no different from you except in one thing. They have made a choice to hear God's heart. To say yes to His desires. To fast the way God spoke of in Isaiah 58.
They have chosen to "Break forth their light like the dawn and let their light rise in the darkness" (Isaiah 58:8, 10) They have chosen to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to Earth."Your kingdom come, Your Will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Isn't His Will, that none perish? Are we not supposed to be the carriers of this Heavenly Love? If so, we have failed miserably while the children suffer, losing hope. Oh Church! When will you wake up and care?
So while I can say, I'm thankful, I'm not an orphan. They cannot.