Reverence for Life

"How I treat a brother or sister from day to day, how I react to the sin-scarred wino on the street, how I respond to interruptions from people I dislike, how I deal with normal people in their normal confusion on a normal day may be a better indication of my reverence for life than the antiabortion sticker on the bumper of my car.”
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

 When I was in China a couple months ago, I was extremely humbled by my feelings for a young boy that I was about to adopt and his special needs.  He came to us with so many surprising and shocking (to me) developmental needs and my purely selfish thoughts were consumed with not only how his needs affected me, but also a lack of reverence for his life.

It wasn't long into my self pitying that my subconscious said to me, "And you thought you had reverence for life?  If you really had reverence for life then why are you treating him this way?  Like his life doesn't matter.  Like his life isn't worth it."  Frankly, I was appalled by the lack of value that I gave to his life.  I was well aware of the cliche that talks about how going through challenges reflects the true character in your heart.  Ouch.  Why did I consider him ANY different than I had considered my other adopted child, or my biological children?  I then thought about how God doesn't make mistakes.  And how God makes ALL humans in His image.  This is a very intriguing concept with any person that is considered "normal", not to mention a person who most would say is "not normal".  And then I pondered the phrase "disabled".  Does God make "disabled" people.  Or does God just make people "differently abled"?  You may think that these words or thoughts are merely semantics....and the titles/labels don't really matter.....

But do they?  

Do these titles or the way that we label people really  infer a deeper feeling of how we view their life?  Do we have the same reverence for their lives as those who are commonly considered "normal"?  Prior to adopting Levi, I know I would have said that I had a reverence for life.  But, as God revealed during the painful experience of getting to know my son, I really didn't.  Yikes.  Isn't God soooooo awesome to LOVE us how we are, and yet love us enough to not let us stay that way?!!!  

Oh, I pray that I have a deeper reverence for life than I did a couple months ago.

"Our Saviour kneels down and gazes upon the darkest acts of our lives. But rather than recoil in horror, he reaches out in kindness and says, 'I can clean that if you want.' And from the basin of his grace, he scoops a palm full of mercy and washes our sin."
~ Max Lucado ~