The Naked and Vulnerable God

Here is my newest post up at Together for Adoption: 

“And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”  Luke 2:4-7

    How man times do we read these words during the Christmas season? These few verses are the inspiration for the nativity sets around our homes and churches. It is the inspiration for the Christmas pageants that children are currently practicing for. But even with reminders all around me during this season, I do not reflect enough on the reality that Mary gave birth to her firstborn son, Jesus, and laid him in a manger.

    It is easier for me to picture Jesus, fully God and fully human, as the Christ who died on the cross. I picture Christ the God-man as the one who turned over the tables in the temple and drove out the money changers, or as the great teacher who gathered crowds by the thousands, or as the healer of sick. I picture Christ the God-man as the one who was powerful enough to stop the crucifixion, yet willingly chose to submit himself to God the Father and bear the weight of his wrath for our sins.

    But then there are these precious verses in Luke chapter two that describe Jesus, fully God and fully human, as a newborn child. Helpless. Weak. Completely dependent on his mother and father for warmth, food, touch, shelter, and soothing. It feels God-like to think about Christ’s ministry on this earth. But Christ as an infant? Christ nursing, crying, needing to be swaddled, it just feels so…human.  As much as I like to talk about Christ being fully God and fully man, I probably spend much more time thinking about Christ being fully God. It is when I reflect on God the Son being laid in a manger, fully dependent on human, sinful parents, that I realize how uncomfortable I can feel with Christ’s humanity.

    But this is a season to think and praise God for his willingness to become human.  One moment, Christ was sharing perfect, eternal, complete union with God the Father and the next he was growing within the womb of Mary. It is miraculous, mind-boggling, truly foolishness if we think about it through the world’s wisdom. But this wonderful miracle is exactly what allows us to now relate to Christ as brother. Christ has an earthly father that cared for him, held him, and loved him. When Christ talks about his heavenly Father, he is speaking fully understanding and knowing what it was like to have an earthly father. When Christ calls believers “brothers and sisters” he is speaking from a full understanding of what it was like to have an earthly family. In order for us to have been adopted by God spiritually, God had to become fully human…and so, two thousand years ago, God was born, naked, weak, needy, crying and completely vulnerable. And then, Thirty-three years later, he died a bloody, shameful death in the same condition.

    And the glorious reality that we have such a gracious God as this, who would make himself human, should make us sing:  

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!" Luke 2:14

Remembering Christ this Christmas...

    I love the holidays and I think it is such a special time to be together as a family, create good memories, and enjoy one another. But Christmas is so much more then that. This is a strategic time to teach our children about the gift of Christ and to re-focus our family in worship to our king. It is easy to forget the soft, quiet miracle that took place in a stable more then two thousand years ago when we are surrounded by a culture that wants to drown out this message with the noise of temporal things. I want to encourage you to enter this month with an intentional plan to help focus yourself and your family on the glory that we see in the birth of Christ.

   I have found it helpful to spend the last few days of November/ the beginning of December to plan our our calendar and think about why and what we are doing.  I want to spend as much time with my children as possible this month and help this season be something they look back on differently then their friends who are not being raised in a Christian home. Here are just a few things I try to do each year...I'd love to hear some of your traditions. :)

1)      I do as much of my shopping as possible for people the week after Christmas. We wrap all our presents and pack them away for next Christmas. The sales are great and this keeps me from getting sucked into the commercial madness the following year. I take all the gifts we packed away out thanksgiving weekend and write down the few remaining people I want (not have) to get presents for and buy them that weekend. After thanksgiving weekend I refuse to enter a store unless absolute necessity (like groceries). If I still want to get presents for people then we order them on Amazon or make them. I talk incessantly throughout the holidays with my children about the media, stores, and toy manufacturers agenda to make us feel like we need something and I tell them that I avoid stores because of my own temptation to get lured into the lie. Honestly, I have even prayed out-loud with my children a few times before going into the grocery store that the Lord would guard our eyes and hearts and keep us from coveting or desiring things that are temporary and passing away.

