A Call to Love by Julie Holmquist

Author:Julie Holmquist [Holmquist, Julie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: RELIGION / Christian Life / Family, RELIGION / Christian Life / Relationships
Publisher: Focus on the Family
Published: 2018-05-08T00:00:00+00:00

TWO LOVE LESSONS

As with Irene, God deepened my understanding of His love through adoption. I’ll never forget Daniel and Masha’s second night in our home. I went to bed feeling scared. Daniel seemed to have this tough exterior and wouldn’t look at me. Masha was cute but was a stranger to me. Would I be able to love these children as much as my biological kids?

Lord, I prayed that night, help me to love these children. Give me Your love for them.

LESSON 1: GOD’S LOVE IS LIMITLESS

On one of our first days together, my husband and I took Masha and Daniel shopping for clothes and then asked if there was anything special they would like.

“Balloons!” Daniel said immediately.

He and Masha blew them up with an excitement you’d usually see in much younger kids. They drew faces on the balloons, tied string to them, hit them about, rubbed them in their hair, and laughed and laughed.

We later learned there was a special kind of balloon that Daniel wanted very much: the kind that stays afloat in the air. His dream came true after we ate at a restaurant that just happened to be giving away helium balloons.

When Daniel held that balloon in his hands, the look of joy on his face was exquisite. As we stepped outside into the cold winter air, he bounced the balloon around and gazed at it, holding it by the very end of the ribbon that kept it tied to the earth. I motioned for him to be careful and then realized that Daniel wanted to let go of his treasure. With body language and facial expressions, this eleven-year-old Russian boy asked me if he could release it.

He just received it, I thought, and now he wants to watch it fly away?

With my approval, he let the ribbon slip from his fingers, and we both watched the purple oval float into the gray winter sky. With our eyes, we followed the balloon for a long time while it drifted up and up, proving to us how wide and high the earth’s atmosphere really is. It’s easier to grasp the enormity of the sky when you watch something disappear into its vastness.

There is something even larger than the sky—the love of Christ. I knew this because God had proved it to me. Eighteen days after asking Jesus to help me love Masha and Daniel, I wrote this:

I am now unequivocally and madly in love with these gifts from above. The infinite nature of God’s love amazes me. We think we cannot possibly love another person, or care about someone else, or help one more neighbor in need. But God has other plans, and more than enough love to pour into our hearts. I’m reminded of this passage: “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (Ephesians 3:17-18, NIV).

Like Daniel letting go of his balloon, my husband and I released our well-ordered life when we said yes to adoption.

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