You could, right this minute, help change an orphan’s life forever…keep reading to find out how.

Our friends, who have adopted three African/African-American children, have, as a result, had a whole new world open up for them as they care for children, with no expectations, in their path, for as short or as long a time as they are needed…a simple, organic, caring for the fatherless. Their simple obedience inspires.

The Wintons recently released the wonderful movie, Rescued, a heart-warming, convicting documentary that challenges believers to really put their faith in action. Go watch the trailer now!

“Not everyone is called to adopt”, Valenti said, “but everyone is called to care, in some way, for the fatherless.”

It is not difficult to find such opportunities. As more and more families seek to rescue an orphan into God’s marvelous light, demonstrating the most basic story of the cross and redemption, many of them desperately need our help. If we aren’t adopting, couldn’t we at least help someone adopt?

Right after I previewed the movie, Rescued, which I recommend everyone see, I “met” Angel Daniels. Her family is trying to reach their adoption goal to rescue a little boy or girl and, spreading the word on the Internet, they are hoping to reach their goal. If everyone gave as little as $5.–.so little to us and so big to them–it could mean the difference in a child’s life for eternity.

You can read here about why the Daniels are adopting and then pray and ask the Lord is He would have you help this family.

“Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” James 1:27

Help the Daniels now!

“I want to be like Him.”

That is what a Christian is, right? A “follower of Christ”…one who has devoted his life to “becoming like Him”?

All the while we seek the easier virtues, the more visible ones.

Joy: we can be joyful. Bold: we can be bold. Different: we can be different. Zealous: oh yes.

And while Christ was all these things, they did not define Him. What defined Him was the one crowning virtue from which all others spring forth….

Humility.

(Am I like Him?)

But not humility as in some posture before the throne, some temporary form during prayer and worship…

“True humility is to be made of no reputation…it is in our most unguarded moments that we truly show who we are and what we are made of. To know a truly humble person, you must follow that one in the common course of daily life.” -Andrew Murray, Humility

I am pierced to the heart as I measure my love for Him.

“It is a solemn thought that our love for God is measured by our everyday relationships with others. Except as its validity is proven in standing the test of daily life with our fellowmen, our love for God may be found to be a delusion.” -Andrew Murray, Humility

I am broken as I recount yesterday’s harsh words…an “invitation” to wrath, a lack of longsuffering with these little, gangling sheep in my care.

(Am I like Him?)

“It is in our relationships with one another, in our treatment of each other, that true lowliness of mind and a heart of humility are seen.” -Andrew Murray, Humility

If I am a Christian–one desiring to follow Christ–I must make it my FIRST aim to become “nothing”, empty, so that He can fill me with His spirit…a spirit of meekness and humility. It is only when I know that I am nothing, that I can esteem others better than myself.

“Let this mind be in you…”

If I strive for anything in this life, it must be a giving up of my own will to be conformed to His image. It is the only true mark of a disciple.

“Humility is the only soil in which virtue takes root; a lack of humility is the explanation of every defect and failure. Humility is not so much a virtue along with the others, but is the root of all, because it alone takes the right attitude before God and allows Him, as God, to do all.” -Andrew Murray, Humility

“That the Lord desires to rule in the hearts of His children because it brings them LIFE is a fact to be reckoned with.  But He will not barge in and take control.  He wants submission to the authority of His lordship.  And those who refuse that submission will self-destruct by the very nature of God and the laws He set forth from Creation.”

Why is it so hard to find? “I’ll be happy when…”

Because contentment, the thing we’re really wanting, is NOT found in our circumstances. Happiness is not a better something, more of something, or a different something. We immerse ourselves in the search for that “something” that doesn’t exist to make us happy.

Happiness is finding peace wherever we are.

We tend to view hardship, loss and waiting as surprising elements of life. We avoid them at all cost (this is natural, of course) and maintain that we could never find happiness there.

The reality is that hardship, loss and waiting are every much a part of life as prosperity, gain and “arriving”.

Life is made up of all these things and contentment is found when we rest in His knowing, His love and His goodness in ordaining whatever comes to pass.

I’m writing this to myself, learning hard–in this place–what true contentment is. It feels like I could be really content when there is more quiet spaces in our home, more room to put our clothes, more shelves for organizing our things, more sleep, more security for my husband’s future work, more counter space on which to cook…

My storm really began after the tornado. The battle for inner calm amid chaos and uncertainty. It brews even now, in the daily challenges to keep this home, to solve the dilemmas waiting each morning, to find contentment in the world that defied my best efforts to keep it constant and unchanging.

