Rock of Ages

cleft for me,
let me hide myself in thee
lyrics by Augustus M. Toplady

While you are waiting for adoption paperwork to be finalize, your guide will usually take you around the area to do shopping and see sights. We had seen most of Shanghai when we came to get Mali in 2005 so after several days of sightseeing, I ask if we could go to see Joseph's finding place. The driver had a hard time finding it because the area was being demolished and would later be replaced by government buildings. They allowed us to walk through the construction site and take some pictures with Joseph. As I write to you, I' am reminded of what one of the mothers on our trip told me today. She said, "I did a study on children who have spent several years in an orphanage. The study showed you could not spoil the child because they had so many needs that had been unmet. Each unmet need represented a "rock" so each child would leave the orphanage with a "pile of rocks". Now each time you meet a need, you are throwing one of the "rocks" out of the pile but you will never be able to get rid of all the "rocks" no matter what you do.

Now three years later, after God heard the cry of a little boy, we were standing in the same place holding our son among the rocks. I knew we would never be able to get rid of Joseph's "pile of rocks" but I also knew that the Rock of Ages could. He would not only get rid of them, He would turn them into treasures from the dark (Isaiah 45:3).