Home is where the heart is.

When I was a kid, I felt different than everyone in my family... (and in the world... ha!) Didn't we all? I remember when I was around 10, I would search through my parents files and things sure I would find some kind of papers there that said I was adopted. I guess they hid them well cause I never found them. 30 years later I look at my youngest child... she loves her baby books, her photo albums. She has looked through them a hundred times and asks the same questions and repeats the same comments. Her favorite story is the one where we got her for the first time, at 10 months old, and when they handed her to us... she was the only child in a room of redeemed orphans that wasn't crying. All the other babies were freaking out, but not our baby. She simply soaked it in.

I have always been enthralled by the fact that the Jews were God's chosen people. Chosen? How do you get that gig?! I wrote a song to God once where I asked Him, "Who am I to You? Gentile or Jew?" It goes back to the rejection issue obviously. To quote Paul's favorite band, 'I want Him to want me.' 11 years ago, I was picking out my first e-mail address... I had been reading my Bible and I realized that when He grafts us into the vine (in other words makes us a part of His family) we become Jews by default. Hence my e-mail name "graftedjew" try to explain that one to all your business callers. :)

Child # 4 (the one I've been talking about) has 4 names... (First, 2 middle and a last.) She only has one Chinese name, but we wanted her to have a part of her heritage. We wanted one of her middle names to mean "I belong." We tried very hard to find the correct translation for this meaning, but they don't share our thought pattern for "self" in China. With over 1.3 billion people in this country, they do not go searching the spotlight as we do... yes, Americans are a special kinda breed. The more literal meaning of her name "Shuyu" is more like, "I belong to Paul and Beth." Which is not what we were going for... but the sentiment is there... she belongs.

I don't know about you but I forget Who I belong to at times... I forget my life was bought with a price... that I was saved from the fire... that Someone redeemed me from a room full of orphans and made me His own. We get disconnected. If my daughter all of the sudden developed a grand interest in China to the point that she was willing to forget about her family here and renounce her citizenship... I don't think I could ever recover. Where would I get another her? Coming from a country of over a billion to a county of over 300 million in a world of nearly 7 billion... she is the only one like her. That's true for each of us... we were created for a purpose, redeemed at a price, loved and yearned for by the Creator of us all. Adoption is an incredible gift... If you are lead to adopt... you will be blessed... if you have been adopted but you have forgotten where your home lies... turn the horse back towards the barn. If you have not been adopted yet... maybe it's time to be grafted in... pray friend... pray! He will never turn His back on a child seeking a Father... a child wanting a home. You are wanted.