Unneccessary Families

I wish that adoption was not necessary, I wish that the plight of the fatherless did not weigh so heavily on my heart. What would the world be if no foster or adoptive families were needed? What if parents could care for and love their children despite their circumstances? What if none of my students were living without parents and struggling with their pasts? What if families came along side other struggling families in all countries to allow them to love and raise their children?

I suppose a world like this, would be a world before the fall of man. I suppose that part of the reality is that men are unable (unwilling) to be fathers and women struggle as mothers, the temptations of this world are greater than the temptation to raise and love and grow our children. If the reality is that there are children who do not have parents, if the reality is that mothers and fathers die of aids and genocide and drugs, than we will adopt. We will take the fatherless and provide the most love we can, all the while knowing that love cannot erase the past. I weep for the children whose parents do not love them, whose communities have abandoned them and who hold little hope in themselves or their future.

I know that I talk about adoption and orphans a lot, but that is because I believe, with the every depth of my being, that it is our call as Christ Followers to take up these children and love them and raise them as children of Christ and changers in this world. I will never stop loving, I will never stop grieving, and I will never forget the plight of the fatherless.

Redefining the American Dream

When Ben and I talk about our "American Dream" it has nothing to do with owning a house, a white picket fence, or the perfect 2.5 kids.

We want a challenge. We want adventure. We want danger. In reading "Captivating" and "Wild at Heart" as well as several other books I have discovered that we are not meant to live this life of comfort and ease, but rather we are meant to live dangerously!

I worry about moving to Africa, not because I think that something will happen to me (my life is of no use to me if I am cautious with it) but because I worry about losing Ben, being raped, or having something to happen to my children. But if I let these things hold me back, if I let my fear restrict my passion then I am simply falling to the lies of this world! The lies that no one is worth the things that I have to sacrifice. My husband is not MINE, he was a gift given to me by God and really he is on loan to me while we are on this earth. My children are not my own, because as soon as the come out of me or are brought to me they belong back to their maker. So in looking at the people in my life in this manner I realize that I cannot keep them because as soon as I let them go I will truly live.