And then we all lose perspective, don’t we? Our “problems” so petty compared to others’.

Life is changing. Life is sometimes good and sometimes not. God loves us all the same and promises, not to orchestrate each detail to make us more comfortable, but to be sufficient in every place.

Learning from a tubless bathroom shared by eleven people

So we approach a new year. I love new. New, crisp journals, new pens, new coffee mugs, new scarves…Christmas no doubt brought some new things to your life.

But far more than those fun things, I LOVE the anticipation of new habits, new vision, new direction and new aspirations. We anticipate a lot of new this year, eagerly awaiting the time when we can return to a new home, (see the tornado story if you’re new), get a new routine, a new schedule, and a fresh, new start. This year has given us much new that we have found difficult and overwhelming, and some we have found wonderful.

Jesus came to make all things new. And in Him, we have newness of life. But sometimes we don’t live in that newness. We are content to live in mediocrity, in a life not surrendered, in flesh not crucified.

I have struggles in my life. Do you? I get angry when I shouldn’t, am unloving when I should love, am short when I should be long suffering.

I let old habits reign paramount way too often. In short, I’m unwilling, or maybe just too busy to die in order to be made new. Can we die to the flesh that robs us and our families of joy?

In this new year, I want to live in newness of life. I want to allow the Lord to fill me with His love, His character so that the aroma of Christ exudes from my life.

How? By making time to pause, listen and dwell in His presence. By filling my mind and heart with His Word until I’m transformed. By focusing on the importance of my influence on my family and loving them enough to love Him more.

“Father, help me.”

How are you embracing “new”?

“What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise.”

I have come to believe that suffering is the strongest conduit of God’s love for His people. And ironic as the rest of the Christian life, suffering brings intense thanksgiving into the hearts of His beloved.

Suffering comes to us, sometimes for our benefit, sometimes for someone else’s and always for God’s. Usually, our earthly suffering is met by an equal or greater force of love that streams through the hands and feet of His saints. Such as been the case for us this year.

And yet I’ve thought…“What if this suffering had no tangible blessing attached? Could I look up, with heaven-ward eyes, and praise Him for the ‘trying of my faith that works patience’? Could I ‘endure hardship like a good soldier?”

The night I tried to wrap my mind around the fact that our physical world was completely demolished, was the same night the floodgates of gratitude broke loose. Gratitude for our physical safety, for being with other believers and the comfort that provided, for the way God made men to respond to crises, for the “shock and numbness” He gives to protect us from what may be too overwhelming and then, every day since, for the love by which we have been flooded, from so many, including you, as you reach out and offer yourself to us.

And even our neighbors, who lost their father and husband that night, have expressed the same overflowing thankfulness to their Heavenly Father for the richness of this experience–the kind that leaves the world scratching its head and scoffing for lack of a reasonable response.

Suffering brings awareness of our need. Suffering brings humility and forces us retain our humanity and compassion. Suffering brings a fortitude of spirit and a deeper awareness of the smallest blessing. Suffering illuminates God’s glory. Suffering allows grace to break through and wash over the soul.

Praise Him for suffering.

May you all be filled, wherever you are, with gratitude this Thanksgiving season, and may I offer mine to you, once again, for the way you have loved me so earnestly.

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…”

To “be conformed” is a passive result of not doing anything. If we are just “being”, we are being conformed to the world around us. We see it, hear it, and pretty soon begin to think like it. We don’t have to search out the messages around us that are contrary to the mind of God…they seep into our being by our mere existence.

To be transformed requires deliberate action of the mind. A steady “washing” with that which is “true, honest, just, pure, praiseworthy and virtuous”.

Do I bring the influences of my mind under that scrutiny? That of my children’s minds? Am I being deliberate about the renewal of my mind?

Because Scripture says that unless I actively renew my mind with what is other-worldly, I cannot know the good, acceptable, perfect will of God.

May we love His Word and what it teaches us more and more each day.

“The efforts which a mother makes for the improvement of her child in knowledge and virtue, are necessarily retired and unobtrusive. The world knows nothing of them; and hence the world has been slow to perceive how powerful and extensive is this secret and silent influence….the influence which is exerted upon the mind during the first eight or ten years of existence, in a great degree guides the destinies of that mind for time and eternity! And as the mother is the guardian and guide of the early years of life, from her goes the most powerful influence in the formation of the character of man.” John Abbott

When Christians stop being “Kingdom-minded”, they stop making Kingdom choices. Choices like devoting a life to raising the next generation to love God, to honor authority and to live wisely. The very church of Christ has so degraded the blessing of children (and thus minimized a mother’s work), that it is almost unthinkably ignorant. For how can we expect to pass the torch of passion and faithfulness to our Savior unless we have made it our chiefest aim to daily impress His character onto the hearts of our children?

