What to do about the "Treasure of Darkness"?

It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
 to declare your steadfast love in the morning,
and your faithfulness by night,
 For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work;
at the works of your hands I sing for joy.

Psalm 92:1,2&4

 

If you are friends with me on Facebook, you have seen a bombardment of information and pleas for prayer regarding the Russian adoption ban.  I have been so sad about this for many reasons, the main one being that children who would have had families now will most likely remain alone, hungry and without hope.  This isn't anything new, back in the early 1990's, Romania's door closed to adoption too.  Sadly, not much has been done by the Romanian government to correct the very poor care of Romanian orphans.  And then you have Guatemala, whose doors closed to adoption in 2007.  The main reason was corruption in the adoption process in country.  So, instead of snuffing out the corruption and punishing those who were profiting illegally from adoption, they punished the children who would have had families.  There are still hundreds of children who have families (they were matched with a family) in the States and are not allowed to come home.  Shall I continue naming countries, where orphans are not being treated as the treasures that they are?  Countries whose leaders do not fight for the best welfare of their most vulnerable citizens?   Countries who sit back and watch their littlest treasures being sold as sex slaves?

 

This month, as we celebrated the birth of Jesus, Jesus our Hope, I couldn't help but ask Him repeatedly, why do you linger?  Why do you allow such evil to destroy?  

I have been so broken.  You see, all I have to do is look into the eyes of my beautiful children and remember what they suffered at the hands of evil and think about what their "lot" would have been, and my heart breaks in pieces for the children who have no hope for family, no hope for love, no hope to be treasured. 

 

But the Holy Spirit continues to whisper to my soul....a time of redemption is near...yes, a time of redemption is near.  And this is what I hold onto as I continue to speak...no Yell...for those who have no voice.  Evil may triumph for today, but Jesus holds those little ones.  He came as a Baby to give hope to the hopeless, to set the lonely in families.  He came to bring them, to bring us all, a Father who will never leave.   

 

Psalm 146:5-10 says, "Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help,
Whose hope is in the Lord his God,
⁶ Who made heaven and earth,
The sea, and all that is in them;
Who keeps truth forever,
⁷ Who executes justice for the oppressed,
Who gives food to the hungry.
The Lord gives freedom to the prisoners.

⁸ The Lord opens the eyes of the blind;
The Lord raises those who are bowed down;
The Lord loves the righteous.
⁹ The Lord watches over the strangers;
He relieves the fatherless and widow;
But the way of the wicked He turns upside down.

¹⁰ The Lord shall reign forever—
Your God, O Zion, to all generations.

Praise the Lord!

 

Evil will not always succeed.  But while it does, we must, as the people of the Most High God, fight for the "treasures of darkness".  We must pray vigilantly for those who don't even believe that there is a God who would hear them.  We must go to them and visit them in their distress.  We must use what God has given to us to help those who are sent to rescue them from traffickers, to show them the love of Jesus, to provide for their physical needs. We must bring them into our homes while we still can, to love them for the treasures that they are. We must use what God has given to us to help others to bring them home and then provide support to those families when they are home. 

We must ask God, as we are on our knees praying, "What more will you have me/my family do to love those whom you say are the greatest in the kingdom?"

While I have felt hopeless for the children of Russia and other places around the world, the truth is, they are not without hope.  They have never been without hope, and so I will continue to pray fervently, with hope, to the One who sent His Son to bring Hope to the world. 

 

(Side note - as I have read articles on the Russian adoption ban, I have been confronted with the ever present view (even in Christian circles) that Americans should only adopt American children.  This view troubles me immensely, and I will be dealing with this in my next post.)