Have you ever felt abandoned? Like you were not worth anything? Like no one wanted you or wanted to be around you?
Our ministry site this past month was the El Shaddai orphanage located on the tippy-top of a mountain in Swaziland. As I was sitting in chapel on one Thursday afternoon, I caught the eye of one of the little boys here, Nicolas. Although Nick is absolutely precious and so full of joy, when I looked into his eyes on this specific afternoon, I felt something completely different. It actually hit me what it means that he is an “orphan”, and it broke my heart into pieces. It was like, for the first time, I actually saw these kids as God sees them – as children of the Most High King – but have been told otherwise by this broken world.
Psalm 68:5-6 says, “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.” The weight of what this means has hit me so hard this month. We all have fathers, some that have been present in our lives and some that have not, but regardless of the status of our earthly father, the truth is that we do not belong to other human beings. We belong to God our Father and our Creator, and ultimately, that is all that matters. These children at El Shaddai are seen as so precious through the eyes of Our Father. They are so valuable that even if there were only one of these children left on this earth, He still would have sent His son to die on a cross. God has revealed the worth of each of His children in the value that I have seen in each of these kids here at El Shaddai – fatherless or not.
