Stepping Into The Breach

It’s been a month. A hard month. And I had hoped that by today, I would have something new to report. But I don’t. I’m struggling with the remnants of grief from saying goodbye, while at the same time itching to get back in there and do it again. I wake every day wondering if this is going to be the day. Anticipating that new phone call. Waiting for whatever’s next. And honestly, the waiting is harder than almost anything else. It leaves you a lot of time to think. It makes you feel like giving up. It begs the questions, “God, where are you in all of this?” and “Why am I even doing this?” Two weekends ago my husband and I were privileged to attend the Belong Summit, a weekend conference for everyone who wants to be a part of the child welfare puzzle. It was very encouraging to be surrounded by people that you know just “get” you. People who are or have been where you are and understand the challenges that you face every day. But, I will be honest. I also felt a little out of place. Because we don’t currently have a child in foster care living with us and we haven’t yet adopted. I felt “in between” two worlds. It’s hard to see the needs out there and feel like you should be doing something. It’s hard to get the phone calls or emails, and we have had a few, and have to say no, when your heart is screaming yes, because you have felt the Lord say, “Not yet”. It’s hard to understand what He is doing behind the scenes when you can’t make heads or tail of anything that you can see. It’s hard being in the “in-between” place, knowing I could never go back to my life as it was, but unable to walk into the next phase. But maybe being “in the middle”, is where I’ve been all along since we said “yes”. And it’s exactly where God has called each of us to be. The theme of the Belong Summit was very beautifully summed up in the first session with a reference to Kintsugi, a Japanese method of repairing (or joining) broken pottery with lacquer that is dusted with powdered gold, silver or platinum to produce a piece of art. Kintsugi takes what is broken and turns it into something beautiful. Not hiding the cracks, but rather accentuating them, allowing them to tell a story. And as I was listening to the speaker, I suddenly had a phrase drop into my heart: repairer of the breach. Repairer of the Breach. As we sat and listened to story after story of children whose lives have been changed through foster care and adoption and families who have been transformed through their willingness to step in and do the hard work, this phrase kept ricocheting around in my soul and has continued to do so. The phrase comes from Isaiah 58, in which God is speaking to Israel through the prophet Isaiah. Here He was letting Israel know that their outward appearance of godliness and their ritualistic fasts was not what He was looking for. He was calling them to attend to the needs that surrounded them, needs among their own communities that were being ignored and suffering that was not being alleviated. He goes on to say this in Isaiah 58:9-12 (I love how The Message puts it):

“If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people’s sins, If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out, Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight. I will always show you where to go. I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places— firm muscles, strong bones. You’ll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry. You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You’ll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.“

God was reminding His people that He had called them to do more than just appear holy and upright – He had called them to be a healing force in their world. To step into the breach. To restore what was broken. Not an easy task! Repairing a breach isn’t easy. It requires hard work. It means acknowledging the violation. It means getting down in the dust and the filth of humanity. It means carrying away the old refuse and clearing the pathway for the new to be built. A breach is defined as: the act or a result of breaking; break or rupture; an infraction or violation, as of a law, trust, faith, or promise; a gap made in a wall, fortification, line of soldiers, etc.; rift; fissure. (www.dictionary.com). It’s the evidence that something has been broken. Something has been torn apart. Something has been violated. Every breach tells a story of loss. Of pain. Of despair. We can all relate to that. Every one of us has experienced a breach in our lives. Every one of us knows how it feels to have hopes and dreams shattered. How it feels to be knocked to the ground and wonder how you are ever going to get up again. But what if something beautiful could come of these very things? What if there was a way to seal the fissures and stanch the flow of life, of joy, from leaking out of us a little more each day? What if the breaches in our lives could tell a story of hope? A story of restoration and healing? What if the cracks in our lives could be a testimony to the goodness of God? What if these breaches could be repaired? And what if the repairing of the breach started with me? With you? Started with reaching out to repair the breach of another? And what if the answer to our questions was found on a wooden Cross on a hill? Our world is broken. Our nations are broken. Our governments, systems and agencies are broken. Our families and teens and children are broken. Look around. The breaks are everywhere. We are surrounded. So, let’s do something about it. Let’s find our piece of the puzzle. Is there a breach can we step into? Can we be the joining factor, closing the distance between the pain and the Healer on behalf of someone else? Because that is what Jesus did for us. He looked out and saw the empty chasm that separated us from His heart, from His Love and He laid Himself on the Cross, stretching out His arms and filled the gap separating man from God. He shed every drop of His Blood to forever seal the breach that would keep us apart from Him. No, it wasn’t comfortable! It wasn’t easy or painless. It cost Him everything! And even when He had the chance to walk away, even when the pain and separation made Him question where His Father was in it all, He held on. He stuck it out. And the result was that we can now be adopted into His family. We now have access to a forever home. As followers of Christ, each and every one of us is called to step into the breach. Effectively knitting together the shattered pieces of broken lives to write a new story. When I look around and see those who have never tasted this Gift of adoption down in the ditches and gutters, getting dirty, and doing a better job of meeting the needs of the hurting than the Body of Christ – the very ones meant to be Jesus with skin on – it breaks my heart. When will we, as the Church, rise to heed the call of Christ to follow in His footsteps and step in to repair the breach? When will we be the Hands of Christ and grasp the shattered pieces and with the help of the Mender, begin putting them back together? Drawing those in pain to the Healer. It will never happen on its own. It requires someone stand in the gap. Step into the Breach. Sometimes that means being uncomfortable. It means taking the step of faith, out into the open air or a yawning rupture and trusting God to meet you there and uphold you. And then when you have stepped in, it means hanging on, even when the healing takes time and the process isn’t smooth. It means you stay the course, even when sometimes you can’t possibly see where God is in it all. When it takes far more time than we hoped, “let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9). Because it’s so easy to get tired. Because the mending doesn’t happen all at once. And to tear yourself out of the breach before the process is complete will leave an even deeper rent than before. Step into the Breach. I have a chance to tell the story of Christ through the cracks in my life. I have the opportunity to help others tell His story in theirs. It doesn’t make me extraordinary. It doesn’t make me a “special kind of person”. You have that same opportunity. The question we must answer is do we want to shine the Light and Life of Christ into our dark world? You may not be called to be a foster parent or to adopt a child, but I can assure you, there is a place for you. The breach that you are called to step into will be different than mine. What God asks of you is specific to you, because we are all parts of the Body of Christ, not the same part. We all have different functions. We all have different calls. And that sometimes that means standing out. Sometimes it means that you are the first among your friends or your family to step into something new. It can be intimidating. It can be utterly terrifying. But I have learned that God never calls you to travel a road that He will not equip you for, provide for you on, and walk with you along. Step into the Breach. Before we started on this foster/adoption journey, I knew there was a need, but I didn’t realize how great it was. I hadn’t stepped down into the trenches. I had no idea of how deeply it would affect me. How passionately I would feel about being part of the restoration for children and families torn apart. If you had told me 15 years ago that I would be where I am today, I wouldn’t have believed you. But I am here because of God’s Kintsugi in my own life. I am here because through my own road to healing I have had my eyes irrevocably opened to the desperate needs of others. Can I challenge you to step into the breach? Ask God to open your eyes. Allow Him to stir your heart. Chances are He already is and you just haven’t recognized it. What injustices bother you most? What tugs at the strings of your heart? What hurt moves you? What makes you angry? Explore that. Ask the Holy Spirit to lead you. And then when you get an answer to your questions, take courage and step down into that breach. And let’s see the map of golden fissures God will craft in the wake of our obedience.