2)      I love having people over around the holidays, but I try to remind myself that this is not something I have to do and if I find myself putting too much pressure on myself or the kids, I try to make that my indicator not to have as many people over the following week. If I get stressed about dishes, I use paper plates the next time. All I have to do this month is glorify God and enjoy him…and help my family do the same, the rest is all extra.

3)      We do extra weekly family devotions…we use special Christmas coffee mugs and drink hot coco, eat cookies, and read Christmas devotions. One we do a daily devotion called “Countdown to the King”…we all love it J

4)      Christmas morning before we open presents we eat a special breakfast and do devotions, then we do a “scavenger hunt” for baby Jesus (we keep him out of one of our mangers all December and I hide him somewhere around the house Christmas morning. At each part of the scavenger hunt we read part of the Christmas story from Luke.)

 A successful holiday season for me is one where I wasn't constantly frustrated with my kids (by the grace of God), planned extra time into our schedule so I wasn't rushing or hurrying our family, didn’t spend too much money, created good memories, and helped my family enjoy worshiping God. I fail in this in many ways each year, but by God’s grace, each holiday is better then the last at achieving these goals. J 

Merry Christmas! May it be full of peace and joy as you reflect on the beautiful miracle that is Jesus the Christ-God becoming man!

Marcel's Testimony...what Amazing Grace!

Marcel, our ten year old son, was baptized yesterday. It was so special to hear his explanation of how he was lost and then found. Marcel is incredibly articulate and described beautifully first how God found him physically through adoption, and then how God found him spiritually. He has such a precious heart and truly loves the Lord. I am so thankful for the gift he is to us. (Okay, enough of the proud-mom bragging). 

I am also very thankful for my grandfather, Arnold, and my father, Dennis. This weekend was their 35^th anniversary of committing their lives to Christ (they both answered the same alter call 35 years ago during a simple sermon at a small church in Rhode Island and dedicated their lives to Christ). Both my grandfather and father are heroes to Marcel (and myself!) and it was so special for Marcel to have two great grandfathers, a grandfather, and his father present. He is surrounded by wonderful men and quickly growing up into one himself.

Here are some excerpts from Marcel’s testimony that he read on Sunday. It was very powerful to witness and I hope it encourages you. Every word here is directly from Marcel's mouth, I just helped him with grammar and asked him a lot of questions to help him brainstorm all of his thoughts. He gave me permission to post this because he said he wants as many people to hear about how wonderful God is as possible:

"My Testimony" by Marcel Vermon Pierre

“My favorite song is “Amazing Grace” and the song says, “I once was lost, but now I am found. I was blind, but now I see.” I like these words because it describes me becoming a Christian.
    First, I was lost.
I was lost in real life, but also spiritually. I was lost in real life because I had a family that couldn’t take care of me. I was born in Nevada and the first 6 years of my life were abusive, but I was taken care of too, especially by my Grammy. But I was also lost spiritually. I knew that there was something that ruled over the world, I wasn’t an atheist, but I didn’t know that it was the God of the Bible that ruled the world. I used to have a lot of anger and even though I was an ok kid, I had an extremely bad temper.
    Then God found me.  First, God found me a family. Basically, I remember one day that I was playing with my camera robot when this couple named Dennae and Vermon came over. When I first saw my dad, Vermon, I thought that he was a giant compared to me and was a little afraid of him getting me. Then, I wish I would have jumped up on my dad, Vermon, and begged him to be my daddy, but instead I hid from him and waited for him to find me. But that’s okay that I didn’t beg my daddy to adopt me, because my mommy and daddy, Dennae and Vermon, had already seen me and they were the ones begging God to let me be adopted.  So God found me a family and let Mya and I stay together as brother and sister and then gave me another brother, Judah.
    Before I was a Christian, I didn’t understand why my life was so torn up and messy, but God took something really terrible and made it into something really wonderful. This is the first way that God began to show me his love by giving me a Christian family.
    Then, after God found me a family and saved me from my bad situation, God found me spiritually….and this makes me think of the part of the song that says, “I was blind, but now I see.”
    This is the main sermon I heard that helped me become a Christian. I was at Grant Park in VBS and Mr. JJ was talking about being blind. He had a candy bar and held it in the field while a blindfolded kid tried to find it.  The point of Mr. JJ’s story was that our sin makes us blind to God but Jesus is the one that can take off our blindfold so we can see God clearly. So I went home and I didn’t know if I wanted to be a Christian or not.
   The next day I went to my room and I was crying because I was thinking all about the sad things in my life. But God softened my heart and I realized I needed Jesus to be the king of my life. Becoming a Christian didn’t fix everything in my life. I still had some problems with anger and missing and worrying about my birth family. But what is so wonderful is that now when I do get angry or sad, I know God is forever my father and that I can stay in God’s family no matter what I say, or think, or do. Also, God has turned a lot of my anger and sadness into joy when I think about what Jesus did for me on the cross. And I am very thankful for my church family that I am going to get to play forever with in heaven…
 Being friends with God is so wonderful because like Psalm 23 says, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Because God is with me.” I am very glad “I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind, but now can see.” 

