People Who Inspire Me II

I don't know how many people have checked out my blog roll, but I hope you have stopped by those blogs at least one time. When you do you will find extraordinary people, living extraordinary lives. I hope that you will also notice that they are also incredibly ordinary people. There really is nothing special about them...apart from the Holy Spirit working in their lives, they would not be doing the extraordinary things they are. That is the great paradigm that is the Christian faith. We can do nothing, but through Him all things are possible. Left to ourselves, we have only love for ourselves. Yet because of Jesus, they can lay down their lives in sacrificial love. Not because it is easy, for some, it is the hardest thing they will ever do. Yet the Grace of God is more than enough to sustain them. I want to point out a couple of people in particular today. All of them need our prayers. Their faith in the face of adversity is what inspires me about them.

The first is a young lady who inspires me for several reasons. The foremost is how she laid down her life for another. At the ripe old age of 25, as a single woman, she brought home an amazing boy from Liberia. Not a yummy and squishy little baby (although I would fault no one for doing so, who wouldn't want one of those?) This little guys name is Issac. It really is an amazing story, how they found one another, how the Sovereign Lord brought them together, and made them a family. You see what is so amazing about this story, is that Issac has quite a serious medical condition. A condition that she knew in advance was going to require at least one long and dangerous surgery, a surgery that her son might not survive. Couple that with the very real surprises that come with adopting an older child, and you might think this young lady would say "No, not me Lord." Instead, by the grace of God she said "Yes, I love him and he is my son." Issac just had his surgery, a little over a week a ago. They are both struggling immensely right now. Would you take the time to pray for them both? Maybe even drop by her blog and let her know that they are in your prayers. They can be found by clicking here.

The second is a family, that honestly, most days I can not even begin to wrap my brain around what they have gone though, what their struggles have been. Yet still, they praise the Lord. Even when it looks as though they could not take yet another blow, God gives the grace to endure, to hold on to Him, to trust Him when He says His plans for us are for good and not evil. They have recently received some more "challenging" news. My heart hurts for them. I want to see them have a break. Even the best soldiers need rest and recuperation. I want to read about complete healing. I want to read about amazing and miraculous things. Then the Lord reminds me that I do read amazing and miraculous things, each time I read an update. It is amazing what the Lord has done thus far in all their lives. Medically, there has already been many miraculous things. Most amazing of all, they have had literally millions of people read their story. I am positive the Lord is using it to bring people to faith in Him. I am confident He is using their story to save many babies from death at the hands of an abortionist. Then there are people like me, who read their story, and are moved. Moved to deeper faith. Moved to trust my Savior more. Moved to see the amazing and miraculous things He is doing in their lives and the lives of countless others. I hope you are moved in the same way, as you read their story here.

The final family is one I read about on Brandi's blog. Someone who inspires me for entirely different reasons. Check out her blog and you will see what I mean. Anyway, so she has a post about this family, in Africa, trying to bring home their newest child. This is not their first adoption. I have a hunch it won't be their last. Now, I haven't read much of their blog, but their current adoption is what has me challenged right now. This precious sweet thing is very ill, with HIV. Stage 4 HIV. Chew on that. Think about what it means to open your home, more importantly your heart, to a very sick child. To travel across the world, to love them, hold them, and care for them. Is this mom and dad thinking about themselves? Obviously not. For them, any suffering they might face as the parents of this sweet child, are not even worthy of being compared to the worth of giving her a home. I want to be clear too, that the suffering I am thinking of is that of a parent, watching helplessly, as their child suffers. This is a challenge to me for a multitude of reasons. I never want to take the easy way, yet often I find myself doing just that. Jesus didn't take the easy way. His way was hard. Harder than anything you or I will ever be asked to do. He sent for us an example to love sacrificially, to lay down our lives, to serve rather than be served. The path is indeed narrow, but the reward is great. I pray I follow it. You can see this kind of faith in action here.