Orphan

Today was another amazing day at church. Last week was awesome, but I don't think I wrote anything about it. I suppose I should go back to last week and take it from there.

Scott spoke about compassion--from Ecclesiastes 3, Isaiah 53, Isaiah 61, and Luke 4. It was really a great sermon. I was touched beyond words, really broken and basically just sitting there crying through all of it. The message just touched a lot of places near to my heart--doing something for all the people out there who are dying, suffering, in agony, oppressed, imprisoned, in despair.

My thoughts naturally wandered back towards that land called India. To a state called Andrah Pradesh, a city named Hyderabad, and the wee baby girls who have been abandoned in the hospital or in a garbage can or on the side of the road. The babies no one wants, who weren't asked for and weren't welcomed on the day of their birth. The girls who spend their earliest days in the arms of strangers and never know the love that carries on the sound waves of a mother's voice. And even as Scott spoke, my heart said: "I want to bring those girls home, love them, care for them, be their mother, show them compassion, give them a family, tell them every day how much they are wanted and needed and how they were conceived in God's heart before the first person stepped on the earth.

Today I suppose I came around full-circle and saw it from another perspective. I was talking after the service to a woman I first met last December, a friend of Laura (Sra. Padraig) who is visiting them for several weeks this summer. We spoke of a few things, and she congratulated me on getting my work visa (oh, and by the way, I got my work permit and the job search is on!). Then we talked about belonging, and feeling like I've found a home at last, somewhere God has placed me. She said something about preparing the soil so I can put my roots down--related directly to something God told me more than two years ago in Timor. And she talked about how I have pieces of my heart scattered all over the world--in India, Africa, Mexico, and all the other places I let into my life. And that somewhere on the inside, I have a bit of an orphan spirit--wondering where I belong and if these people will keep me and if I'll ever have a real home. If I'll ever feel like I fit.

There's healing for me. I thought it would be over night, as though all the bad things I picked up over the last several years would disappear as soon as I knew something was wrong. But I have to give it back to Jesus, always. All the pieces. And she told me that He holds all the pieces to my heart. They're not lost forever. There's restoration for me, too. And you, if you want it.

Here's a song I first heard while in Tanzania, written by Julie Miller, and the great version that I have is performed by Juliet Turner (a famous Irish singer, apparently).

You can have my heart
But it isn't new
It's been used and broken
And only comes in blue
It's been down a long road
And it got dirty on the way
If I give it to you,
Will you make it clean?
Wash the pain away?

You can have my heart
If you don't mind broken things
You can have my heart
If you don't mind these tears
But I heard that you make all things new
So I give these pieces all to you
If you want it
You can have my heart.

So beyond repair
Nothing I could do
Tried to fix it myself
But it was only worse
When I got through

Then you walk right into my darkness
And you speak words so sweet
You hold me like a child
Feel my frozen tears fall at your feet.

You can have my heart
If you don't mind broken things.
You can have my heart
If you don't mind these tears.
But I heard that you make all things new
So I give these pieces all to you
If you want it
You can have my heart.

So I mentioned Scott's sermon from two weeks ago, and he read from Isaiah 53 verses 3-7 or 8. Today I was looking at it again, and reread the last several verses which have been my life theme for several years, oddly enough. It's all beginning to make more sense, although I don't pretend to have the full revelation of it now (and probably not ever). Here we go (from the New Living):

53:10-12 But it was the Lord's good plan to crush him and fill him with grief. Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have a multitude of children, many heirs. He will enjoy a long life, and the Lord's plan will prosper in his hands. When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. And because of what he has experienced, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all their sins. I will give him the honours of one who is mighty and great, because he exposed hjmself to death. He was counted among those who were sinners. He bore the sins of many and interceded for sinners.