How these Hearts are Broken into a Wild Love... {Life, Adoption, and Travel}

I ask this sister and mama to sink him into my arms so carefully because I feel like he will slip right through. 

He's just shy of a day old when this handyman and I hold him first.

He's so new and this small package should be marked fragile. 

This nephew of ours has this beautiful name, wild hair, and all his fingers and toes.

There's so little of him, but so much to take in. 

So we do. 

We sit for hours and watch him break in this air and these textures and sounds. 

And we whisper to him, welcoming him, and telling him how he's loved down to the depths of our hearts.

*

Just days before he entered the world, I was in this church in this uncertain neighborhood with it's dusty roads and narrow alleys.

Where I held a fragile newborn while a hungry new-mom ate her sandwich.

This tiny Dominican babe scrunched his face ready to wail and so we rocked and swayed.

And I know how uncertain and rocky this life must be for her... in a place where fathers rarely stay and abortion is out of desperation because there's no way another mouth could be fed.

Where opportunities to buy and sell and earn are so limited. 

Where life is not about RRSP's, and new cars, and big homes, and Pinterest, and Facebook... no, it's about surviving today. 

She finishes her snack and then brings her baby in close.

She's this proud mom, just like my sister-mama. 

And I'm struck by the similarities between them.

I know if I could ask, and she could answer, if we could speak this same language, she would tell me these big dreams she has for her little one. 

His eyes open slowly and carefully... and oh, how we have no control of the life we're born into. 

And how I wish I could make this hard life easier for him.

This one marked fragile. 

Mom leaves with her small package in her arms, out onto those dusty roads, back to her harsh reality.

And I watch and I feel Him making this heart even more tender for these little ones... how He's broken this heart for the most vulnerable ones. 

How he's molded each babe and counted each wild hair, how He loves them so... and how we have this tremendous responsibility.

*

It's this molding of our hearts through Compassion's ministry, and through sweet nephews, that have broken open these hearts with a wild love for kids.

And how each child needs to be protected, nurtured, loved, and taught in the ways of Christ. 

We carry this teaching and tenderness with us into our second home study this morning with Children's Aid Society, who care for neglected and abused children right here in our city. 

And we have no control of the circumstances we're born into... and if we did, we wouldn't choose this.

So we're choosing to provide this safe, nurturing place to a neglected few... and we could so use your prayers.