To the One with No Home, No Family, and No Name...

Baby, I'm so sorry that we as Christians let you down every single day. We stand in our church services and sing how Christ is enough, and sing that we will follow Him wherever He leads. We go to our Bible studies and talk about what it means to live a sold-out life for Him. And yet we forget and ignore the fact that religion, true religion means caring for you.

It's not that we don't know you. So many of us have been on trips where we've held you in our arms. We've been filled with a passion to do something, to rescue you, we come home and tell everyone about you. And then life starts to happen and we just forget. It's easier to get caught up in our own life, than to think about you and your pain. Rather than trying to be the solution, we get comfortable in our culture again, forgetting that true religion means walking away from the temptations of the world.

In our Western culture, we never see you. In order to see you, we have to go out of our way. We have to choose to open our eyes to your reality, & that's not something we want to do. Seeing what your life is like isn't comfortable for us. And God forbid we should do anything to mess with our own comfort. 

We live this selfish version of faith, always seeking God for the blessings He will give us. We forget that blessed are least of these. Blessed are the humble. We live this faith that tells us blessings come through financial gain, new things... Blessings that count just for us, for our families.

But baby, I'm tired of living a selfish faith. I'm tired of only seeking God for what I can get from Him. I'm tired of being given blessings and never taking the time to bless someone else. I'm tired of clutching so tightly to what I've got, when really the only blessing comes from giving it all away.

They keep saying they're believing for this year to be our best yet, but baby, I don't see how any year could be my best until I'm giving my best for the sake of somebody else. I don't see how I could be truly blessed until I'm giving everything to be a blessing to somebody else, to you. 

So, baby, more than anything, I want to apologise to you, not just on behalf of Christians across the world, but on behalf of myself. I held you in my arms all those years ago. I stood beside you and listened to your stories. I cried myself to sleep for weeks after that, desperately begging God for there to be some way you could leave that hopelessness. As time went on, with me safe in my world, it was easier to forget. It was easier to pretend like you weren't stuck in that place. Because remembering hurts. Remembering isn't comfortable. Remembering reminds me that now that I have seen, I am responsible. I have tried, baby, tried to find some way to make some difference, but when I can't do anything else, I know you just need my prayers.

So until I can get there, until I can hold you in my arms again and find some way to be the solution, until the day I can bring you home and show you the love of a family, I will pray. I will remember you. I will let God interrupt my schedule, I will let go of my tightly held plans in order to love you... In order to storm heaven on your behalf. I will learn that blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Baby, I want to see God, not in tangible gifts and financial blessings. But in your eyes. In the way your face lights up when you see and know for the first time you are loved, and not forgotten. I think that's what God looks like. He looks like love in action. Like a mother taking another's child as her own, weeping as she holds you for the first time. God looks like the way you'll learn to trust over time. God looks like the smile on your face as you receive your first ever hug, as you play with a toy for the first time. God looks like adoption.

Baby, you're worth everything. I know you've never seen love, never known what it could be like. I know in some cases, you spend your time imagining and dreaming what it could be like to be part of a family, to come home to a mom and a dad who love you unconditionally, who are proud of you. I know that most days, it all just seems so impossible and you just want to give up. But please baby, don't give up. Love has come for you. My prayer is not only for you, but for anyone who calls themselves a Christian - to realize in order for you to know True Love, the Love of the Perfect Father - you need to see love in action.

True religion in the sight of the Father is caring for orphans and widows in their distress... Baby, we've let you down in this. But today, I'm starting new, vowing to never forget you. To do what I can to care for you and love you, even if for right now, that just means you have my prayers.

You are loved.