Waiting

Today I waited. Most Fourth of July weekends have been spent traveling, with friends & family, at the beach, on the lake, not all the same, but always with the ones I love. This one was different. Thank you Father, you had something great in store to show me.

A bacterial infection has made for an interesting 3 day weekend- not one full of continuous activity, bar-b-cue- and sunscreen, but time to think, time to understand what it means to be sick, to be in need, to be alone.

My roommates were gone visiting their families & I whisked my mom to the airport for a fun trip to Las Vegas to visit her oldest brother and her best friend from high school...all this to say I was by myself & not at my strongest.

After a couple days of “getting by”, I took the advice of a sweet friend and visited the doctor. I am so thankful for the walk-in medical clinics who are open on Sundays!

I walked into the cool, inviting, cleanly facility, filled out my paperwork and was called back to see the doctor fairly quickly. But it was in that room, I waited...with a fever, chills, aches, and a mind that was sure to think on adoption & children as I had been reading Russell D. Moore’s Adopted for Life in the waiting room.

It was on that cold waiting table that I sat, with the stark, white paper underneath me, I had no strength, no one there. I heard voices giving hope for someone to come in and help me, but no one. Again, I would hear doors opening and closing, but no doctor or nurse to be seen. The door remained closed, and I felt more alone sitting on that table, waiting for the doctor than I have felt in a very long time. Minutes seemed to pass like hours. This must be just VERY small taste, I thought. A taste of what it’s like to be alone, as an orphan. Weak, helpless, in need, waiting for someone. And to think, I only waited an hour...

A child whose heart is despondent cries out for love and longs for healing. I am reminded HE, our great Father, is Healer, and God uses us to carry out His glorious plan to care for these children whom He knits together in the mother’s womb and loves dearly.

I think of the 500,000 children in U.S. Foster Care, and their hearts’ cries. I look into the eyes of just ONE of the 143,000,0000 orphans in an orphanage with no one to hold her or tell her she is loved & beautiful- and I break. So what will I do?

This question resounds in my mind with frequency I can’t ignore. I pray, I seek, and I read God’s Word, which lights my path.

“God, we do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.” 2 Chronicles 20:12.

I would not trade my somewhat “uneventful” Fourth of July weekend for another experience. While I am so thankful I am able to celebrate the freedom we have on this day, I will also be remembering how so many children are sitting there on “that cold, sterile table” in chains-waiting. They wait for someone to literally open the door, walk through it, and take their little hand, providing the only “medicine” that can truly heal the heart-Love-that the Father pours out LAVISHLY on us through Jesus Christ. It’s this great love which gives us the grace to do the same in the lives of these precious children who are His.

What is God asking of me?

1 John 4:19 “We love because he first loved us.”

Krisha Yanko
Development and Marketing Coordinator