Creating Orphans

Creating Orphans

Orphans- those without family. Children without safety and security. Vulnerable. No one to love you, to empathize. No one to take your weariness, to carry you when your legs won’t move.

The time and day have left me, but the face and words will never. “How are you?” An open door, a step towards warmth, or so I thought. “Tired,” I replied. “This baby won’t sleep and I think I’m going crazy. Sad. This is harder than I thought.”

“Well, you wanted this!” Then a back turned, cold. I stood there still holding my hardship now buried under the weight of another. Loneliness.

The place troubles me more than the words. Church. House of God. Sisters and brothers. Forever family.

Orphaned. I felt orphaned that day. Rejected by family. Left carrying my weight, with no hope. Worse yet, sure it was mine alone to carry.

Believers, we care for and love on and feed and pray for orphans around the world. Some of us even go to do this work. Hands and feet and all. All the while we create orphans within our own families and churches. Within the house of God.

But we have others to turn to. True. Many of us do. But the scars, the weight of the orphaning remains long after the words or act is done. And we store it up in our heart memory and it changes us. It changes how we see ourselves. It changes how we see others. How we see family and community. Damages trust. Skews love.  

We orphan our own family.

When we know of needs and ignore them. That woman deserves her pain. He talks too much about his aches. Shouldn't they be over this already? When we say we’ll pray, but won’t. Our prayers are too full of us for them. When we reject or exclude them because they are not like us. Or too loud. Or too emotional. Or to difficult. They complain too much or too little. Too holy. Not holy enough. Not enough like me, our fickle hearts our own rudder. 

When we refuse to see the weak and needy. The mentally ill man who makes us so uncomfortable that we turn and walk the other way. The child who wounds yours over and over. No mercy. The mother who turns to gossip, so desperately insecure, buying friends with secret currency. The drug addict or adulterer. Pointed fingers, mirrors to their sin in the name of Matthew 18, so sure our plank’s much smaller.

We orphan pastors and servants with our constant judgments and should haves. A steady stream of “if only this church could…” Unaware that our “should” does more injury than we could ever imagine. Damaged spirits. Weakened confidence. When we fight over that which doesn't really matter, grudge holding because our way is more precious than unity. 

I am the We. I have orphaned those I claimed to love. Sisters and brothers who have loved and hurt me, often in equal measure.

When I have judged and pointed fingers. Clung to my holiness knowing I could never do that. Or be that. When I have traded secrets in the name of prayer. Put on the judges robe and slammed the gavel. When I have turned away, sure that tough love was right. My hurts above their needs. My truth above their wounds.

Orphaning.

And I have orphaned myself. Sure I was too good for them, or her, or this. Above it. Sometimes not good enough. So unworthy of this family because of the secrets dragging behind me. Allowing past hurts to cloud how I see them. Orphaned myself by refusing to trust, to reveal, to be raw and honest. Afraid they’ll never accept. I’ve refused to forgive or approach. Assigned blame and nursed bitterness. Orphaned.

In the orphaning we create hurt deeper than the world hurts us. Because we deny love at the very place where love should be freely given. We deny the healing that love can bring. We put a price on that which is free. Self-appointed gate keepers to the love and forgiveness that was first given to us.

But, in the midst of sanctuaries so often full of orphaning, the promise still rests. For orphans like you and me. And for those who have created them. A promise of forever, no matter what.

He was wounded for our transgressions. He was battered for our wrongs. Perfect Son made Himself an orphan that we might forever have a family. His prayer, that we would all be one. As they were one. God and Son, so we can be. When we realize, take hold of our truth. All of us orphans no more.  

I've had a front row seat to orphans no more. To the love and the hurt that comes with finding a forever family. The grace that emerges while hardship and pain and grief still smolder. And the One that family can become. When we take hold of this One we have the power to stop creating orphans and to start building the kingdom family, brick by brick and layer by layer, into a family that seeks the lost, the weary, the burdened sinner. And gives them rest.