our children

I have had several conversations recently about what it means to be a mother and who our children really are...Micah and I are blessed to be a part of a community that desires to give the lonely and abandoned a family, a community that seeks to love the "least of these."

We have seen multiple families adopt from places as close as Reilly Hospital or as far as Ethiopia and India.  We see their families love them as children of God, as if they have given birth to these children themselves.  I even just got done reading our friends' (and marital counselors) blog about their three year pregnancy waiting for baby Grace to come home from China.

And yesterday, I read this:

But being born Israelite in the flesh, Jesus insists, in not of concern.  God's people do not grow by having sex and making babies.  They grow by the Spirit of God weaving into and renewing identities and hearts, making them beat with love.  As with Abraham and Sarah's children, it is the child who is born of miraculous means and God's initiative who carries the blessing.

In addition to these words from Shane Claiborne, comes this footnote:

The people of God are created through a multiethnic gathering, as opposed to mono-ethnic progeny, is evident throughout the Hebrew Scriptures and is not just a New Testament theme.  The exodus was more than just the Hebrews but was enjoined by "a mixed crowd."

Reading these thoughts yesterday gave new breath for me what it means to have a family.  I am not being so bold as to say that everyone should adopt, but I believe that God has created me to do so since the first time my ability to have children was questioned at age 15.  

My interpretation of someone else's interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures seems to point to the notion that God created us to be a wide collection of people since the beginning, since He scrambled us at Babel.  He desires for our dinner tables to be filled with a rainbow of people and for us to love each as He loves them.

Children without parents are born of miraculous means.  A child born in Africa without proper health care, is born of miraculous means.  Children who survive the birthing process and are sent to orphanages are born of miraculous means.  And those who get to be their parents receive miraculous gifts.

peace.