Saving Levi

A book about. . .

• God's marvelous provision.
• unity and bonding in a common goal.
• loving and caring for the fatherless.
• overcoming fear.
• acting in obedience.
• generosity from total strangers.
• God's grace.

This book moved me to tears more than once. As I read about a six-week-old baby boy found abandoned in a field in China, my heart hurt. As I saw pictures of his horribly burned body, to the point that ashes fell off when his hand was touched, my stomach hurt.

But the story of what God can do through those who are willing to obey Him, who are moved by compassion, love, and faith, was inspiring and healing.

This was just one of those books that will always stay with me. It was a quick and easy read (I read it in one day during naptime and then finished it in the evening) but it was immensely powerful. I can't help but think of the amazing growth God produces in people when we are willing to step out in faith and allow Him to work in us and through us. I think of how often it is fear that keeps us from taking risks--whether it is the risk of loving a child not ours from birth, the risk of leaving a successful career for an uncertain financial future, the risk of caring for people when we might lose them, the risk of giving liberally at the cost of our children's college funds or our 401K, the risk of loving those who aren't easy to love and may never return that love. . .

Yet taking those risks while trusting in and serving God reaps growth that far outweighs the costs and risks. He pours blessings on us as if He was just hovering above us, His arms filled with the richness He longed for us to be willing to receive, and the moment we fully surrender He delightedly showers us with the gifts and growth we had been rejecting with our selfish and willful lives.

And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter. . .
My hope is your story will be about changing. . .
about learning to love a child. . .
about learning to love others more than we love ourselves. . .

We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?. . .
And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back.

It is you who will have changed.
--Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts

I'm having a hard time reviewing it--just read it yourself. Seriously.