To be honest, I am struggling to
put what is in my heart into words today.
Yet I feel I must. My heart is
full and overflowing, but I don’t know how to convey it. I don’t know how to describe in words the
beauty of this day. I could write how it
was a picture-perfect spring day with a sky so blue you wanted to dive in, the
trees and grass so green you could feel the hope of new life. I could tell you how the warm, golden sun
shining down was perfectly balanced with the cool wind that would dance through
the sounds of laughter and pleasant conversations. Yes, I could tell you all of that and, while
it would be true, it wouldn’t really scratch the surface of the true beauty
that I witnessed today.
So let me show you this
picture.
This picture, drawn by my 3 year
old, is what today was truly about. It is a picture that she drew completely on
her own, and proudly brought to show me.
She then carefully folded it and placed it in an envelope. It was meant to be a birthday card for her
friend. But it’s more. It’s a picture of the Smith family, a family
we have known and loved for some time now.
There are six people in the picture.
There is a Mommy, a Daddy, three sisters and a brother. My daughter looks at that picture and sees
the Smith family exactly as she knows them. I look at this picture and smile because,
while this is how we know and love the Smith family now, it is not how it was a
year ago.
One year ago this family of six
was a family of four – a family who by all worldly standards was complete. But
worldly standards were not their measuring stick. Over some amount of time, in
different ways, the Lord had been working in their hearts. He was bringing them
to a place where they surrendered to him and trusted him, though they weren’t
sure exactly what or when he would ask. Last summer, he asked. And they answered by opening the doors of
their home and their hearts by welcoming in a son and a daughter who were not
their own. A son and a daughter who had done nothing to earn or deserve this new
family were ushered into a home that they desperately needed, though they
didn’t even know it. These children were
immediately given all the rights and privileges of family members. It took some sacrifices of comfort, space,
ease of life, and more. Yet without
hesitation, they were loved, clothed, and fed. They were given a room,
furniture, a place at the family table.
To them was given the right to call the Smiths “Mom” and “Dad”, and the
older girls were now both big “sisters”.
This. Is. The. Gospel! Do you see
how it just drips from these words? This earthly picture of a family welcoming
in two children has happened to you and I and all who know the Saving Grace of
our Father God! We were living in our
run down, unsafe, unclean homes of sin.
We knew nothing but sin and of self.
We were dead in our transgressions (Ephesians 2:1), And the King of
Kings flung open the doors to his home and family and welcomed us in. To us he gave the rights to be called
children of God (John 1:12), to call him, the God of the universe, “Abba,
Father” (Romans 8:15). We have a place
at his table (Revelation 19:9), he has prepared a room for us in his heaven
(John 14:2). We are called his
children. Because of this, we can now
know what love is, we can now see what we have been saved from. And, dear ones,
it took a sacrifice. It wasn’t a
sacrifice of comfort or space, it was a sacrifice of life. Jesus Christ, THE
Son of God, took it upon himself to be beaten, bruised, alienated from his
Father and killed so that we can know Love - so that we could become the sons
and daughters of God.
I was overwhelmed with this truth
today as we gathered around the sweet little boy on this beautiful spring
day. Friends and family gathered around
hot dogs and cupcakes to celebrate him.
We sang “Happy Birthday” to him, and showered him with cards and gifts
just like we have done for our children. As we walked the children over to the
playground, and his small hand held mine, I was filled with gratitude to have a
small part in this parable of the gospel that was being lived out before my
eyes. All those gathered around today
were acting as the church. He and his
sister are a part of all of our family now.
We love them, we pray for them, we help them. There are times when we
care for them, times we teach them. We
support their parents, and pray for them as well. We, who know love and family,
welcome them in just as we who know Christ are supposed to welcome his children
in. We treat them as family, just as God calls us to do with our brothers and
sisters in Christ.
This beautiful story is a
blessing to watch, yet it’s scary and uncomfortable. At times I feel I could
never do it. But I have learned much
from my dear friend. She isn’t perfect. They aren’t rolling in extra money. And though I jokingly tell her she is super
mom, she is not a superhero. She makes
mistakes. She gets frustrated, she gets weary. She makes sacrifices and continues to - for the
act of welcoming them into the family is only the beginning. They are hers and
she loves them. So she teaches and plays with them, she cares for them in
sickness and in health, and at times she must discipline them just as she does
her older, biological daughters. This journey wasn’t and isn’t a short one, nor
a comfortable one. But that’s the beauty of this story: it’s not just the Gospel
being lived out for her new son and daughter, it’s God working out the Gospel
in her life too. She isn’t just blessed
because she has welcomed these children in, she is blessed that in taking them
in there are many times that she is brought to her knees, and she experiences
Christ like never before.
What if more of us lived out our
story like this? What if more of us who
have been welcomed and adopted into the family of God did the same for the
hurting, the fatherless, the suffering, the needy around us? What if our driving force wasn’t our status
or our stuff? What if our motivation was
the Gospel? What if we sacrificed our comfort, our space, our security as
Christ sacrificed His life? What if we
were at least willing enough to pull our fingers out of our ears and listen to
what God might be calling us to? What
if we allowed ourselves to be in the position to experience God in a way like
never before? What if…
