A Different Kind of Orphan

Tomorrow is orphan Sunday. I have a huge heart for the orphan, and I am excited to see how God may one day use that passion to His glory in serving these kids He loves so much. I want to use this post, however, to talk about a different kind of orphan.

I hear the statistics all over...There are 163 million orphans in the world today, depending on where you do your research. I admit it...When I hear this, my mind immediately goes to pictures of kids with swollen bellies in Africa, kids who are obviously in desperate need of medical attention and the love of a family. However, just yesterday God opened my mind to something.

If you do the research, you may discover that roughly 13% of the 163 million have lost both parents. So, what about the other 87%, you say? Well, the other 145 million are missing one parent.

77% of the 163 million are missing a dad.

Wow.
That's 126 million kids, worldwide, without a dad.
Wow.

You know what blew my mind even more? On July 31, 2009, my little brother became part of that statistic.

I don't want you to think that, by including my brother in this number, I am discounting the terrible, horrible circumstances facing millions of children around the world who are suffering ALONE tonight. My brother is loved and cared for, has a warm bed to sleep in tonight and a full belly...while many kids are starving to death and dying from preventable diseases--with NO ONE to hold them or kiss their foreheads. There is a desperate need for people to adopt, foster, and sponsor children around the world...children who are missing one or both parents and enduring conditions not even conducive to life. Tonight, I pray that you will think about these needs and what you can do to alleviate them in some way. {If you want to know how, shoot me an email and I will gladly suggest some ways to get involved.} However, I also want you to think about something else.

Many of you may look at the daunting reality--163 million orphans--and think, "What could I possibly do to change that number???" I often wonder myself. For those of you who easily find yourselves overwhelmed when you think about the possibility of adoption, foster care, or even child sponsorship, I want to remind you that you do not have to look very far to find a fatherless child. They are all around us. They are in our churches, in the same schools as our children, in the homes next to us and just down the street...they are all around us. Maybe you think international adoption is out of reach for you and your family. The fatherless are not.

Not a day goes by that I don't long for my brother to be pursued by a godly man who will willingly invest his time in the life of a now-fatherless kid. And my brother had the best dad known to man...for 13 years of his life. There are millions of other kids around the world who have gone much longer without a dad in the picture.

Maybe you feel like you cannot adopt, foster, or even sponsor a child. Can you find the time to invest, even in some small way, in the life of a fatherless kid? Even by taking the time to call, to ask how the child's day was? Even by attending one of the child's sporting events so he or she has someone to cheer from the stands? Even by writing a card, sharing an encouraging Bible verse? Can you commit to faithfully pray for a fatherless child?

You don't have to spend thousands of dollars on an adoption in order to care for the orphan. You don't have to take hours and hours of training to become a foster parent in order to care for the orphan. You don't have to travel around the world on a mission trip in order to care for the orphan. All of these things are good, and maybe you should ask God if He wants you to do one or all of them. BUT. The fatherless are right before you, and their needs are not necessarily complex.

They want to know that someone cares.
They want someone to ask how school is going.
They want someone to shoot hoops with them after school.
They want someone to offer to help with their homework.
They want someone to give them a big hug, the kind that only a dad can give.
They want someone to take them out to dinner, just because.
Really, they just want to know that someone cares.
Can you care?

Tonight, I want you to think about these words in a different light:
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: To look after orphans and widows in their distress {yes, even and especially the ones who go to your church and live next door and attend your schools} and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" (James 1:27).

Choosing Thankfulness

Because I sometimes (believe it or not) struggle to find something to say, and because I need reminders of God's faithfulness so desperately right now, I was flipping through old posts recently. Two years ago this month, I posted these words written by my dad. He was in the thick of treatment for pancreatic cancer when he wrote them in February of 2009. And yet he was joyfully thankful.

