"What It Means to Love" ... Jase's story continues!

Around this time last year I was at the Christian Alliance for Orphans conference (which was phenomenal - I highly reccomend it) ... and the main worship leader was Meredith Andrews (love her music) and she sang a song then about her first experience to an orphanage in Haiti and a little orphan boy that she met that changed her HEART and consequently life for forever, in that God gave her HIS HEART for the orphans of the world!

After the three weeks of seeing our now new son's face ... we agreed we would PRAY and ASK God if He was meaning for him to be OUR son! About half way through that FIRST week Meredith Andrews released her second CD and this particular song was on it.

What did I do when I listened to the song, OF COURSE ... I cried and cried and cried! My heart was MANY years ago BROKEN and STILL IS BROKEN for the millions of orphans around the nation and around the world. However, WHO did I see in my face and heart WHEN I listened to the song ... the little precious FACE of the waiting jewel in China ... the same face I saw during WORSHIP at church the three weeks previous.

I actually had a dinner date night with my sister Rebs that week and I remember crying literally ALL the way there (she lives about an hour from my house), because for me "the orphan" represented our now Jase. I listened to the song repeatedly, trying to give the song a different meaning from what I felt it was stirring up in me. I remember trying to assign the meaning that it really represented our first adopted daughter and how God totally through her confirmed things in me that He had revealed years previously, that it DID NOT matter if my child was born in my tummy or in my heart ... they were MY CHILD in the FULLNESS of its meaning. Many many years ago God impressed upon my heart that ALL children are HIS CHILDREN, which simply put then makes them OUR children (our meaning, ALL of us who call Him Father)! Then I thought well maybe the song really represented our first international adoption, our second daughter, as that was when God really opened my heart to the REALITY and needs of the waiting orphans of the world. I kept searching my heart and searching God looking for a DIFFERENT meaning ... my heart for orphans really has grown out my professional work with HURTING children here in the US, through all of the many precious foster kids I have worked and so I thought maybe the song represented one of the first precious ones I have had the priviledge of working with.

I can't remember HOW MANY times I listened to the song ... but what I do remember is that the breaking of my heart that I was feeling was NOT going away. The little boy ... WAITING ... would not leave my heart!!

On some level I wish I could say that the story ended her and that Sam and I LEAPED OFF THE BRIDGE (that is how it feels everytime we say YES to God to adopt) ... but on the other hand I know that God knows my heart and HOW MUCH I process and pray through things ... so the week that followed was one of putting out the fleeces.

The reason I started this post was to share lyrics of THE SONG, may it INSPIRE and BLESS like it has and does my heart:

"How could I forget your face

When all it took was just one day

For me to see it wasn't ordinary

I could never be the same

You took my hand and led the way

I didn't even know your name

But something happened deep inside of me

And I knew life would have to change

So, how could I go back to life as usual

And how could I return to who I once was

I just want to take your story to the world

Cause you have shown me what it means to love

You healed the sick, You calmed the sea

But YOUR heart was for the least of these

You came to love the lost and broken

Your cross has set the captives Free

So, how could I go back to life as usual

And how could I return to who I once was

I just want to take your story to the world

Cause you have show me what it means to love

Now I no longer live for myself

YOUR WORDS are so clear

Help me live it loud enough so THEY CAN HEAR

CHORUS"

These last three lines are the PRAYER OF MY HEART!