Nothing Else Will Do

We'll be there--you can be too!! :) Our church has the honor of hosting the event " Orphan Sunday Live from Kansas City" PLEASE join us for ONE HOUR live or over the web in intercession prayer and worship for the orphans of Father God's World. This will be a global event, we are so excited!!
This is the type of intercession we do for the orphans of the world during prayer sets here at the International House of Prayer. It is powerful and tenderizes my heart for God and His love for His children every time. Knowing that prayer is the finest effectual action we can take for it moves the heart of the GOD who holds this world in His hand never ceases to AMAZE me!! What a privilege and a partnership prayer becomes!!



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And he came unto the disciples, and found them asleep, and said unto Peter, What, could you not watch with me one hour? Matthew 26:40

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You know what I am considering tonight as I type and worship and listen to all the little voices floating upstairs from a dress-up extravaganza?...

That adoption can be summed up in several words but here is the one that is striking my heart as I consider love tonight...

Jealousy...

Have you ever considered HOW MUCH God loves you? I mean, HOW MUCH He loves?

The other morning He woke me up...with the thought/prayer..."you need to consider LOVE...and how much I love you...my perfect love casts away fear...it redeems and frees...it is for you not against you...how much will you consider my love, Gillian?"...

and I have this week...as I have washed dishes and stroked faces ...and wiped away the tears of a child who was hurt by another...and wondered about the gathering of souls here...that God purposed ...for us to encounter what ...

LOVE IS...

He is JEALOUS...

That we would not have another...

Or another thing...

He is JEALOUS for each of our souls to only belong to him...

To know this love...To know HOW MUCH...OH HOW Much HE (not me, not families, not movements) but HE loves....HE Loves....How much HE wants to love...to save.. to know..to show HOW MUCH ...He IS Love...

Adoption's not only about filling tummies or one more bed to make...

Adoption's about a "buy back"...It's about a God who is so

JEALOUS

for LOVE

So glorious in beauty and holiness and forever love

That He will have NOTHING BUT

US

That He would EMPTY HIMSELF of EVERYTHING

but LOVE

That He would consider the cost

And come live HERE

In a place like the places we visit on missions trips.

That He chose to be a poor baby...loved by a Mommy and Adopted by an astounded Daddy

That He would live sinless,

love wholehearted and fierce,

That He would step away from the majestic temple to walk the dusty streets,

LOOKING for LOVE.

Searching for the one...

Dying for All

ALL of us ...from any home...in every culture...in every time...

For ALL of us.

Not just some would do...

He was Jealous to rescue and buy us back from an enemy who oppressed, hated, used us and orphaned our hearts from Him.

But He had a quest to buy us back with blood,

Purify us for Presence and ready us for a great big family...

For LOVE

He would NOT have us in the arms of another lover

Or under the foot of an oppressor...

And...He is jealous...Jealous for those little ones tucked upstairs in bed

and the mommy at the sink

for the ones who run barefoot in the grass outside under the sprinkler

as well as for the one who shivers under a thin blanket under drips in a shanty

He wants them ALL

At His banquet table

Well fed, Set apart for a joyous forever family, Holy unto HImself, dressed in white and feasting in His Presence.

And so,

If I am to consider how I am to move in Him,

I will Go

I will LOVE

I will SEEK

Those we can bring home to Him as gifts to HIM...

And its a life-long treasure hunt for the King who


Will stop at nothing less than loving all...


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...and here comes little Ava, our Ethiopian daughter...she's spontaneously singing this song tonight:

Blessings and Love,

Gillian

Oh, HELP us, Jesus

If we are a friend of God we will love the poor from our heart, through correct thinking,in loving and specific action,in selfless giving...for as we give to them...we are giving to the Kingdom of God's ROYALTY. The way we love the poor is literally the way we love God.




He who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and He will reward him for what he has done.

Proverbs 19:17

The love story..For HIM...For them...and For me

This BEAUTIFUL post is from my friend, Sara. She is an intercessory missionary here at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City and a beautiful adoptive mom who has adopted 2 adorable preschool children from Ethiopia and now is in the process of adopting 2 elementary- aged girls from Uganda.

I love her heart--

It first burns in love for Jesus

Then flows out to others...

Kingdom love...Kingdom journey...

A fellow traveler on the road that leads into the arms of our Father...

That will end up

taking us

  HOME...

This post is a reflection of where our hearts are these days as God is marrying in Richard and my heart,
adoration for Christ

and deliverance,

or as Sara would say,

"rescue"


 into the broken places of the world...

bringing the "HOME" of God's heart to the world.

(I have highlighted this pitch-perfect section of her post in bold letters today)


Look up Sara's blog at:



Enjoy!!


