If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them. John 14:15-21
It is near dusk in the Chinese province of Hunan. A poor peasant woman is scanning the area from behind what has become known to the authorities in Hunan as a “drop-off” spot. It is a place where this peasant woman will abandon her little girl, not out of ill-intent or because she does not love her, but because she already has a son, and the poor family cannot afford any more children.
She has been told that her baby girl might just be lucky enough to make it to America. The mother knows that within hours the authorities will find the little girl, and the baby will be transported to an orphanage. At least that is her hope. That is what she has been told by other women. And so, she scans the area one more time, and she looks into the eyes of her little girl, and, in her own way, says goodbye as tears begin to flood down her cheeks.
She lays the child in a soft area, wrapped tightly, and luckily, this evening will be warmer than most. Although she could be arrested, she will wait somewhere within seeing distance of her baby girl to make sure she is picked up by the authorities and is safe. She knows that when she drops the baby off she will never be sure what will happen to her little one. She’ll never know if she will be well-cared for in the orphanage, if she will one day be adopted, or if one day she will look again from a distance and see a group of Americans being shown where the little babies were abandoned, as part of their adoption pilgrimage.
The mother just hopes that her daughter will be one of the “lucky ones,” and her little girl will find it in her heart to forgive her. She hopes that someday when her daughter reads about the situation in China she will understand that somehow, as cruel as abandonment might seem, her mother was doing it in her little girl's best interest.
I am told that a child develops much of who he or she will be in the first two years of his or her life. So although the little girl, or orphan, cannot speak, she must be confused as her mother leaves her, and another group of men pick her up. She hears loud noises that must scare her; she sees unfamiliar faces, which must make her feel alone; and she will now go into an orphanage where she will be one of many. She will be assigned a nanny who will try to see that she is fed, but since the nanny might have several babies to attend to, sometimes the bottles are propped up and the diapers (if they even have any) are not always changed.
The little girl may receive some stimulation, but monies are short, and although the conditions are improving in many of the orphanages, there is still precious little time for the nannies to spend the quality time with each baby that the child needs. The girl will be one of many in a large room.
I can’t imagine what it must be like: a baby without a name or a date of birth. The orphanage will name the baby with some generic sounding name that sometimes resembles a number more than a special name, and I suppose the directors guess the baby's age.
Have you ever thought about how lonely it must feel to be known as an orphan? No name, no birthday, no place to call home. Simply abandoned. The word abandoned carries a lot of connotations with it. What must it feel like to be abandoned? Think about that for a while: abandoned and then institutionalized.
I want you to visualize a six-month-old baby that has just been adopted. What I see is her smile, her energy, her unique qualities. But do you know what I visualize most about this child? How much her parents must love her.
Remember, this adopted baby is one of the “lucky ones,” as they sometimes say in China, “Lucky baby.” Remember this newborn’s journey. It’s been a long one. I have been fortunate enough to experience the beautiful moment when Chinese orphans are presented to the adoptive parents, thanks to our adoption of Emma Claire. It is quite an emotional moment.
She is no longer abandoned. She has been claimed. She has a beautiful name, a birthday, and loving parents, who see that her every need is addressed. What a difference it makes to feel claimed. It reminds me of a stanza from “Amazing Grace”: “I was lost, but now am found.”
Let’s look at loneliness. I chose this particular passage of scripture because I like the use of the word orphan. “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” I began to think about the link between adoption as we know it and adoption in the Christian sense. And when you start thinking in that sense—when you put God into the plan and the picture and think about the providence of God—you realize that there are no orphans.
We are all creations of God, and, for better or worse, we have been claimed by God. Now, we can resist that claim—our eternal adoption for as long as we want—but that never lessens the reality that we are children of God. We belong to God.
Norman Vincent Peale wrote about the prisoner who had a “Born Loser” tattoo on his shoulder. I wonder who told the man that. The sad thing is that if it was written on his shoulder, it must also have been felt in his heart and in the depths of his soul. The truth is that beneath all of the muck and mire, the dust from years of drugging it up or drinking to numb the pain or whatever addiction we have that makes us feel less lonely, are the words permanently etched on the soul.
And those words are certainly, “I belong to God. Child of God.” And no matter how much we want to resist it, no matter how much we want to rebel, no matter how hard we try to alienate God, those words are etched on our souls and our hearts. Child of God. And no matter what our story—how much abuse we have had or hardships we have faced—etched in the core of our hearts are the words, “Orphan No More.”
The claim of God on our lives can never be erased. In my mind, loneliness can come from many things. We can examine those, but the loneliest people are those who do not know to whom they belong. They feel like that baby abandoned near the street, and they are constantly looking for a place to belong. They are constantly looking for their adoption papers, if you will, and it seems like these are buried in some pile on a bureaucrat’s desk. If they could just get to the bottom of the pile, they might find the roadmap for their life. They might find out to whom they belong. When, in actuality, the claim is an unwritten promise worth more than any piece of paper and is found in the heart. People are in fervent search for a place to belong. We need to be wanted. And the truth is we are wanted. It is the promise of this scripture that none of us - not one of us will be left as an orphan. Jesus said that. Let's acknowledge some realities about our society that contribute to feelings of loneliness:
A) Changes in Technology. Gary Collins has written, “As government, business, and education get 'bigger' and more impersonal, people feel smaller and less needed.” I think you would probably agree that as our society has advanced technologically, we have also taken some steps backward in respect to personal relationships.