Foolish to Foster?

On Wednesday, our family will be opening our license for foster care again. We will be getting a baby girl somewhere between the ages of newborn and 3 months old. It has been interesting to hear people’s reactions as we share our “exciting” news. I have learned quickly that what is “exciting” for Vermon and myself is not necessarily “exciting” for everyone around us (although, we are very thankful for those who have supported us despite their loving concern for us).

  

The reality of foster care is that over the next year we may have one child or we may have ten children. We may have each of them for a short period of time or for a long period of time. We may get the opportunity to adopt or we may never get that chance. We will bond, love, and care for every baby as though they belonged fully to us, knowing full well that child may end up in a different permanent home.

This raises a lot of concerns for those who love and care for us. Such as: “How can you do that, won’t the loss be too painful?”  “Drug babies have huge problems, why would you knowingly enter that world?” “You already have three children, you can't save the whole world you know.”

My temptation is to complain and wish people could think and feel the same way our family does about orphan care; however, the past month has been a great opportunity to go back to the drawing board and remind ourselves why we are setting on this path. If I start by listening to people’s objections or concerns, I find myself anxiously trying to defend our decision to add child #4 to our family. But if I start with our motivation for orphan care, then draw implications from those motivations, I find myself at peace and able to rest.

So why are we choosing to do something that has the potential to be painful emotionally and physically? Why are we doing something that may be very, very hard and may cost us much?

#1) I was adopted and therefore I want to adopt.

I am a child of God. This is my primary identity thanks to the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because of Christ’s work on the cross and his resurrected body, I can now live eternally as a daughter of God Almighty. I will spend the rest of my life meditating and thinking about the endless implications of that reality. I was an orphan, now I’m orphaned no more. I was an enemy of God, now I am his child. I was the chief of sinners, now I have the righteousness of Christ imputed to me.

Because of that reality, I can do hard things. I can do painful things. Not by my own strength, but by the power of the Holy Spirit within me. Not every Christian is going to be involved directly in orphan care, but every true disciple of Jesus, every true Christian is to pick up his cross and follow Christ. Every Christian is to be willing to leave comfort, ease, pleasure, desires, or dreams in order to follow the path God has called them to.

  

    For us, at this moment in our life, that is foster care. Fortunately, while there are hard and challenging things about this and even though it may mean leaving things behind that I find comfortable and enjoyable, I am confident that the path we are taking is blessed and our reward will far outweigh all that we give up. Perhaps in this life, but most definitely in eternity.

#2) God has given us a love for children, gifted us with the ability to care for children, especially hurting or broken children, and given us an amazing extended family to help care for those children.

