Break my heart, Lord, for what breaks Yours

Awhile ago, I asked God to break my heart for what breaks His. That’s a very dangerous prayer. If you can honestly pray that prayer, you have no idea what God will do. He has broken my heart again and again. When my heart was first opened toward adoption and orphan care, I had no idea where God was going to take me. But over the past two years, He has shown me story after story after story of children who desperately need a family. Children who desperately need to understand what unconditional love is. Children who need to know that they are loved. Valuable. Priceless.

I recently came across a description for the book titled Ghost Boy (Martin Pistorius, Nelson Books). I thought it would be an interesting book to read and review but had no idea it would move me to tears repeatedly.

In January of 1988, Martin Pistorius came home from school complaining of a sore throat. He never went back. Within a year, Martin had degenerated into a mute quadriplegic. By his fourteenth birthday he was a hollow shell, unseeing and unknowing; he spent his days at a care center, sitting blankly in front of the television while his family waited for him to die.

And then his mind came up for air.

For an unimaginable ten years, Martin would be completely conscious while trapped inside his unresponsive body, secretly aware of everything happening around him and utterly powerless to communicate it.

Ghost Boy is a memoir written by Martin after he learned how to communicate again. His story is absolutely heartbreaking. It is terrifying to hear the things that people will say or do to someone they can overpower. Because Martin didn’t have control of his body and was unresponsive when talked to, people believed he was brain dead. So they abused him both verbally and sexually.

It was an incredibly hard story to read because it happened. It’s reality. Martin is now safe from such abuse but these atrocities still happen every day to people like Martin. To children and adults who are unable to defend themselves. These events tell the victims that they are worthless, that they don’t matter. And yet they do matter. They are human beings, someone’s son or daughter or mother or father. And they are children of God.

There’s a song by Hillsong called Hosannah. The lyrics say:

Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like You have loved me

Break my heart from what breaks Yours
Everything I am for Your kingdom’s cause

I know that God called us to adopt Cin-Ru, to make her part of our family. We have many hopes and dreams for her but one of them is to give her a haven. She’s an orphan no longer and will always have our protection. Be careful when you ask God to break your heart for what breaks His. He’s broken my heart and I have no idea where He’s calling us next.

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