Do. Right.

I’ve been struck with a perspective adjustment recently- the “rightness” of our actions doesn’t mean the outcome will be pleasant.  I was thinking about this as I read through a fellow adoptive mama’s words of grief about a child who has chosen to reject her love.  Does that mean it was wrong to adopt him?  I thought about it again with a friend who is loving a baby for just a brief moment of potentially days or weeks before Baby lands in her permanent home.  This will be an act of love and sacrifice that may hurt.  Does that mean it isn’t the right thing to do?  And multiple friends who have committed to little ones they would love to keep forever, but their primary goal is reunification with a potentially troubled biological family.  These friends are passionate about what is best for these children they have come to love as their own, even if that means they suffer the pain of letting them go.

I am so scared that as the Body of Christ these families are the exception instead of the rule.  How many times do I hear somebody say, “I would never be a foster parent because I couldn’t bear it when they took the child away.”  I have perfected the understanding head nod, but inside I want to scream.  Do you think these amazing women- women who are changing foster baby diapers, dropping foster kids off at school, making foster kids’ dinners, loving adopted children who have come from places so dark they don’t even know how to accept love- are so cold-hearted they won’t be devastated by the loss of these children from their homes and lives, or by their rejection?  I know each of these women will be broken hearted when and if that day comes.  I know I was broken hearted when boys we houseparented had to leave because of their own poor choices or decisions made by their parents.  I was doubly broken hearted when we had to leave that job and I had to cry with them about the break-up of the family we had created.

So because it is painful to love and to lose, does that mean we choose not to love?  God forbid.

We choose to do what is right because it is RIGHT.  For no other reason.  Not because it feels good or because it will be so rewarding.  Sometimes we may not see that reward until we see The Father’s face and He explains to us why we had to walk that road.  But I would rather suffer the heartbreak to be obedient than to run away from pain and miss the joy of loving who God has called me to love.  If Christians are too afraid of pain to risk loving children they can’t keep and whose futures they can’t control, who will?  If we aren’t willing to do what’s right just because it’s right, what do we expect other people to do?

We do what’s right.  We do it without expecting to understand the ultimate outcome.  We do it with an open hand for what God’s plan might be.  We do it even when other people fail to understand.  We do it when it’s hard and when it costs and when we don’t want to.  We don’t do it because we’re martyrs or holier than thou, but because we’re motivated by obedience and a heart of compassion.

Cultural Christianity might try to convince us that health and wealth are the goals of our salvation.  We may want to believe that if we’re doing what God wants we will never be sad or experience loss.  We might try to avoid anything that could potentially cause our family pain and imagine we’re doing it because “God wants us to be happy.”  But I think we’ve missed the point of the Gospel if our lives become an exercise in protecting our happiness and personal comfort.

When faced with a decision- pray, use your God-given discernment, seek wise counsel, and then do RIGHT. And if that decision leads to what looks like sadness or pain, that doesn’t make it less right.  It might just confirm you were exactly where God wanted you to be.

Bless you, Mamas, in the thick of the fight for your children’s hearts.

Bless you, Mamas, loving children you cannot keep.

You are my heroes.