With recent mission trips to Memphis, Honduras, Slovenia, Scotland, Backyard Bible Clubs in neighborhoods across Murfreesboro, and VBS on our church campus, we have a clear picture of how we can respond to the call to reach out to those in need with the love of Christ. The needs are great, but His love is greater!
Church, let us pray for the many children who are hearing this summer, maybe for the first time, that they have a Heavenly Father who loves them. May the seeds planted bear fruit in the lives of these children, transforming them to know and trust Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
James 1:27 tells us that, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” The truth is that some of the most vulnerable around the world are children who have lost one or both parents.
Every child bears the image of God and has immense value. God promises protection and help for those who cannot protect themselves. Every child is known.
“You are known. You are wonderfully made. God loves you completely.” She has heard these words for 19 of her 20 years of life.
But her life didn’t begin that way. In central China in 2004, a beautiful baby girl was born. She was given the name Li Jia Rong. Some would call her an orphan, but God knew her name and her story and her family. He knew her birth mom would love her enough to give her life. God knew her dad, mom, and two sisters had been praying for her protection and arrival and were waiting for her to come home.
God made her. He knew her.
It was July 2005 when the four of us left our home to travel across the country to become a family of five. Only days later, we left the west coast with custody of our baby girl. Having consulted attorneys and completed home studies and background checks and met with counselors and friends, we were taking all the necessary steps to legally give her her name, Cristina Grace-Jiarong Henry. Forever.
God knew Gracey’s story before time began. He knew her thoughts, her unspoken words, and every detail of her being. He has seen every day before she came home and following.
O LORD, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether. –Psalm 139:1-4
When she slept in a room full of babies in China, God wasn’t absent. He provided foster families and nannies for her. God knows Gracey is fearfully and wonderfully made because He made her in his own image.
Of course, we have done our best to love and nurture her, but it was God who grew Gracey’s confidence in who He is and how His sovereign love took her story marked by loss and brought forth hope that drew her to faith in Him. Even as a young girl, Gracey would marvel at God’s creation and credit Him with all that she beheld. When she was 6 years old, she had come to love the Lord. She knew and trusted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior.
Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. –Psalm 139:7-12
There are parts of her birth story that are unknown for our daughter. But God knows. Maybe as much as any person I’ve known, Gracey Henry takes God at His Word and believes what He says is true about her. She would tell you she’s most definitely growing and holding fast to His promises.
The following may be the most referenced passages of Scripture at baby dedications or baby showers. God authors all of life. He is sovereign over life and every stage of development of every baby in the womb. He knew Gracey was the baby of our family.
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you. –Psalm 139:13-18
God made each of us wonderfully. God made us on purpose and for a purpose. He looks at us with love. I invite you to read verses 13-18 again and insert your name. “I praise you for Gracey is fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; Gracey’s soul knows it very well.”
You are known.