"She's a saint"

It happened again yesterday. Someone introduced me to another person saying, "She's a saint. They adopted two children who are Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and she really is a saint. She has the patience of a saint."

I know that this is meant to be a compliment and I should probably just smile and say nothing, but I want people to understand what they are really saying. I don't often launch into sermons on my blog, but I feel so strongly about this that I find myself compelled to write about it, even knowing that it will be offensive to some who read it. This issue has been at the center of the struggle I have had with my faith in the past few years. Please remember, I do not mean to offend, but...

First of all, my 2 children who we adopted are not FASD, they have FASD. They are wonderful, lovable individual people who happen to have brain injury from prenatal exposure to alcohol. Nobody would say, "This is my Grandma, she is cancerous."

And...I am not a saint. I cry in frustration, I get angry, I try not to but I sometimes say things that are hurtful to or about others, I get tired and weary and sometimes I want to run away and hide. I do things that I should not do and I don't do things that I should do. I am human, not saintly in any way.

Labeling someone a saint tends to divide people into categories...it gives permission to the one speaking to avoid doing anything about a problem. I can't count how many times I have heard, "I could never do it. I'm glad there are people like you who can." I never would have thought that I could have done this either...but I love my kids so what other choice do I have? What really bothers me is when the conversation continues like it did yesterday...

"I just don't understand when there are good Christian people who want to have children but can't and then people like that (meaning my kids' birthmom) keep having babies. They should be sterilized."

I have heard this too often to let it go anymore. I answered in the gentlest way possible, "When I look at my kids' birthmom I see my kids. She has FASD herself and was raised in the foster care system. She has many mental health issues and society doesn't really want to deal with people like her. The only time anyone seems to care about her is when she is pregnant...then she has social workers and public health nurses visiting her and setting up parenting plans. She has people who ask if she is taking care of herself...funny nobody cared before. She doesn't understand consequences and she is desperate for somebody to love her. If I were her I would probably do the same thing. And if she had been sterilized, two children who I love very much would not exist."

Silence.

Good Christian people can have children in other ways than giving birth to them. Older kids, kids with special needs, kids in sibling groups, etc... are languishing in foster care while many Christian couples spend year after year investing tens of thousands of dollars on infertility treatments. I am not against trying to conceive and I understand the desire to have a healthy baby, I was blessed with 4 of them,...but the argument that Christians are waiting for children doesn't make much sense in a conversation about children who are waiting for families.

Maybe when Jesus talks about caring for "the least of these" He means "those who you think least deserve it" or "those who most people would rather avoid". Maybe that is how Jesus helps us understand better the enormity of what He did for us.

My friend Claudia's husband will soon be pastoring at a new church. My prayer for their family is that the members of their new church will embrace them and lift them in prayer. Claudia would be the first to tell you that she is no saint either, although she often speaks of her husband as if he is one...but my guess is that he is probably human as well.

True mission work isn't the act of writing a check to someone in a far off land to have them do the actual hands on mission work...it is caring for those in your own backyard who need to know the love of Christ. Even if they aren't perfect. Especially if they aren't perfect.