I remember the day like the back of my eyelids in a slumberous sleep. I stood in my Dad's classroom, eyes fixed on the portrait continuously flashing across the TV screen. I was 12. A young girl, only a few years older than me, had been kidnapped at knifepoint. My worst nightmare had become someone else's reality. The footage, on replay, felt like a blade to MY throat.
It is amazing how events impress themselves on the human brain, changing lives in ways unexpected. Just a few images can live inside the human brain for a lifetime. Today, those images--nearly a decade old--came flooding back. Elizabeth Smart's kidnapper faced sentencing today and, just like that, the storybook of her tragedy slammed shut. At least in the world's eyes.
From one headline to the next, I find tears spilling over my cheeks. I read about two little boys, instantly snatched from their mother's loving arms into the death grip of a fierce tornado. I look at satellite photos of Joplin, Missouri...the astonishing before and after pictures that scream of damage too great to ever see total repair. I sit next to a woman at school, a woman grieving over the ravaging effects of a deadly cancer on her family. I watch another friend walk the hard road to recovery after a devastating allergic reaction. I read the pained words of a mother who just gave her infant son his last bath, cradling him as he said goodbye to this world.
So much pain. So much brokenness. So much death.
And then I read: "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have" (1 Peter 3:15).
Hope? God, where do I find hope in all this mess? How do I face a grieving father of two dead little boys and whisper tales of hope? How do I convey such a scandalous message in the face of such despair?
The pictures...the interviews...the tears...
They all remind me.
The happy don't pine for hope. The unbroken don't go searching for Super Glue. The healthy don't sell all they have for a cure. Jesus came to heal the broken. To give hope to the hopeless, help to the helpless. There is no greater time than now to raise this lantern of hope, to magnify the name of Jesus before a dying world.
"Always be prepared to give an answer..." Oh Lord Jesus, give me the words...the servant hands...the tender and gracious heart...to share your eternity-transforming hope with a lost and desperate generation.
In America,
63% of youth suicides
71% of pregnant teenagers
70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions
85% of all youth who exhibit behavior disorders
71% of high school dropouts
85% of teenagers in prison
...come from fatherless homes.
Recently, I finished reading the book Fatherless Generation, by John Sowers. While I was saddened by the above statistics that greeted me within the first few pages of the book, I was even more saddened by my lack of surprise at Sowers' grim account of the pandemic of fatherlessness in America. Shouldn't statistics like these shock me?! Shouldn't I be appalled?!
The reality is, I see these statistics every day. I go to school with these statistics. I sit next to these statistics in church. I counsel these statistics every week at the local crisis pregnancy center. I goof off with these statistics every Sunday night at youth group functions. I pass these statistics in the grocery, on the street, at the post office. These statistics...are faces. They are names. They are real, live, hurting people. And somehow, I become numb to the faces, to the wound that has assailed them all...the wound called fatherlessness. Familylessness.
As I read the last page of Sowers' book and shut the cover, I was bewildered, confused even. How did we get to this place? Where do we go from here? What does all this mean for me? Is there any way to redeem the brokenness that has scarred millions of lives?
I was blessed with 18 years of life under the love and guardianship of an incredible dad. I never wondered if I was loved or protected. I was always tucked in at night, hugged and kissed and played with...by a dad who loved Jesus more than life itself.
What must it be like to grow up without a daddy? Worse still, what must it be like to grow up without a daddy OR a mommy?
Honestly, I cannot even begin to fathom what these kids (and now men and women) have faced...and are still facing. I know the pain of missing my dad, of missing the many roles that he once filled to overflowing in my life. I know the pain of longing for his strength and love and protection. But I cannot begin to comprehend what it must be like to have never known a loving parent.
Which leaves me with the question...what do I do? What do WE do? What does the Church do? Is there any redemption to be found, any hope for these lives buried in brokenness and pain?
It would be easy for me to pass the buck on to someone else. After all, I'm a 21-year-old girl, for crying out loud! The world says I should be living it up, drinking away my weekends and sleeping away my week days. It's not that easy, though.
I have been confronted with a burden, a glimpse into brokenness. And now that I have seen, I am responsible.
The other day, I was reading some old "thoughts" of mine, and I stumbled upon the following entry...Written almost exactly a year ago, and yet it still resonates with my heart. As I get closer and closer to the end of school (at least, the end of this phase of school), my prayer is that those looking on would see only one name listed when the "credits" roll. As I begin to explore where God will lead me next, my prayer is that my only "role model" will be that humble God-man who, centuries ago, gave up His throne for a towel and foot-basin.
From April 2010:
When the Credits Roll
After reading through blog posts of brothers and sisters around the world, glorying in their adventures and mourning with them in their sorrows, I hit the red X at the top left of my screen prematurely. I can't help it. I don't want to READ more tales of large-scale obedience; I want to live my own story! I want to be the one on the other side of this black box, feeding the hungry and loving the abandoned. I want to be a part of something big, a grand motion picture that leaves the audience weeping when the credits roll! So I climb into my Daddy's lap with that all too eager grin, saying with my face and not my mouth, "Can I, God? Can I?!?!"
And He says "No."
No. Because He knows that, left to my own devices, I would end up in the slum of my own devastated pride. My plans would torch, despite my best intentions to waterproof them. He knows I would leave audiences weeping, but not because of my grand, flawlessly executed schemes to save the day. No, they would be crying because my meager attempts to change the course of history would do nothing. The sick would still be sick. The lost would still be lost. The hungry would only be more hungry. And I pretended I could do what I never can. No happy ending...just the woeful tragedy we all swore we could never handle.
The answer would be "no" because, in His infinite wisdom, He knows that my life is less like a Blockbuster film and more like an epic novel. And I am not the hero. The Hero did not come sweeping in with a cape and a sword like I dream of doing. The Hero landed on a dirty stable floor and let out a lusty scream--a baby. The Hero fell down and scraped His knee, just like the rest of us. The Hero knelt in front of His servants and served them. The Hero was despised and rejected by many people, religious hotshots, and was hung to die with the weight of the world crashing down on His shoulders. I was never the hero, because I'm really the criminal. I only pretend to be the hero every so often (all the time?). He's the Hero, because He did what I could never do--He made a path between God and mankind. He took my death sentence and fulfilled it Himself. And He continues to do what I could never do.
The answer would be no because God is writing my story. He knows the end; I only know what I WANT the end to be. His ending is a lot better than mine. And in time, who knows? Maybe someday I will be the one on the other side of the screen, doing big things and having crazy adventures. Regardless of MY life, one day the sick will be healed, the hungry will be fed, and the lost will be found. Me, the hero of a blockbuster film, though? No, my part in the film, in the epic, is really less than a blip on a radar. And when the credits of my life roll, they will only say:
GOD
Always for His glory,
It is so incredible for me to see how God has laced my life with adoption stories. Timothy is home and thriving, but he still has a cousin waiting to come home from Ethiopia! What a joy it has been to have a sideline seat to Timothy's journey home, and I can only imagine the joy there will be on the day when he is able to greet his new cousin at the airport! Last year, the Kirk family had the privilege of partnering with Go. Seek. Love. as they sought to raise money for Timothy's adoption. Almost exactly a year later, Amy's sister, Julie, and her family are partnering with Go. Seek. Love. to raise money for THEIR adoption! All the proceeds from Go. Seek. Love. t-shirt sales in the month of May go toward the Thompson family's adoption. Please support the Thompson family with your prayers and financial gifts as you are able. (Oh, and for some fun giveaways associated with this fundraiser, visit Amy's blog and Julie's blog!) To read more about the incredible Thompson family, check out THIS page!