B) Mobility. When people have jobs that sometimes last a few years, it becomes more difficult to develop intimate relationships. As soon as you do, it becomes necessary for some people to move on to another city or country due to their vocation.
In some respects, advancement has brought some welcome changes. But as people communicate more by e-mail, fax, and even phone, something has been lost in our interpersonal relationships that were once face-to-face.
C) Decreased Amount of Leisure Time. While there have always been people who worked long hours, everyone seems to have taken on an even busier lifestyle. We try to squeeze as much into the day as possible, but unfortunately this means we are on the run, making quick conversation while passing in the hallway rather than sitting down for discussion. There is much more activity, but I worry about the quality of the quantity of activities we are involved in.
D) Decreased Attendance in Church. There was a time when the church was one of the most important social and spiritual places to gather in one's life. There were not other things on Sunday that competed with church, and so many people went. Now, church can seem like a burden more than a blessing, especially if an iPhone rules your life.
Church can become just another appointment to place in your planner. I hope not. I pray that church remains a priority for us all. It’s a refuge and a place where we take the time for each other. If we are not careful, we can become too busy in the church and have more concern for programs and meetings than people.
E) Relationships Become Superficial. We are in such a hurry that many of our relationships can take on a superficial nature. You can know a lot of people (acquaintances) but not really know them. Do you know what I mean?
So loneliness abounds. It does not so much because we can't be around people. Some of us are always around people, but they are too busy, or we are too busy to relax and sit back and converse about anything real. Instead, we opt for the latest sports stats or the weather or politics.
We stay away from the truly personal. When people have no person to talk with about the truly personal issues of their lives, they can become very lonely people. Others might be afraid that if people really knew our truly personal side, they would reject us, so we keep our thoughts and feelings to ourselves. We need a place where we can talk about things. Hopefully, the family is a place where people can talk.
I wish the church was a more trusted and confidential place for people to truly reveal themselves. But we think, “If they really knew my true self, they wouldn't like it,” or “I need to look strong. I need to act strong, even if inside I am falling apart.”
This is why we have a whole sector of people employed as professional counselors and psychiatrists. It’s not that they are not needed in many instances, but I wonder if people think they have to pay someone to listen to them and give them undivided attention.
I believe the major reason for our loneliness is the lack of community. I was forwarded a personal story on community, written by Philip Gulley. Let me share it with you.
When I was in the fourth grade, I was offered a job as a paperboy. It didn't pay much money, but I knew that having a job would build my character, so I took it, good character being important to fourth graders.
My lessons started the first day on the job. A customer paying his bill asked me if I wanted a tip, and I said, “Sure.” He said, “Stay away from wild women.” One of my customers was a lady by the name of Mrs. Stanley. She was a widow and not prone to wild living, so I took to lingering on her front porch during my rounds. She would watch for me to come down her street, and by the time I'd pedaled up to her house, there would be a slushy bottle of Coke waiting for me. I'd sit and drink while she talked. That was our understanding – I drank, she talked.
The Widow Stanley talked mostly about her dead husband, Roger. “Roger and I went grocery shopping this morning over to the IGA," she'd say. The first time she said that, the Coke went up my nose. That was back in the days when Coke going up your nose wasn't a crime, just a mite uncomfortable. Went home and told my father about Mrs. Stanley and how she talked as if Mr. Stanley was still alive. Dad said she was probably lonely and that maybe I ought to just sit and listen and nod my head and smile, and maybe she would work it out of her system.
So that's what I did. I figured this was where the character building came into play. Turned out dad was right. After a few summers, she seemed content to leave her husband over at the South Cemetery. Nowadays, we'd send Mrs. Stanley to a psychiatrist. But all she had back then was a front porch rocker and her paperboy's ear, which turned out to be enough. I quit my paper route after her healing. Moved on to the lucrative business of lawn mowing. Didn't see Widow Stanley for several years. Then we crossed paths up at the Christian Church's annual fundraiser dinner. She was standing behind the steam table spooning out mashed potatoes and looking radiant. Four years before she'd had to bribe her paperboy with a Coke to have someone to talk with; now she had friends brimming over. Her husband was gone, but life went on. She had her community and was luminous with love. Community is a beautiful thing; sometimes it even heals us and makes us better than we would otherwise be. Community isn't so much a locale as it is a state of mind. You find it wherever folks ask how you're doing because they care, and not because they're being paid to inquire.
You see, whether we are an abandoned orphan on the streets of China or a lonely wealthy person who lives in America, one thing will always be true. We belong. We have been claimed: stamped a child of God. In that sense, how could we not respond to God's call on our lives?
Sources Consulted:
1. Christian Counseling, Gary Collins, Ph.D. 1988.
2. E-mail Forward - Source Unknown