Often people assume that I believe every family should adopt children. I do not believe that. There are many worthy causes in which Christians should participate and God’s word calls them to be actively engaged with. The theology of adoption is a beautiful strand within gospel message and therefore has wonderful implications for every believer. But it will not lead every believer to adopt children because some people just don’t like children, or are trying to make their marriage healthy, or are living in a city with little extended family, or are involved in many other great ministries. A lot of times when people imply how crazy and/or foolish we are to do what we are doing, they forget that it may be crazy for them to attempt, but that does not make it crazy for us.

    The reason our family has chosen foster care and adoption as a ministry to be actively involved with is primarily because of my first point, but also this second point. If we did not love children (lots of them!) and if we were already exhausted/ overwhelmed and having challenges in our marriage with the children we currently have, then we would not be able to foster and/or adopt more children. So I praise God that he has given us this burden and equipped us to do it.

   But the reality is, even that would not be enough for us to move into the realm of 4 children without losing some of our sanity. We have been blessed with an amazing church community and a large extended family who have come around us to create one large Pierre family. We have biological aunts, uncles, grandparents and many church aunts, uncles, and grandparents all of whom support us through prayer, finances, home-work help, tutoring, doctor visits, house repairs, and most wonderfully…baby sitting! By God’s great grace, Vermon and I have a wonderful, healthy marriage and I know that a large part of this is because of how our church community and our extended family have helped us transition into parenthood. Vermon and I would never see each other if we were the only two people raising our children, but thankfully-our children have an army of people who love them, care for them, and treat them as though they were their own children.

So, for those who’ve implied how crazy/insane we are to have a newborn baby enter our home this week…just know your support is probably partly responsible.

J So bring on kid #4, #5, and #6 (just kidding Vermon ;))…

10 x 100=1000 for orphans

Yesterday we began our challenge to raise $5000 for orphans. Marcel and Mya are SUPER excited to be apart of it and have decided that they can be responsible for raising $1000 all by themselves. We're hopeful to use this money for families within Roosevelt who want to adopt internationally.

We came up with the idea of getting 10 of their friends to join them in raising money for orphans. They have several ideas to help each of their friends raise $100. We ordered bracelets to sell, they are going to have a "wash your neighbor's windows" day, and an "orphan meal." All the details about that will be coming up soon. In the meantime, if you're kids would be interested in joining our group of 10, contact me. We will be having a party in a few weeks to kick things off (a sibling group within your home can all work together to raise $100).

A Challenge Now that You are Home

I have challenged 50 people to join me in doing something to get the message of orphan care out to people not currently involved in orphan care. Read about it and sign up to participate here (also, if you sign up you will be entered into a contest to win a great prize).

I will be updating on this blog as I try to do all 3 things I challenged 50 people to join me to do at least one of.

Tim Chester and Relaxing in Trinitarian Love

Tim Chester is a pastor of the Crowded House in Sheffield, England and spoke to us today from John 17 on “Relaxing in Trinitarian Love”

 Most of the other talks I have summarized and posted my thoughts, but for this one I’m just posting my notes (my blogging while listening skills are fading J). I tried to type as fast as possible, so it’s as close to “quotes” as I could do. After listening to Tim a few times this week (and reading You Can Change and using the Porterbook curriculum) I’ve decided that I’m going to read everything he’s written. This is good stuff people...read a taste of it below. 

Tim Chester reminds us that the TRINITY is foundational to understanding why God adopted us.

Tim says if God wasn’t trinity then that would mean there was a time when God was not Father, not loving, not communicating…but for all eternity God was loving and communicating within the trinity.

God did not create us because he was deficient in himself. He did not need the world or need anything in the world. He created out of love because the very essence of God is LOVE.

Tim says, “God is not a ruler who becomes a father or who sometimes does fatherly-like things. No, first and foremost God is a God who loves us.”

 God forgives us, but also does so much more. He loves you and adopts you and calls you his child.

    Salvation is adoption because God is a Father. Before creation, God was not a frustrated ruler looking for someone to rule or a frustrated lover, looking for someone to love. No, God was a father who had been loving his son for all eternity.

