The other day I was driving and listening to the radio. They were talking about how God is artistic, about how He sees trash and turns it into treasure. That which was once discarded is taken and turned into something beautiful. Isaiah 61:3 says, "[I will] bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair." It's one thing to take a canvas and manipulate it to a great piece of art, or to take fabric and thread and to make a quilt from tiny squares, but to take the life of a human being and to mold our "trash" into treasure is beyond amazing.
Babies are abandoned or aborted and discarded all around the world. China has perhaps one of the highest amounts of baby girls being abandoned and discarded. Not only girls are being abandoned however; large amounts of boys are also being brought to orphanages with multiple special needs. I'm about to get more into the why's of these decisions, but before you totally loose heart, know this: the artist of the universe can take that which was discarded and turn it into a beautiful masterpiece.
These past two months I have read 2 books watched 4 documentaries and poured over at least a hundred blogs. I can be a research hound! Some of my history might not be completely accurate, but here is what I know. In the 1960's a new emperor was empowered and with his high economic prowess and anti war tactics, the economy boomed. Then they experienced a severe famine throughout all of China. To counteract this famine, the emperor imposed the one child policy. The repercussions of this policy are undoubtedly why thousands of baby girls were being abandoned and even killed. Why are boys more important? For one, ancient law states that only boys are allotted land (in the countryside). If you have only girl babies, you don't have enough land, and when your daughter grows up, she leaves you and becomes part of her husbands family. This would leave you without land and in your old age, you would starve and die. It is the male son that takes care of you when you are old and to not have a son, it brought dishonor to your family.
So, if you lived in the country side, you didn't have very many options. You have a son, or you die. So what do you do if you have girls, or even worse, have had four girls and still no sons? Your options were to kill your daughter so that you might have a son, or hope that a family member would take your daughter and abandon her at the nearest towns hospital or governmental building. If somehow you managed to keep your daughter and go to the city, there were not jobs available to unschooled women and if you found a job you would not have anyone to watch your child. Even city people had stigma attached that having a girl baby was bad luck. Also any stigma attached to girl babies was also attached to any special needs child or a baby born with a deformity. If absolutely none of those options was ok for you because you were a strong minded woman, then maybe you'd take your chances. You'd probably end up begging on the streets, and when your child got sick, or you found out they had a heart condition, or that both of you were starving, you would have to leave your child because there was no money to pay the doctors. Doctors won't treat a dying person if they can't pay for it unlike here in America.
Another reason babies were being abandoned is because of the lack of sexual education! In the 80's or 90's China was opened up to the rest of the world. Along with that came western love songs and teenage and college aged kids became rebellious. So, when they started having sex, they didn't know to use protection. A lot of them didn't even know that if you missed your period that meant you were pregnant. Talk about scandal in China!
As a result of all these hardships, many babies were placed or left. They ended up in orphanages which o man will I have to discuss in a completely different post! These babies were not abandoned by heartless mothers, but by women without any other options. It was not easy for them to leave their children in the hands of a children's welfare institute. I can't imagine the pain they must suffer over their daughters. They care immensely about their daughters and I will make sure my future daughter knows this about her mother. She will know she was not a discarded as trash, but that she is a beautiful work of art plucked from an orphanage halfway around the world and placed in our hands by a loving and artistic God.
