No Greater Love . . .

Today is the six month mark from when we welcomed W. and G. into our home. It has probably been the hardest six months of my life for many reasons.  It has been a fairly lonely journey too, as it is just hard to understand what it is like unless you've walked in the same shoes so-to-speak.  But the other day, after crying out to the Lord for some more encouragement, I received this email out-of-the-blue from Lydia. Oh my!  My heart was so touched and my soul was deeply blessed! Thank you, Lord, for this special encouragement!  

"It was funny, I was washing dishes and thinking about Caroline and 40 days for life and what she/we can do in the off season, when SCC's song "No greater Love" came on.  I couldn't help but think about one of the last blog posts you had about how you have struggled with W&G and how you are fearing the possible long wait ahead with them.  I got to thinking about how this experience has been so much more a true sacrifice in many ways than it was with B&B.  And how all the effort and love you are trying to put into those two is ultimately about the Gospel.  It's been so huge for you all to really experience loving the unloveable in lots of  different situations these last few weeks, and it hit me how true it is that your sacrifice for W&G is real life, nitty gritty, every day missionary work. I just wanted you to be encouraged that "There is no greater love than this, there is no greater gift"...that you could ever give those two and the world, than metaphorically "laying down your life" for the sake of Christ with these little ones.  I was thinking that for unbelievers looking in, our actions are so much more powerful than our words, and putting our money where our mouth is speaks volumes. Not that we should be overly concerned with what the world thinks of us since we ultimately have an audience of One...but I think it is telling that your heart is in the right place when they cannot accuse believers of failing to act on the behalf of orphans and pregnant mothers. And we know we will not stand before our precious Jesus with with nothing to show for our time down here in the end! (To roughly quote whoever it was that Caroline quoted in her last update lol)  

I love you so much!"