Dare to Care

Over the past 8 years as I've volunteered working with abused children I have had several opportunities to tell other people about what I do and more times than I can count I've gotten the following reply, "Oh, I could never do that, it would be too upsetting to hear about children being hurt."

I've never responded with more than a forced, polite smile but what I want to say is, "What?!! Innocent children are living lives of abuse day after day and you're worried about injuring your mind by hearing about it? If you would endure the discomfort of caring about their pain you could very likely help change their life for the better."

And the truth is it is hard and life-changing to step into the lives of hurting people. It will keep you awake some nights. It will change how you spend your time, your money, and who your friends are.

But I can guarantee that when you enter the world of the least, the last, the forgotten, you will find Jesus!

I'm not sure I can really describe the wild emotional ride my husband and I have been on as we've entered into the journey of adopting a child from Ethiopia. I feel like in the process of learning about the orphan crisis and the heart-breaking true stories of so many children around the world, and deciding to adopt one child, my heart has grown several sizes.

The good part is that I now passionately care about people and things that before I spent maybe a few minutes in total my whole life worrying about. But the bad part is that along with the capacity to care for and love people who are suffering half-way around the world from me, comes the fact that I hurt for them.

But you know what? The hurt I feel is good because it motivates me to do something to make things better for them.

"Once our eyes are opened we can't pretend we don't know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls, knows that we know and holds us responsible to act." Proverbs 24:12

A book that has been key to "opening my eyes" is Red Letters: Living a Faith That Bleeds by Tom Davis and in honor of the 1 year anniversary of this blog I'm giving away a copy of the book to one of you! To be eligible for the prize all you have to do is agree to read the book if you win it. If you are interested, leave me a comment on this post with the words, "I will read it" somewhere in your comment. I'll randomly select a winner and next Monday I'll announce who it is here on the blog.

Tom Davis graciously provided the book for this giveaway in order to get the word out about the work his organization, Children's Hopechest is doing bringing God's hope and love to orphans around the world. If you'd like to find out more about Children's Hopechest and what you can do to help check out his blog here.

This post is part of the Moms' 30-Minute Blog Challenge.

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