Wanted: A Family and a Home

What if a person walked into a church, afraid to hope?

In need.  Alone, but near to so many people?

What if deep physical ache lingered in their chest from encounters with Christians long ago?

What if the pain took their breath away just being in the same room?

What if it took all their energy…  just to sit there. 

Just to stay there, while their bones cried out:

"Run!  This is not a safe place!"

What if this person believed with all her heart in Jesus Christ?

If she grew up in the refuge of the church, held in the arms of her family before she could walk?

Now gripping her faith, but weary.  Her strength is failing.

She needs a safe place and a people to hold her up.

She wasn't meant to live a solitary life.

What if this person was you?

This is me.

The bible tells me that I’m marked with the divine image.  That I’m of inestimable value.  

That it’s no matter if I’m weak or undesirable in the eyes of the world,  because God looks on me with favor.  I am adopted.  Called his own.  His child.  

His family is now mine, and I can meet him and know him in his body.
Resurrected.  Living and moving and active in his church.

It calls me.
Precious. Adopted. Home.

But life has told me different story.
Dispensible.  Unwanted.  Homeless.

It was nearly three years ago that my family abandoned me.

My spiritual family chose a secret over me.

Suppression was easier than truth, so they sent me away.

A spiritual orphan.

With no home, and with no family I wandered the streets for the next few months. 

Chance brought me to the door of distant kin.

There two sides of a family gathered for a banquet.  
He invited me to sit and eat. 

It seemed the right thing to do.

Once a week they would gather.

Once a week I scrubbed beneath my nails, washed the dirt from my face, and pulled on my best dress.
With nowhere else to go I would return and knock on the door.

Could this be my family?
Would they choose me?

They always let me in, and I would sit amongst them. There were some who knew me from past visits, and some knew also what I had lost.  

I tried to look like I belonged.  Swarms of intact families swirled around me.  I visited with anyone who would take time, but my presence was faint and after a few minutes they couldn't see me anymore. I was invisible.  Or other things were brighter.

They never sent me away.   
But I was not one of them.

I was not wanted.

After a year had passed when I took to the road I held out hope for more than shelter.

I sought refuge in a group home, one designed to create a family where there was none.

But again, none formed.

Christ resurrected, I cannot find you.

I see parts, but no spark of life.

I see people well acquainted, but no bond.

I search in the image of life's mirror, but don’t recognize what it reflects.