Reckless Love

I'm hungry.

It's the end of the day. I put my earbuds in because I need to drown out the noise of stress. And inevitably the music inspires me to seek deeper than entertainment.

Groceries are running low, and dinner was leftovers and stuff from the pantry...no junk food in sight, I need to get to the grocery store, so, I'm hungry.

Beyond physical hunger, which is good to feel sometimes, I feel a deep, driving, ceaseless hunger that is just as persistent as the gnawing I feel in my body. It drives me to unnatural behavior, just like not having a ton of food to choose from makes me seek out alternatives to eat, like canned corn (gag.)

Behavior like eye-devouring photos of a culture so foreign to anything I've ever know, it's ridiculous. Behavior like seeking out music from another continent, just so I feel closer to that people. Behavior like dreaming of leaving the comfort of my American bubble to do something real.

I was dwelling today on how having one big, faith-stretching event experienced in life doesn't mean we're done. One race completed doesn't mean a life of ease ever after. I trusted God to help us bring home our first born-far-away angel. I trusted him more the next time, but, in a way, it was easier to make that decision. The trial itself was not easier, but quicker. Maybe something like birthing a second child the biological way seems to, in general, be a speedier process,though by no means easy.

I am a runner. And I'm hungry. I'm hungry for the road again. I'm not talking about shoes, wind and road. Running is such a metaphor for my life! I'm hungry to dig deeper. To give more. To add another sweet soul to our family, perhaps? But this time, perhaps the call is coming from a farther distance.

What is it? Why am I singing the songs of a people I don't know? Why is my heart pulled away from this place that keeps me so safe?

I hear you, nay-sayer. For your kind live in me too. Do I simply love a thrill? The excitement? The laud, gifts, kind words, admiring sentiments? The exotic? The simple fact that it's more difficult? Why can't I be content, settle down, be filled with what is here. Is God pulling me, or am I trying really hard to push Him?

One thing I know. Adoption is not ever easy. I am familiar, acquainted and intimate with many of the emotional, physical and spiritual stresses of adoption.

But I am enchanted by it, too. Even after two completed adoptions. Even weathering many little squalls, I'm still all in. Still starry-eyed, though bleary-eyed too.

"If you then would live to Christ's glory, and be happy in His service, seek to be filled with the spirit of adoption more and more completely, till perfect love shall cast out fear."-Spurgeon (I do realize I quote him quite a lot)

One thought that keeps resurfacing with me and my inner dialogue/debate over intent, is this. Why would God allow/give a desire to help when the need is SO great and not want/will us to act? And if He does give the desire, would He give it and not match it with ability to quench it, when what is desired is to fill a void that is millions of souls deep? And if He gives the desire, and loves those precious motherless with a passion that I can't even approach, won't He provide the means? Why not now?

I fully realize I am not the only soul with eyes aflame with desire to aid. Many, many families wait, wait, wait to fully fund their adoption. Help God! Supply the need! Open your Big Hands to our gaping, wounded world. You command us to love, and love is an action. Let us act!

I challenge you, reader, whoever you may be. Re-think that expensive indulgence. Why not invest in a soul? Your gift, large or small, means a child could be one step closer to her forever family. Isn't that more important, when whatever you are about to buy will be consumed/rot/fray/dissolve/rust? What are we doing? God help us to see what is. The shadows that move beyond what is felt and seen are our eternal reality. The intagible is our only forever. This is just the jumping-off spot.

I want to love recklessly.