Grafting

"God sets the lonely in families."  (Psalm 68:6)

I read it again this morning.  And how true it is.

For He looks upon the broken, the rejected, the cast-aside, and He claims them as his own.

He sees the pain of the wounded heart, the fearful, the shamed, and He says, "This one is mine."

But He doesn't stop with "just" redemption.  He goes a step further...

He finds the one that will fit with another, and he brings hearts together.

He pieces the heart that vowed "never again" with another jagged edge, and together they heal.

This is my God!

I have witnessed His tenderness in lives all around me, as they have been grafted in to more than they ever dreamed possible. 

The woman with no family who found a Godly husband late in life. 

The man whose wife had left him and would not heed his pursuit for reconciliation, who now can't stop smiling as he looks at the second chance who thinks he hung the moon. 

The divorced friend who had never known the love of a church family, until now. 

The couple who tried for years to conceive, and now raise two precious ones that came into their arms through the joy of adoption.

And one who is very dear to my heart--my mother.  She, who thought life was over with a husband who did not want her and a baby just six months old.  She, who smiles triumphantly on the arm of the stepfather who raised me.  She, who knows that even the pain of rejection can be healed under the oil that flows from His hand.  She, who will soon celebrate thirty-four years of marriage to a man who looks at her as if she is the most desirable woman on earth.

God sets the lonely in families.

And it's that God who calls us to join Him.  To find the lonely.  To bring them into the family.  To wrap His arms around them through ours.  To say, "You're wanted here."  And to keep saying it until it is believed.