What if....

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…

So then, brothers,1 we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 8:12-17, ESV