“Nothing that happens to the follower of Christ, to those of us who with great joy call Him Lord, takes our Savior by surprise. His brilliant and awesome foreknowledge allows Him to know every detail well in advance. That is the stuff of thanksgiving, even in the midst of pancreatic cancer…God has asked His servants to be thankful in all circumstances. Sincere obedience is often carried out in the absence of happy, joyful feelings…but He is in control, and He can take something like pancreatic cancer and use it to accomplish great eternal good…Yes, we can give thanks for pancreatic cancer because of all this and for so many other blessings that He has poured out on us…”

Yikes, I needed these words. Like a smack upside the head. The reason I can be thankful tonight is because God sent His son Jesus to die in my place, to cover my eternal destiny. Therefore, nothing takes my Savior by surprise. Every mountaintop, valley, and pit...He knew them all well in advance. And He asks me to be thankful here. And yet here I am complaining too often, when he asked my dad to be thankful for a brutal diagnosis. For pain and suffering. For death. In the midst of my ick, I am so blessed. I am not withering away from a terrible sickness...even though I often whine like I am. Lord, give me your perspective and the thankful heart that is born out of a heavenly perspective...

Soaking in TRUTH...

I am allowing these words to pour over me...

to change me...

to bring peace and rest to my heart...

and to remind me of His love.

Even in a broken, shattered world.

Remind me of your truth, Lord. Capture my heart once again.

The Grief Onion: Getting real

I hugged him tight in a mummy-hold, speaking the words over and over: "It's okay. It's okay. All done! No more hurts." Who knows if any of my meant-to-be-reassuring words actually made it into his head and heart, between my {very} broken Spanish and his incredibly limited English. I do know that he looked up into my eyes with crocodile tears running down his cheeks. As my school clinical day came to an end, I could almost read his thoughts. It's okay? It's NOT okay! It's all done? How do I KNOW it's all done, when you just scooped me up in your lap like we were gonna be the best of friends, then stabbed my finger with a needle? THAT'S not okay!

***What I'm about to share is not meant to elicit pity or even words of advice. I share it to be transparent in a grief journey that is long, rocky, and layered. I share it to encourage and walk alongside those also experiencing grief over the loss of a loved one, whether that loss is recent or years ago.***

I feel like that little guy I wrapped tightly in my arms. I hear Jesus whispering into my broken and battered heart, "Trust me, child...I've got you. It's okay." Meanwhile, my heart screams back, "It's okay?!? It's NOT okay! You've got me?! Well, where were you THEN?" I realized recently that I have never fully allowed myself to be real with God about the pain and hurt I have experienced over losing my dad...Feelings I may even describe as anger and a corroding mistrust in Him. I know it's not healthy to stay in that place. I also know it is not healthy to bury those feelings without ever carrying them to the cross. I have to admit, both to myself AND to God, that I am ANGRY.

It's not FAIR that my little brother doesn't have his dad in the stands at his soccer games, cheering for him and yelling at the refs like all the other dads. It's not FAIR that all my friends will have their dads walk them down the aisle at their weddings, while my sisters and I will walk alone. It's not FAIR that my mom, by no choice of her own, has become a single parent. It's not FAIR that I rarely get through a day without thinking about death or cancer. It's not FAIR that I have forever imprinted memories of my daddy, my knight-in-shining-armor, gasping for breath and slowly losing control over all bodily functions in the last days of his life. It's not fair that my dreams were shattered in one day, with one phone call. It's not FAIR that I am doubly broken and hurt with every new relationship loss and change, simply because I am reminded, once again, that everything on this earth is temporary...especially relationships with the people I have allowed myself to love. It's not FAIR, and there is a part of me, deep inside, that wants to know how God could have thought this was a good plan.

In my opinion, grief is like an onion--layer upon layer must be peeled back and revealed. I'm on the "get-real-with-God" layer. {It's only taken me 2+ years to get there.} Just as I had to hold and rock and whisper comfort into that little boy's heart in order to earn back his trust, I am praying that, as I deal with this layer of the "grief onion," God simply holds me in His arms and reminds me of His forever and unconditional faithfulness. I'm ready to find a new level of wholeness in my relationship with Him as I learn to trust, once again, in His perfect sovereignty.

And for the person reading this who is feeling the same way--Wherever you may be, I am praying the same thing for you. Find healing at the foot of the cross...where Jesus invites us to dump ALL our baggage.

I'm in the desert...

source

...and it's hot here. Vast. Expansive. And waterless.

I'm thirsty, and I have a water bottle sitting right next to me...full. But I can't open it. I'm too tired; my brain is too fuzzy to understand how to twist, twist, twist the cap until it slides off.

So I just sit, waiting for the desert to go away.
******
Do you ever feel that way? Like you are in a spiritual desert, like the water you need so desperately is sitting right at your fingertips, but you physically and emotionally CANNOT bring it to your lips? I do.

