Blessings

Christmas is about blessing.  The first Christmas blessed us with Emmanuel...Jesus...God with us.  If God is the type that blesses and if we are created in God's image, then it stands to reason (and the Bible bears this out) that we ought to be about the business of blessings others.  So when Christmas neared in 2012 our small group (appropriately named City Group Awesome), decided we wanted to pick a family, adopt them and demonstrate what God is like by blessing them for Christmas.  But our goal was not to simply provide gifts but share life, the Christian life, with them.

One of our "family"* members had already had a family in mind.  The parents were young and just recently married.  Both were unemployed at the time and had 4 kids under 6. There was a 5 year old girl, an almost 4 year old boy, a 2 year old girl and a new born baby boy.  The new born was the only child they had between them.  We invited them for dinner with the whole group and had presents waiting for them when they arrived.

They were overwhelmed and freaking out.  The husband had a history of drug abuse and completely skittish.  The mother was prone to anxiety attacks.  I had to coax her to actually come inside convincing her that no one would bite.  The kids had no problem though and within seconds had properly and thoroughly ravaged the house.  It was great.

Our family instantly loved them and did whatever they could to make them feel welcomed and at home.  Though they only wanted to stay for a few minutes (at first); they ended up staying for a couple of hours.  When I dropped them off at home later that evening, they asked if they could just leave the car seats in the van so they could go to church on Sunday.   Hmmmmmm...let me think about it.

They've been to church several times.  The mom comes far more often than the dad.  Two or three of our family members have regularly had dinner with them and invited them to events.  I've seen her cry after messages in church knowing that God was working on her.  She even took communion once and though it turned out to be one time thing, I really believe God is working on her.

About 5 months ago, CPS took the kids away.  It was heartbreaking.  The mom showed up in church the next Sunday and I watch as all of our female family members from City Group Awesome hugged her, cried with her, prayed over her.  In the weeks to follow, when court hearings came up, nearly every one of our ladies were there, either sitting next to her or right behind her whispering prayers, speaking Gospel truth and demonstrating Christlike love.

Our prayers were always the same:  Lord do whatever is best for the family but no matter what, we want to see their greatest need resolved!

The truth is...it doesn't matter if someone has a drug problem or lacks hygiene or lives on welfare or had kids out of wedlock or lives in a nice house or goes to church every Sunday or looses their kids or has diabetes.  None of these are anyone's worst problem or greatest need.

It would be easy to pass judgment on them because their sin is noticeable.  We can easily see the results because there is a mess right before us.  But their need is just as great as our need.  Only we hide it better.  It makes us soft to the grace we been shown.  It makes us comfortable with God so that we take our salvation for granted.  I am certainly guilty of this.

We love this mom and dad.  We want good for them. We want them to know Jesus.

Nine months ago, we met them at Christmas.  Five months ago, their kids were taken away.  About three months ago, she found out she was pregnant.

So this Christmas, or just a little after, she is to have another new born.  Only this time she didn't see it a blessing...she was it as a burden.

She was thinking about having a abortion.

*"Family" from now on will just be family.  If you haven't experience what church family is like then you should visit our City Group.  They are the best forgiven people I know.  But I'm not biased.

MIDDLE [age] DAD pt 0

What Are We Thinking?

The plan was for me to go to school full time while Brenda worked.  I would get a teaching degree and then we would start having kids.  That was 18 years ago. Four months after we were married, we learned that birth control is not always effective.  Two and a half years after that, we found out that 2 forms of birth control will not stop pregnancy if God wants you pregnant.

Two boys, 3 years of marriage and no teaching degree.  But if we would have waited, then we would never have had kids.  Brenda has has 5 or 6 miscarriages since our youngest was born.  We both wanted one more, a girl preferably.  When it became clear that Bren could not maintain a viable pregnancy, we thought naturally about adoption.

But time and money never seemed to line up.  Today, at age 42, we picked up papers to begin the adoption process.

And I'm freaking out...

(...to be continued...)