When we understand that our whole existence is to glorify the Lord, we live each moment differently. We get about our Father’s business. We don’t measure “if we should have children” by their convenience or how many vacations it will cost me or whether I can pursue my favorite pastime or career. We don’t have children to look cute in their ball uniforms and homemade hair bows.

We fall down on our knees with the grave responsibility of stewardship over these children, these people who will either further the Kingdom or be a blight on society, based largely on our diligence to the duty of raising them.

Mothers, you must govern your home well. It is the cruelest act of motherhood that you should neglect to teach your children to obey the loving authority over them. For in doing so, you make them unable to submit to God.

Children who have not learned self-government stand to be the most wretched of all men and women, loathing you for your indulgences.

But don’t you see, it isn’t harsh! It wells up from the deepest love, the deepest desire to see our children walking in truth and evokes sheer delight to walk beside them.

When I see my children through Kingdom-eyes, their vices aren’t irritations that bug me and cause me to be angry; they are offenses that sober me and call me to the tireless and tender action of praying for, teaching and tending the garden of their souls.

My children are the very happiest when I have loved them enough to require gratitude, obedience and honor. Their little faces light up into mine when they sense my tenderest sincerity toward their character.

And then, to place my hands on their heads, kneel over them and pray…

“Father, you have blessed me with this child. Thank you that she is growing to love You, thank you that she is obedient, and I pray that she will serve you all the days of her life”….

causes a heart-smile to break across their faces, and they know–it sinks down deep and they KNOW that I am in this for life, through tears, joys and hardship. I am their advocate, and I will stop short of nothing to give “my life for yours” in these few years they are mine.

That’s because Proverbs is the book of wisdom–the “secret” to life and whether our children will do well at what they put their hand to or not. “Wisdom! Get wisdom!” the Proverbs screams. Why would we clamor to get our academic ducks in a row but neglect this principal thing?

Swanson has made it easy to teach through the book of wisdom with his 3-book series, the Proverbs Study Guide.

Our family uses this in our devotion time, but it could easily be implemented during school as well. I love the simple, short yet thorough explanations Kevin gives of each verse of Proverbs. He ends the lesson with questions for discussion, as important as the lesson itself.

Containing everything from how to handle finances to political and social ethics, we simply cannot neglect to teach our children these most essential life lessons from the Word of God.

The Book of Proverbs Study Series comes highly recommended from this family!

A short response from someone I love…
a perceived wound…

A thousand small injustices a day have only the power we give them…will I nurse my wound, blame, wear my feelings in a vulnerable place, or will I give others the benefit of the doubt?

“As a mom, I find a hundred love-lessons like these to teach a day.”

“Who knows what that woman may be dealing with:  a terminally ill child she is hurrying back home to nurse?  Financial burdens larger than life?  An abusive husband?” I choose to ask myself.

“Love covers over an offense”.

I’m only just learning, at 38 years old, to look over offenses.  And I’m still very bad at it.  At least the thought occurs to me, and I’m praying earnestly that those thoughts would grow into more follow through.

As a mom, I find a hundred love-lessons like these to teach a day.  If we can cultivate a heart of looking over offenses in our children, imagine how we put them ahead!  Would you agree that this one character trait or flaw, whichever it is, is the source of so much violence, family turmoil and broken homes?  Think about the trail of disaster left in the wake of one of these tragedies when, who knows, had one party only had a mother walking beside him every day, spurring him to true Love, shaping a heart that is able to let an offense go, the whole chain of events may have never existed.

Left alone, the misery of self-centeredness–(for that is the vice that causes us to be quickly offended) will eat them alive.  But with careful pruning, day by day we speak into their lives…“Love keeps no record of wrongs”, and they are transformed by that truth. “Maybe your sister just needs a gentle word…”

Do I model it for them?   Do my children learn from the way I speak of others to cover offenses?  (This is a real question I’m asking myself right now as I write.)  What about my reactions to my husband or relatives?

Thinking the best of people, letting things go, covering up offenses…this is the stuff of Christian love.

Are we big enough?