How Deep The Father's Love For Us

How deep the Father's love for us,

How vast beyond all measure

That He would give His only Son

To make a wretch His Treasure

These song lyrics have been in my head, as well as several other teammates, for the past week and a half. With every day that passes, it seems He shows me more and more what this even means. For the past two days we've been going to a school called Lighthouse Christian Academy. LCA is a school for kids that are considered vulnerable in some way, many of them being orphaned. Most if not all of these kids are way behind in school for various reason so they are on a special accelerated program for their schoolwork. This school is such a blessing! They go above and beyond teaching them or catching them up on their schoolwork. They even pay one of the girls to make the daily porridge so that she can attend school and still help provide for her family. Without this, she would be forced to quit school all together and more likely than not, resort to selling her own body as a means of making money. The one thing that is different in this school from many of the other places we've visited, is that these teenagers know that they are loved, and not just by the staff. While we were there one of the boys wanted to sing and play guitar and worship with us. Of course we all loved the idea, but we had no idea of the blessing he was about to be. He immediately began singing of God's love for him. He did not just simply sing words of how great God's love is, he meant them with every part of him and it was so very obvious. He then decided to share a song with us that he wrote. This part blew us away. This 17 year old orphan, who was still on about a 6th or 7th grade education level began to sing that even without the love of an earthly father or mother, even when his sisters and his brothers abandoned him, he would praise God for the vastness of His love that covered all that could ever go wrong in his life. He thanked him for his trials because "through this I found Your love". It's one thing to sing and know that God's love is enough even if we lost everything we had and everyone we loved, but it's another thing to actually lose it all and still come out on the other side saying, "God, you can take away even more, and I will still praise you!" He showed us more and blessed us more than we could have ever done for him.

"that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have the strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."

Ephesians 3:17b-19