The cries you bring today are so heavy that I feel the weight of them even as I read your words. Unborn little ones, cut off before they drew breath, abandoned children, scattered like leaves before a bitter wind, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, without a roof, without a friend, without a hand to hold in the dark. It is as though a whole generation has been torn up by the roots, and you stand among the ruins, weeping for those no one else will weep for. Your heart is a cup filled to the brim with the sorrows of others, and you are bringing that cup to God, begging for mercy. That is no small thing. That is the very work of a soul He has taught to love.
Let me speak plainly to you. There is a promise so old that it was written for people like you thousands of years ago, and it has lost none of its strength: “Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.” Do you see it? Human love, the love that ought to be the surest thing on earth, can fail. A mother may forget the baby at her breast? The prophet says it is possible, though it seems against nature. A father may turn his back. A husband, a wife, a child, a friend, they may wander off or be torn away. But the Lord will receive. That is the solid gold at the bottom of the mine when all the other seams have run out. He does not simply pity from a distance. He takes the forsaken one into His own house. He lifts the abandoned infant from the cold ground and folds it into His own bosom. He gathers the lonely child and the friendless adult with the same everlasting arms.
I want you to imagine a wounded soldier lying on the battlefield, bleeding out his life. A merciful friend comes, not empty-handed, but with water for the fevered brow, salve for the gashes, clean bandages and careful hands, a stretcher that moves without jolting, a bed prepared, a nurse waiting, food exactly suited to his need, and a vase of flowers set near to cheer him. Before the poor man can voice a wish, it is supplied. That is a pale shadow of how tenderly God provides for the souls He rescues. Before you knew you needed mercy, He had laid it up in store. Before those little ones were ever formed in the womb, a Savior had been provided for them. The Fountain filled with blood was flowing before their first drop of sin could stain them. God’s mercy outruns us. It goes ahead into the wilderness where we are blindly rushing, and meets us there with gentle, seeking love.
Perhaps your mind feels like a storm-tossed sea, rocking between grief and bitterness and a kind of desperate hope. You may be tempted to think, “This is no time when God would look on me, or on them.” But the Lord is not put off by our confusion. He found Hagar by a well in the wilderness when her heart was seething with hurt and her own pride had helped drive her there. She was running away from everything good, and yet the Angel of the Lord called her by name and gave her a promise for her child. He did not wait for her to compose herself or to pray a tidy prayer. He met her right in the middle of the mess, because His mercy is tender and His heart is for the outcast.
You entrust these unborn children to God. That is exactly right. Only He can receive them into heaven, and He does receive them. Do not imagine them cold and unloved. The very moment their brief life ended, they were in the presence of the Good Shepherd who carries the lambs in His arms. They are not despised there. They are not forsaken. They are at home, and they know a warmth that this world with all its broken families could never give. And for the living ones, the abandoned sons and daughters, the scattered ones whom you number one through six, the beggar seeking shelter, the sister betrayed, the brother alone, there is a God who numbers the hairs of their heads and bottles their tears. He sees every empty house, every absent friend, every madhouse and every hidden sorrow. And He is neither slow nor powerless to comfort. He is slow to anger, yes, slow to chasten, slow to give up on any soul, but He is also great in power to save, to heal, to bring home the exile and to make a family for the friendless from stones that were no people.
You yourself, as you pray these prayers, are a proof that God has not abandoned the broken. Who gave you this burden, if not the Spirit of Christ? Who taught you to plead for those who cannot plead for themselves, unless it was the Lord who took up the cause of the poor and the fatherless? He is not far from you in this. He is at your side, listening, and His heart is more tender than yours can ever be. The love you feel for these unknown ones is but a drop from the ocean of His love.
So lay them all down now, one by one, into the pierced hands that were stretched out on the cross. The hands that took the nails are the hands that receive the abandoned. The heart that broke in death is the heart that keeps the orphan and the unborn in eternal safekeeping. Let the weight roll off you onto Him. You have carried it far enough. Now let Him carry you.
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Lord Jesus, we bring these little ones to You, every innocent blood that ever cried from the ground, every child formed in secret and then unmade, every infant whose first sight was not a mother's smile but the face of the Father in heaven. Receive them, tender Shepherd. Fold them into that realm where there is no death, no abandonment, no weeping. And for all the living who wander alone, the sons and daughters, the brothers and sisters, the friends and strangers, be their house when they have no house, their brother when all others prove false, their refuge when every door is shut. Send Your mercy running ahead of their deepest need. Raise up for them the comforters and the helpers they so desperately require. And steady the heart of this dear one who prays, who weeps for the broken. Give rest to this soul that has poured itself out for others. Let there come a holy calm, a deep assurance that not one whispered plea has been lost upon the air. For You are good, and Your mercy endures forever. In Your name, Jesus, only Jesus. Amen.
Prayer Focus: God, Thank You for loving me. Thank You for loving me, Jesus. God, I ask You in Jesus’ name please bless me with everything that I stand in need of and everything You want me to have. 