The Rescue

Posted by Sara on Thursday, June 2, 2011 · 14 Comments

“I don’t want to grow up before my mom gets me.” She said the words my heart felt.

At eight, she isn’t waiting on a mystery. Adoption has been explained to her and though family is a new concept for her orphan-mind, she is being indoctrinated into the very thing I am, an ocean away. Waiting on a promise.

Adoption is never easy. What sits deep in the eye of the Father is a target for His enemy. The layers of testimony being built around the rescue of the vulnerable ones don’t go unopposed. Simultaneous to the glorious accounts we’ve received from friends who have visited with Hope and Lily has been the news that our story has hit some paperwork-related hurdles.

And Lily knows about those. The same little girl who kisses my picture on her wall knows that the path to her promise will have to be paved by Jesus.

“At least I have a mom,” she says in response to news of the potential delays. The child, whose daily comings and goings have never been under a mother’s watchful eye (though now under kind caregivers), finds peace in the whispers of me as if they were my arms wrapped around her. Something is better than nothing for the child who’s grown accustomed to nothing.

Hope still seems oblivious to the radical life change around her corner. She loved her pink nail polish, Molly’s treat. And bore smile after smile for a camera that would deliver gold to my inbox just hours later. Carefree and full of the delight that an outdoor playground solicits, the disconnect between this message bearer and those who sent her, obvious.

She appeared to brush away tears when she watched a video we sent, enamored with the kisses we blew across miles. Is it possible for a five year-old to feel the pain of waiting?

Three years between she and Lily seem like eons which have potential to wash away the innocence of youth. Young and fresh, malleable turned molded — needing re-molding. But for both of them, every day they are not under my roof is a day I’ve lost. A day I will one day have to ask back of the God who restores the years locusts eat.

There is something innate in a woman, created to protect her young at all costs, which adoption stirs up. I find myself explaining our adoption process to people as if I’m explaining the mortgage application process. Dry description, dry process because I lack words to explain the torrent going on within me.

I have daughters living minutes I don’t get to shape. The little-girl moments mothers are made to ponder are ones I only dream about.

++++++

Eden scoots into my lap, eyes on the floor and lower lip quivering. She lets down. “I’m sad Mommy,” she says as a precursor to the conversation we’ve had many times. My five year-old mourns the early years when she “didn’t get to be with Mommy and Daddy” and I can’t help but think of the two others on another continent whose time-cards reflect immeasurably more of those minutes which will one day need healing. Our home, soon to be a hospital for these type of heart-casualties.

Injustice spans the gap between where I live my days and where they grow more inches. And the horizon is pregnant with more waiting.

All of this can make a mother crazy.

And crazed I have been. Allured by the dark side of promise. It’s a faint fume which has set like a damper over my spirit, telling me that rest will come with the promise and that my stomach was meant to be in knots — and my heart awry — until the answer comes. Subtle alluring, couched in mission. Seeking the promise, instead of the promise giver, slowly becomes my goal. And I get heartsick.

Until the One who allures appears.

Adoption is not about a child. It’s about a Man. A God-Man who could end injustice in an instant and who does not look on the fatherless with hands tied behind His back. Instead, He works every angle for the greatest love story of all time to unfold.

The love story for Lily. For Hope. And for me.

He’s rescuing my heart and teaching me a trust that isn’t dependent upon human constructs. He’s alluring me to love which, when I melt weak at its feet, does not allow me to leave that place unchanged. He’s awakening me to an encounter that infuses peace in a valley of darkness.

He calls us to justice not because He needs our acts of justice, but because — in doing so — we find Him. We learn Him. We brush up against a love that does not leave us with a little bit of Jesus to add to our already-formed mission but leaves us hungering for a Man that will change every dusty corner of our lives.

Adoption reveals His relentlessness. For them. And for me.

Whether a month from now or six months from now or a year from now, when I get to hold Lily for the first time and my lips grace Hope’s forehead as if they’d been there a thousand times before, there is one thing I’m desperate to have found.

More of this Man Jesus. More of this One who keeps calling me to walk across a tight-rope and promises I’ll find Him safe in every step.

The end is a Man. Not exclusive to adoption, the end of every promise who’s seen the sweat of waiting, is this Man.

My inbox has been flooded lately with questions about adoption (if I haven’t yet responded to you, I haven’t forgotten you — it usually takes me a few days to respond) and I’ve been tempted to craft an auto-reply that says:

Adoption is for the hungry. If you want to know more of Jesus and are willing to get a little undone in the meantime, sign up. You can’t pursue a child without being consumed by His pursuit of you.

Delivering the Orphans...Will Begin With my Own Heart...

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