Christmas 2009. Three Christmases ago. I was a wreck. We were so close to finding our new daughter. I just knew it would be a few weeks after Christmas.
And, that meant that though I didn’t know who she was or where exactly she was, what she looked like or how old she was. I knew she was. I knew she was somewhere across the world, alone for Christmas, what was her first Christmas.
And, though I was anxious and wondering and thinking all the time about her, there was something that gave me great peace.
God was there.
In Luke 2:6-20, Luke mentioned the manger three times. Why?
The manger was messy. It wasn’t what we picture–a wooden contraption with a sweet bed of hay. It was more like a box looking thing or basin made out of clay mixed with hay or stones and held together with mud. All kinds of food for animals were put in it, not just nice yellow hay. It was dirty, maybe moldy, smelly.
And, God was there. Very literally, God was there.
As spunky and full of life as Lydia is now, it wasn’t that long ago that she was in a pretty messy place. I believe her orphanage was one of the better ones–her needs were met and we’ve learned more recently that there were quite caring women who took to her there. There was a wall of windows with natural light in the room where she lived 24-7. In that room were 40 cribs and a few toys for all to share to pass the time. There were older children in that orphanage too, children we weren’t allowed to see. And, I wonder what their days were like.
I’ve heard a lot of stories–about adopted children who flinch when someone moves their direction in fear that they will be hit; children who were never held, children who have come to accept that no one wants to bring home a child their age, only babies; children who suffer significant consequences from not having the medical treatment they needed earlier.
God is not only not afraid to get his feet dirty; He is about getting His feet dirty. That’s what advent is all about, isn’t it? God coming down, the perfect to the broken, the holy to the unholy.
Psalm 34:18 tells us He’s close to the brokenhearted–and there are so many right now. I can only imagine that He is very close indeed to brokenhearted children–here and there–whether they are aware of their brokenness or not. He’s there.
