Rich in Love: When God Rescues Messy People by Irene Garcia, Lissa Halls Johnson Page A

away. He was a natural, and many coaches in the community wanted him on their teams. He eventually made the elite club soccer team—the one he’d hoped to join. We were all so excited for him and proud of him.
    Alfred, on the other hand, excelled at gymnastics, especially the floor exercise. This was no surprise, considering he was my little Mexican jumping bean. Now instead of jumping up and down, he was doing backflips everywhere. He was this goofy little kid who loved to be in the air instead of on the ground.
    Life was busy, but I didn’t mind. I knew we were doing God’s work, and that’s all that mattered to me.
    Then I received a call at work from Joseph’s former social worker. “Irene,” he said, “I have an emergency. We have a twelve-year-old girl who was molested in her foster home and needs to leave right away. She has a fourteen-year-old brother who also needs to be placed.”
    I couldn’t believe he was dumping this on me while I was at work. What I wanted to say was “Are you kidding me? Why don’t you call someone else?” Instead, I said with a calmness I didn’t feel, “I’ll talk it over with Domingo and get back to you.”
    “I need to know right away. So if you can call me before nighttime, I’d appreciate it.”
    I hung up, already knowing what my answer was going to be. Who would take a twelve-year-old girl and a fourteen-year-old boy? Only crazy people. And we weren’t that crazy.
    I asked my assistant to rinse my client’s hair while I called Domingo. My knees shook, and my stomach went sour. I didn’t want any more kids. “Why us, Mingo? Our hands are full. Can’t they call someone else?”
    Domingo answered in his calm, confident way with a question of his own. “What do you think God wants us to do?”
    So many times we are at a crossroads in life. We can choose the easy path and miss out on God’s blessings. Or we can take the hard path, knowing that Jesus is leading the way. My first thought, my strongest desire, was to choose the easy path. I had three adopted kids. I was doing enough—more than most people I knew. I wanted to argue with Domingo. To remind him how difficult our life already was. How adding two more kids with great needs would pull us under.
    “Irene, these kids need a family.”
    It was as though someone had thrown ice water on me, and I came to my senses. I knew the right thing to do. I knew without a doubt what God was asking. I called the social worker and told him our decision.
    As I cut my client’s hair, her voice faded to the background as I became absorbed in my own conflicting thoughts. Many Christians, rather than spurring us on to care for the orphans, had told us not to take in any more children. I was amazed and saddened that I was more concerned about what people would think of me than about the task God had given me to do.
    But how could we say no to God? We didn’t need a divine revelation about whether to take in these siblings; we already knew God’s will through James 1:27. The verse didn’t tell us to take in only a certain number of orphans. Or to pray about whether we had enough resources. The verse said to care for them. Period. Our prayers were for God to give us the courage to obey his word. We asked him to hold our hands and take us through this journey ahead.
    When the kids arrived later that day, my heart broke. The girl, Marie, seemed to shrink into herself. She was dressed sloppily and all in black, keeping her head so low her hair hid her face. When I got her to look me in the eyes, I could see how pretty she was. I wanted to hold her and love on her, but there was a coolness about her that made me keep my distance. She seemed so compliant and beaten down. I knew this young girl had suffered her share of hardships, but she obviously had such a sweet spirit that I knew I could eventually win her over. She needed to be loved with a real love. All she’d known was a “love” from her birth mom who preferred drugs to