I've learned that the desert is a season {often a long one}, and that God will sometimes lead us there Himself. Because it's only when I'm thirsty, tired, delirious, and at the end of myself that I will start crying. I'll hand Him the water bottle and let Him open it. After resisting for so long, I'll finally let Him scoop me up and cradle me in His arms. And for once, I will be His little girl, not the I've-got-this-thank-you Queen.

We don't like to admit when we are out of water.

But I am.

I'm weary from a long season of pain and heartache that I am just beginning to crawl out of. With the change of color on the trees all around me, and with the gloriously healing changes going on right now in my life, I am reminded on a daily basis that my God makes all things new. Tonight, as I fall limp into His arms, as I guzzle down the crisp water He offers, I will choose rest.

“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt" (Hosea 2:14-15).

Broken relationship: the lie I often believe

"But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed" (Luke 5:16).

He went away...away from the crowds and the people and the sickness and the needs. Away.

I am reminded of how often I stay. I pretend to be strong, to be the ever-faithful servant, while all the while suffering under the weight of it all. For reasons deeply embedded in my personality and past, I am too stubborn to do the harder thing, to confront the hurt and pain that festers deep, to withdraw to lonely places and pray. So often in Christian circles we talk about dying to self, of letting go of more and more of our wants and desires as we seek to love Him and His people more. I am learning, though, that not all self-denial is healthy. Even Jesus withdrew. Even I need to take care of myself.

I remember patients I have seen, patients with painful ulcers that tunnel deep under the skin. When the ulcers are left untreated, when the pressure of sitting or laying in one position is not relieved, the ulcers only burrow deeper and damage more layers of tissue.

I hate confrontation. I'm learning, though, that sometimes it is oh-so-necessary. When it doesn't happen, when problems lay unaddressed, wounds burrow. These problems get worse and worse, until the damage is irreparable. Avoiding the excruciating pain of debriding and lancing a wound may seem more pleasant in the moment, but the longer this necessary treatment is avoided, the longer the wound will fester and the more painful treatment will become.

To be utterly honest and transparent, there are days when I hate relationships. I not only want to "withdraw to lonely places to pray," I want to run away. I want to put my heart in a dungeon and never let anyone in; I want to lock the cell and throw the key away. The pain is just too much...and no matter how hard you try to avoid hurting someone or being hurt, inevitably it comes, often unannounced. There is a voice, deep inside, that whispers, "It's just easier if you go it alone. See? If only you had NEVER initiated that friendship, or entered that relationship, NONE of this would have happened. If only you hadn't invested so much of yourself, you might have had something left after the dust settled." I know it is all a lie from Satan, but there are days when it seems all too true...

Today, I am trying to learn the balance. I am remembering that, just as Jesus withdrew, I need the peace and restoration that can only be found in the deep and quiet places of communion with the One who will never leave, who will never forsake or let down. And while relationship seems too painful right now, I was not made to survive without it.

Finding peace and rest in CHANGE

"Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness" (Lamentations 3:22-23).

Whispers of change swirl around us, promising death and new life ironically coupled in the dance of seasonal transformation. I find it interesting that fall is my favorite season because in every way possible I resist change.

I let weeds fester, afraid to cut down what has been for so long. In His gracious kindness, God
saves me from my own stubborn fear.

He brings peace to the mess, burying it under the icy death of snow. Soon, new life will replace what was lost and wilted.


For the past two weeks, I have been on a blessed time of sabbatical rest. I pray you make the sacrifice to do the same. Newness of life cannot be found beneath the tangled mess of busyness. I have slept {more than usual}. I have laughed {harder than before}. I have regained hope {for a future uncertain}. I have rescued courage {necessary to face the trials of this life}. I have savored time with family {praise God for His many blessings through the ones who love me}. I have been silly with friends {evidence below. And no, the baby--both, in fact--are not real. We were playing a game with my former youth group.}

As I have enjoyed soul-deep rest, I find myself humming along to the age-old hymn {with words that will forever ring true}:

Great is Thy faithfulness, oh God my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
As Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be.

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
to Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.


Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

Today, may you find rest and peace in His forever faithfulness.

***Speaking of wonderful blessings, all of these photos were captured at my childhood home. What a beautiful piece of God's creation!***