--You cannot be claiming to be “god-like” if you are adopting out of need. That is not why God adopts us, so we should not adopt children to meet some human need for a child. If you adopt out of your emotional need to feel complete then you cannot love your child with the God-like love we have been loved with.

--What is true life? It is not having a child, but being a child of God.

God created us for his good out of the overflow of his love and glory.  In eternity, the father and son share glory in the father’s presence.

  

  God’s glory is God’s perfections pouring out of him, like the light radiating from the sun. Jesus reflects the glory of God. The light of God’s glory is perfectly reflected in the image or mirror of the Son.

   On a sunny day, we never worry about the sun running out of light or heat. We know that light and heat will pour out of the sun without fail. In the same way, God’s love is like the sun, pouring forth his beams of love. Our job is to sit and enjoy the warmth and energy of the warm sun. We are to relax in Trinitarian love.

Your first job as a Christian is to do nothing except to soak in the light of God’s love.

We live in a cold, graceless world and our job is to step out into the warmth of God’s love and be filled from him.

It is for God’s great pleasure that he loves us, adopts us…THIS is true grace. He isn’t just being “nice” to us, but salvation comes out of the overflow of God’s love.

Jesus wants people to be where he is. Where is the son? At the Father’s side. And that is where he wants his people to live.

Jesus knows the father and makes him known to us.

The greatest unkindness you can do to God the Father is not to believe he loves you.

 –John Owen

The WHOLE plan of salvation has as its goal your adoption by God. 

Tim quoted from 1 John 4 and I thought it fitting to end this post with these great words from God our Father:

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.

(1 John 4:10-19 ESV)

Vermon Pierre on the gospel and trans-racial adoption

Just got to listen to my favorite preacher talk about race and trans-racial adoption (he's also pretty cute too ;)). Vermon is the lead pastor of our church in downtown Phoenix, Roosevelt Community Church, and we have a wonderfully diverse church of white, black, Asian, African, native, and Hispanic brothers and sisters in Christ.

I love hearing my husband talk about adoption and I love hearing him talk about race. Everything he said was right on. The session was taped and I will post the link once it is up on here because it is worth listening to every word.

Here are my favorite parts:

Some of the problems that happen when white parents adopt cross-ethnicity is the family emphasizing race too much or too little.

1. Families who talk too much about race.
-saying we want our kids to be "black" doesn't work. Black culture isn't monolithic. There are subcultures within the black culture so we need to make sure that we do not expose our kids to our one idea of black culture.
-sometimes the family views their white culture as negative for their children and so they over compensate based on, often, stereotypical views of what it means to "be black"

2. Families who talk too little about race
-there is a problem with divorcing your child completely from their culture. Your kids ARE your children, but they were not always your child. They have a story and they came from somewhere.

-the idea that your kids don't notice that the way they look is different from everyone around them is ignorant. Especially with the black/white reality...the history of racial separation was not that long ago.

-when your child from Korea gets adopted by your Idaho farming white family, she doesn't just become an Idaho white girl, but your family also becomes Korean. This is what Christ did with us...he became human so we could become righteousness.


If you adopt a child of a different race then your child WILL have tension. The tension is not a bad thing. It is nieve and ignorant to ignore that tension and it missed out on an opportunity to point your child to the gospel.

When we become believers we are placed IN Christ. We are not lost in Christ....but we are placed INto Christ. We do not become born into a people that makes my ethnicity insignificant. In Christ, our identities are redeemed and redeemed in a way that unites us to other people.

Many more great thoughts, but I can't post his manuscript, so just make sure you watch the video.

Here are his 4 take away points:

1. Know the theology of adoption. Knowing that God has adopted us to a family changes the way we see race. Revelation 7 paints a picture of every nation crying out to God from every tribe. When John lcoks at the multitudes of people he doesn't see one shade. He sees all sorts of different ethnicities. Ethnic designations remain in eternity, but all submitted under Christ.

