First let me explain my plight. Marriage isn’t a priority to me, nor a prevalent desire of mine. I’m a 21 year old gal who is perfectly okay with living a life in fulltime missions and lifetime celibacy. I’ve always said I’m never going to settle anywhere, that I wouldn’t live in a place for more than 2 years. I’m not exactly what you would call the housewife, motherly type. I just really love Jesus. He takes me places and puts me in situations I could never get to or in on my own. This is probably the most prominent example so far.
I’ve always loved children. They’re weird and fun and they just get me. I’ve played with kids all over the world and often realized I was playing with His Kingdom. There’s something about children, that the Kingdom belongs to them. Jesus is silly and he takes the silly things of this world and calls them great. I love that. He has used children to speak life into my life in so many ways. In all the times I’ve ministered to children, I’ve always been a buddy, a friend, a hand to hold, and a warm smile to laugh with. I look at children and see sons and daughters of God. The majority of children I’ve come across around the world have a desperate need to be held and loved, in some cases even just to be touched. I’ve always felt that when there’s a child in front of me, my hands become His hands for that child in that moment. I’ve known what it is to deeply love a child that isn’t mine, there’s nothing quite like it. I don’t think there’s anything more beautiful, except for when a child I deeply love that isn’t mine calls me “Momma.”
When an orphan calls you “Momma,” it does something to your spirit. I have never loved someone this much in my whole life. I never knew I could love someone in this way, this strange unfamiliar yet completely natural way. It freaks me out.
I’m not a mother, Lord. What do you think you’re doing? “You are more motherly than you think you are.” No, I’m in no place nor qualified to be called Momma by anyone. “You are qualified for whatever I call you to because I am the one who equips you.” Well, okay, but what does that mean exactly? “Jaimie Rae, you will adopt. I will make an orphan yours. You are never too young or too single for My will for your life. Through Henry, I’m preparing your heart. In my perfect timing, all this will make sense.”
At the sound of Henry’s cry, I’m racing to come to his rescue and comfort him back to peace. When he’s in my presence, he has my eye. I’m watching, correcting, encouraging, investing my heart in every conversation we have. He calls me Momma. Every morning he runs to me and shouts no other name except “Momma, Momma.” I don’t correct him because in that moment my spirit agrees. The other kids ask him why he calls me that, and his response is simple, “I love her.” He kisses me on the cheek and takes me by my hand. My soul weeps when he tells me he never wants me to leave and wants me to stay and pick him up and play with him forever. I was giving him a piggy back ride and my heart began to break as I felt his tears roll off my shoulder and down my arm. The sound of his cry made me twist him around into my arms. He saw my concern, and without me asking, he cried out in a sob “I’m scared you’re never going to come back again and I want you here forever.” “Please, Momma, please, ” he begged, as my heart continued to break into the pieces of a mother’s heart.
Most children from this orphanage are not up for adoption due to numerous reasons, except for a few. Henry, isn’t one of the few. I would do / give anything to make this child mine. I am left with only a promise from the Lord, that I’m never too young or too single for His calling and that in His timing he will make an orphan mine. With no guarantee that Henry be the one, I receive it. I await it. I will be back, Zambia, I will be back.
