Chapter 1 – Psalm 147:3   He heals the brokenhearted, binding up their wounds.

God loves broken babies.  He whispered to me in the dark one night while I was laying my heart at His feet and crying over His calling on my life.  He gently reminded me that the babies He adopts come to Him broken as well.

He has called my husband and me to broken babies.  Adopting them, keeping them, loving them, forever.  No matter what the cost.  

In the early days, after my husband and I realized that we were called to the ministry of adoption, we thought God was asking us to take multi-ethnic children.  Healthy multi-ethnic children.  We did not know that He was asking us to take in broken children.

What we did not know then was that every child comes broken.  Whether adopted into His family or ours,  we all come broken.

I lay in bed that night, weeping before my God.  I wept for my oldest child.  He was healthy in body, but broken in spirit.  He had come physically healthy to our family, and yet there was a sadness in his spirit, a brokenness we couldn’t touch and yet longed to bring Christ’s healing to.

I wept for my eldest daughter.  Her body had been ravaged in the womb with crack cocaine and alcohol.  She had come into the world drugged and silent…but then screamed for months as her next “fix” never came.  She was angry before she could speak.  I wept for her release from her bondage.

I wept for my youngest.  He too had begun life in the womb addicted to drugs.  Heroin had coursed through his veins before he even began to breathe.  He experienced drug withdrawal before he learned to smile, before he was held and rocked, before he ever heard a song.  He came into the world laughing, joyful, courageous, and sick.  He was sick so often, I wept for him.

I wept for my newest child.  Tucked in the middle of the family when she was six, she had already lived a lifetime of pain, and yet, couldn’t count to 10.  No matter how much we held her, coaxed her, promised her, there was a haunted look in her eyes.  She was determined to find joy, to give joy, but tears were always below the surface as she felt guilty each time she felt happy.  She wondered why her new daddy didn’t burn her with cigarettes like her first daddy.  She wondered if we were being truthful when we promised that we wouldn’t trick her one day and give her away like her first mommy.  No matter how much we reached out, there was always one more reminder of her brokenness.  I wept for her.

“God,” I said.  “We have sought to be faithful to Your call.  We have taken each child You have placed in our arms.  We have sought Your face daily in their lives.  We have laid each of them at the foot of Your Cross and petitioned You for Your wisdom.  Yet, they are broken.”  The tears flowed.  “Isn’t love enough to heal?!  Aren’t You going to fix them?”

“All of My adopted children come broken too,” He said.  “I AM spending a lifetime on each of them, putting the broken pieces back together.  Gluing the masterpieces I sculpted to perfection before they were born, shattered by a world gone mad, into new masterpieces.  Yet, the cracks, evidence of their brokenness, will always be there - until heaven.  The cracks are there so all will see that I AM God, the Healer of the brokenhearted. The Creator of the mosaic.”

The work is tedious, the results often barely seen, the journey long, and yet, I am honored to be included in Your work, God.  To represent You, to imitate You, to join You in loving broken babies.  

Please pass the glue.  I found another tiny piece.