I have a confession to make. While I love my cloth diapers, babywearing, breastfeeding, and learning more ways to take care of my family well, my heart is full of other passions, too. Passions that I forget to, neglect to share with you. Because what if it’s too much?
One of these passions is the ministry of Compassion International. Currently, they have sent several bloggers to Tanzania, one of countries where Compassion ministers. I have followed some of their previous trips, learning about children who not only live in cinder block houses with dirt floors but also the children, the families, who live in a dump in Guatemala. And my heart broke a million times over, but I didn’t share it. I didn’t because, well, how do you share heartache like that? Heartbreak that stops you in your tracks and makes you reevaluate all of your choices, all of your priorities?
But this post today from The Nester? The one that shows a little girl receiving her first doll and tells how her sister ran to get a wrap for her so she could carry her “baby” on her back? The one that reminded me of you and how we’re really just mothers? And reminds me of how a mother’s heart doesn’t just see her own children but also breaks and longs for another child that’s not of her womb but can be a child of the heart?
The truth is that our family doesn’t sponsor a child just yet. I have a million excuses as to why not, the fact that we’re still struggling to make ends meet ourselves being the first. But. When I see these children, when I see how they live daily, I can’t help but feel ridiculously rich. And why wouldn’t I help even one of them? Just one? To have clean water, food. To get an education. To receive medical care. To have hope in the future that goes beyond financial stability and rests in God? Why wouldn’t I?
Then again, I haven’t been completely idle, either. I have prayed for a child to sponsor, for the one that our family will sponsor one day. For the family of this child, and for the resources to sponsor him or her. And I can’t wait for the day when I can send my first letter, when I can start loving on the heart-child that God has prepared me and my family for.
If you’d like to follow or catch up on the Compassion bloggers’ thoughts, you can visit their page. I also encourage you to pray, to think about loving on one of the over 100,000 children that Compassion ministers to around the world who still need a sponsor. You can sponsor as a family or as part of a group, too.
