If I could trade you places, I would...

Since living in China, God has been changing my views on a lot of my original idea's or view points concerning adoptions/orphan care.

God had already completely changed my view point on birth mothers before I had left Tulsa.

But God has continued to change my heart towards birth mothers in China. 

Please know that this post is going to be me being very transparent about my past opinions, please read this blog all the way through or don't read it at all. 

The reality that I've learned that is most of the International orphans still have living relatives. Some even have mothers and fathers but they are living in orphanages, with the title of being an "orphan". I use to be very judgmental towards birth mothers.

I use to see the birth mothers as the problem. I couldn't wrap my small mind around the concept of how deserting your child could have any positives for you or your child. And I honestly didn't ever even try to see things through the birth mothers eyes.

Before saying anything else, please allow me to apologize for my ignorance.

 Birth mothers, I am so sorry that I was so quick to judge you. I am so sorry that I never took the time to see things through your eyes, and that instead I chose to judge you. 

I was wrong, and I beg for your forgiveness.

My opinions were the opposite of love towards you, and I am so very sorry.

My opinions about birth mothers were mostly naive, judgmental, ignorant and hypocritical. 

All I knew was what I had seen, I had seen hundreds and hundreds of children abandoned and left to fend for themselves and I took up offenses for those children against women that I never met. And that was wrong of me.

But I met a woman in Tulsa that changed my views on birth mothers forever.

 She was a birth mother. Not very much older than me. She was the person that God brought to me to change my views forever.

She had given her child up for adoption a few years before I met her. 

And all of a sudden the naive mindsets that I had about birth mothers were being smashed to bits by a birth mothers great love for her child that she chose to love above herself and her own desires.

She had given up her child because of a love that I would have never imagined without her help.

  She chose to give her child up for adoption because she wanted her child to have a complete and loving family. Her love for her child left my jaw on the floor.

And now this birth mother is one of my dearest friends. And I am so grateful for God placing her in my path.

My friends and I call that a "God slap", you know when you think you have it all figured until God comes and slaps you with the reality that you never actually sought out His voice in that area or that you assumed that God would have the same opinions about a situation that you did. 

So I had a huge "God slap" moment.

All of a sudden these woman that I was so passionately against, God had dropped them into my heart and He wanted me to love them. Not only did He want me to love them but He gave me a HEART for them. And He wanted my heart to break for them like His does.

I work in a place now where I see these things daily,

I've seen a child take their first steps

I've seen a child say their first words

I've seen a child sit up by themselves for the first time

I've seen a child get their first teeth

I've celebrated a child's first birthday

I've seen a child giggle for the first time

I've seen a child smile for the first time

And every time I see these precious children's "firsts" my eyes fill up with tears.

Because their mothers were not here to see them and yet a complete stranger was.

And my heart breaks for these children's mothers. 

If I could trade them places, I would in a heart beat. 

Obviously every birth mother has a different story but I think that most of them have a bottom line. Internationally or domestically. 

That they loved their children, and that they loved their children so much that they chose to give their child up, so that their child could have an opportunity at a better future.

Or have an opportunity to have a future at all.

No woman dreams as a little girl of giving up her children, but that is the reality that these woman have found themselves in.  

And God's heart breaks for them and mine now does as well. 

I came to work with orphans in China and I feel like I'm leaving with an equally burdened heart for these orphans mothers. 

Who would have thought?