Reposting something I wrote years ago, in honor of National Adoption Month:
I've been trying to reach the orphanage via phone for days. It's either a
busy signal or incessant ringing that I get in response. The frustration of
reaching out and reaching out and getting no one at the other end makes me feel
hopeless. And then I realize, this is what these kids in the orphanage
feel every single day of their lives. They spend their whole childhoods
hoping someone will answer the call of their heart, and nearly one hundred
percent of the time, no one does.
No one.
Imagine wanting something as simple as someone answering your phone call.
Imagine trying to reach that person for days on end with no result. Frustration
sets in. Maybe anger. Sometimes that nagging feeling that the world is against
you. Know that feeling? We all have experienced it at one time or another,
right?
Now imagine wanting someone just to love you. Wanting
someone to care enough to choose YOU. Reaching out with your heart in prayer
night after night, like my daughter did, asking for God to bring you a mom or a
dad.
No one answers.
The line is busy or it simply rings incessantly for years on end. People
are too busy to answer you call, or too scared, or too distracted, or too
caught up with their own lives, or………..something.
Tonight when I made my thirtieth attempt to reach the orphanage by phone, I
was flooded with a sense of what these kids feel every day of their lives. The
helplessness. The hopelessness. The deep and utterly inescapable knowing that
you are forgotten. Invisible. Unloved.
My prayer this day is that more of you who have considered adoption pick up the phone. Say yes. Go out
on a limb. Be brave. Say to one of them,
'I choose YOU.'
