Why must we care for orphans with special needs?

We wrestled for some time with the title for this present post, wondering whether we should substitute the “must” for the awkward, but more accurate “get to”  regarding our privilege for caring for orphans who have special needs.  A privilege, because anytime God calls us to be like Him, it inevitably as David Livingstone, the great missionary to Africa understood, ceases to be a sacrifice.  

To love those whom God loves is not a must, or at least not a must alone, it is a distinct privilege.  It is not something we have to do, it is something we get to do.  

When I was a boy, I remember praying, “God give me a heart that loves what You love”.  It was several months after beginning to pray this, and I would pray it constantly, that God brought about an occasion that proved that my heart and God’s were vastly different.

 I was 17 years old, and walking down the hall of my high school reading the book of Isaiah (yes, I was then and still am a bit different!), when out of a room came sprinting a young woman who ran straight into me.  Both of us tumbled to the ground.  Backpack and Bible went flying.  We happened to fall in such a way that our faces were merely inches from each other, and we both looked up at each other at the same time, and I saw that she was from the special needs classroom, being cognitively impaired, and having severe facial deformities.  

In an instant, I was repulsed.  However in the very next moment, to repulsion was added a deep shame.  Here I had been reading in Isaiah of God’s excessive love for me in my vileness and sinfulness, and how He would remove my sins though they be like scarlet, and make them whiter than snow.  And yet I couldn’t even look on this young woman who through no fault or sin of her own bore what is in this world, the terrible affliction of uncomeliness.  

The contrast at that moment, stood so stark to me, that God was willing to look on me in the deformity of my soul, and see me as His beloved,  while I in my abhorrence assessed her a value that looked no deeper than her appearance.  

Part two to follow shortly.