When Love Takes You In

When Love Takes You In

by

Steven Curtis Chapman

I just got done watching 17 kids & counting, where the Duggar family goes on a missions trip to El Salvador. I'm still drying my eyes. It's amazing to me the abundance in our lives that we take for granted. I know that personally, even on my worst days, I am so incredibly blessed. Lately, I've been going over all of the events in my life and as soon as I start to allow myself to think, man...I really have been through a lot, I see something like this that changes my heart. Because really, compared to some of these people I haven't been through anything. I've had my heart broken, but I've never watched one (let alone several) of my children die. I've felt betrayed, but I've never been starving. I may have had some crappy things happen to me when I was growing up, but I wasn't raised in a dirt-poor orphanage.

My heart spills out for these people and I want to go bring all of them home with me. Especially the kids. They went to visit one of the orphanages and they were talking about the girls who were now over 10 years old who would sit and cry because they had no hope. They were now old enough that they knew they would never be adopted and their heart mourns because they feel the are unwantable. One of the girls was a 14-year-old named Veronica (go figure). When asked if she could have anything she wanted, she answered "take me with you." I've never been in her shoes, but I do know what it means to have an orphaned heart that cries out for love and acceptance. A heart that just wants someone to want it back. Just wants someone to look at it, love it and take it home. Thank God, I have a savior who loves me enough to want me and take me home with him. It's amazing what happens when love takes you in, isn't it? My heart doesn't have to feel desolate and alone anymore...because it is wanted and loved now...and that has changed everything. Things that seem unbearable to the world suddenly become bearable. And where there was only darkness and despair, now there is hope...and hope is what makes all the difference. If I could give others in the world only one thing, it would be just that. HOPE.