When I first came to India and experienced our ministry, I was nothing short of overwhelmed. I had an intense fear of the month to come, thinking God, what the heck are you doing?
Don’t get me wrong, God is doing amazing things in India, but I had decided it just was not for me. Not only that, but our ministry has been working at orphanages with special needs children. I remember thinking that I am not the biggest kid person to begin with, so I was not sure how this month would go. I should have realized at that point that God would change my heart toward this. I came into February knowing that He wanted to teach me what it really looks like to love children. On my end, I remember resisting a lot. I still thought God, you know that I do not want children, but you keep putting me with them. Why?
Needless to say, Jesus has shown me what it means to love children. He has shown me through ladies, some who do not even know Jesus personally. They give up so many things to care for children who were abandoned and unwanted.
The Holy Spirit convicted me even more of the sinful thoughts in my heart as the month went on. The Holy Spirit said to me You are supposed to be set apart and look different. The way you are looking at this situation does not show Me at all.
See, interacting with these children makes no sense culturally. Many families abandon them and leave them to die. When we have them at the park taking pictures, crowds form around us. They stare at this unusual sight and wonder why there are women caring for the immobile or for the different ones.
One of my teammates said it this way [paraphrased]: we may see these children and think that we cannot care for them. We may think that we do not want snot wiped on us or dirty diapers on us, but that is a picture of us and Jesus. We all have incredible dirtiness [sin] in our lives and we cannot move ourselves to get to God. Yet He picked us up and cleaned us. He cares for us in ways that we cannot even try to care for ourselves. What a beautiful picture of us and Christ.
All God did was change my perspective. I am not going to lie and say this month was easy by any means, but I can say that I have a new view on life. I have an even greater view on my relationship with Christ and what He saved me from. Incredible.
*My favorite little girl. 🙂
