Especially One From China . . .

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:

to look after orphans and widows in their distress

and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

I swear you can tell how close something is to God's heart by the level of attack it receives from those who truly are "polluted by the world". As disheartening as this is, perhaps we should take it as a compliment? The enemies of God would surely not bother with us if we were content to sit quietly as life and opportunities to live out loud for Christ passed us by.

Unfortunately, my sister's adoption is receiving the honor of these "compliments" in the form of malicious verbal attacks being made by a close family member. The title of my post quotes one of these attacks, in which this unfortunate person endeavored once more to undermine God's work by reiterating their disgust regarding the adoption of a child . . . "especially one from China".

You can imagine my revoltion at this blatant display of racism, particularly from my position as Mommy and Auntie to three precious children from China.

True, it's unfortunate that none of these three were clever enough to be born white Americans, but we must try and overlook this egregious character flaw and love them as best we can anyway. I'm sure they tried their best to be born into an American caucasian family, but it just didn't work out for them and shouldn't be held against them.

In all seriousness, if this person ever happens upon this post, I would like to bring your attention to the scripture I've quoted above. If you read it all the way through - maybe real slow a couple of times to really let it sink in - I think you'll note that God doesn't refer to a particular geographical area where we are to find the orphans which are appropriate to care for in their distress. God doesn't mention their skin, hair, or eye color. I'm going to make a deductive leap here, and postulate that maybe that's because He loves Chinese orphans and American orphans. Since I'm taking things for granted based on what we know God says in His word, I'm also going to guess that He led Jen and Clint to their daughter in China for a reason.

I'm going to make the wild, crazy assumption that it's true when His word says that He knows exactly what He's doing, and exactly what His plans for this family and their new little girl entail.

You see, everyone in their life who has a true faith in the Lord, and a true love for this family understands and knows that God led them to adopt a child.

Especially this child - one from China.

*Endnote:

This post is obviously "dedicated", if you will, to a particular person, and I should also note that this person will most likely never see it. I posted it because I believed it needed to be said, and because I hope that someone else might see it, and be given either encouragement or something to think about, depending on which side of this issue they fall on.