O-r-p-h-i-n

When I was in second grade, I was in a spelling bee at my elementary school. I have always loved words, I mean really. From the minute I could say my abc's I have been playing with words, reading, and spelling. It was down to me and the "smartest girl in the class", Jennifer. We were literally going back and forth and neither one of us was missing a word, until I got the word, "Orphan". I still remember standing in the school gym, on the stage, with the faint smell of old grilled cheese sandwiches, spagetti o's, and green beans in the air. I spelled it in my mind, the right way I think, but for some reason it came out like this, "orphan. o-r-p-h-i-n. orphan". As soon as I said the "i", tears welled up in my eyes because I knew I made a mistake I could not take back. I thought about that word for a long time....

Fast forward twenty some years and I still think about that word alot. This might sound funny, but I think there is a reason why I forgot how to spell it. Kind of like foreshadowing in a book....God was dropping a little something in my soul. It never left. Except now I don't think so much about the word, but about the faces behind the word. I have thought about what it would be like to know that I am an orphan. Or to know that I was one. To not know anything about where I came from, or who brought me into this world and gave me life. What a strange feeling that must be. I have thought about orphans in hundreds of countries, waiting in orphanages for a day that might not ever come. Waiting for hope. I have painted pictures of orphans I have never seen with my own eyes, but they are in my heart.

In November, I got to hold their hands, wrap my arms around them and sing to them. Some of them. It was a moment in my life that I wish I could just transport myself back to whenever I feel like it to relive. It was exactly what God created me for. Loving the ones that have been forgotten. Hurt. Pushed aside. Abandoned. Abused. Neglected. God never forgets about them. I think He holds them in his hand so very tightly that if the hand of God could possibly be pried open for a moment, you would see it imprinted in his palm. 

O-r-p-h-a-n-s.