We can help our children's identity issues by having a robust theology of salvation and how that relates to adoption.

2. Don't be afraid to talk to your children about race.


3. Your identity as a diverse family will be helped the more you are in diverse community.

4. Point out good historical role models from their racial/ethnic background AND their adoptive family background

5. Give your kids a gospel love for other cultures. Give your children Multi-cultural competency. They are citizens of heaven and that heavenly race is diverse.

Jeff Vanderstelt, the gospel, missional living, and adoption

   Jeff Vanderstelt is the pastor of Soma Community church. This is my 7^th or 8^th time hearing Jeff speak on missional living & the gospel and I am struck by how relevant and meaningful his words are each time he speaks.

You can read a fuller summary of Jeff’s talk at ZachNielson’s blog  and below are some of my take-aways and thoughts:

Jeff says that we are MOTIVATED to love because we were first loved and that we love in a SPECIFIC kind of way because of HOW God loved us.

We are a chosen people. If we don’t remember who we were before we were in Christ, we won’t appreciate who we are now in Christ. We will never care for the "least of these" like Jesus did until we realize that we were the least of these.

Who were we?

    We are, by nature, children of wrath.  We were sin. Enemies of God. Hated.

Who are we, because of the cross?

    We are children of God, we are righteousness, friends of God, LOVED….in Christ.

  This is part of why I love talking to my children about the reality that they were orphans, like ME, but if we believe in Christ then we are orphans no more… I don’t like using the word orphan to just describe a desperate physical state, because it is also a desperate spiritual state. It is vital that we remember who we were when we were spiritual orphans.  

   I was really moved by Jeff’s words to love like God because we understand and know God’s heart of love. For the nations to know God’s loving mercy, I need to know God’s heart for his people. Jeff says that knowing the heart of God’s love for you enables and empowers you to love people all around you like brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers. Let’s show the world God’s great love for the fatherless. 

Brilliant words on Race from Bryan Loritts

Bryan Loritts is a pastor in Memphis, TN and just spoke on “The Church as the Theater of Transracial Adoption”

Matthew 25:31-46

It is going to take me the rest of the weekend to craft my thoughts on Bryan Loritts talk (and stop crying when I think about the history of race in our country). I am so used to talking to white American’s about race and getting blank stares and lots of objections as to why the black/white thing doesn’t matter anymore. Brothers and sisters, it matters! 

It was so good to sit in a room full of white reformed folk and hear Bryan BRING IT as he opened up the dusty history books and showed the rippling effects slavery has had in our country.  Here is a small excerpt of my notes that still has me in tears…I’m quoting it as closely as I can remember…I’ll post his video here once it’s up:

The issue of fatherless, abortion, and orphans is our 21^st century issue of slavery. NO ethnicity owns the market on fatherlessness and orphans. Black families are not the only families creating orphans…its everywhere. At the same time, people KNOW your American history. One of the things that slavery bequeathed to the 21^st century today is the brokenness of African American history. The whole HISTORY of slavery was built on the division of separation of families. Almost every African American can trace their family back to a broken family. ORPHANS have been a part of the history of African Americans from day one in this country as a result of the injustices of what happened in American history.

Honestly, I am so tired of people who don’t want to talk about race and who don’t want to talk about the injustices that were threaded throughout our short 200 year history that has had devastating consequences. I’m tired of people acting like the reality of slavery and the rippling effects of racial discrimination that was everywhere even 30 years ago does not matter anymore. I’m tired of the explanation that we are all one color…we are and we’re not…lets appreciate the tension.

Maybe it is Americans, maybe it is western culture, or maybe it is just the post-modern generation, but I find that most people I speak to my age have no understanding of history, especially African American history. And this isn’t just my Caucasian friends, I am appalled that my black friends are clueless too.

BUT GOD, and this is the hope that we see in the church. The church SHOULD BE the theater for trans-racial adoption. When we look at the history of black and whites in America (or Native Americans! Or the Japanese during WW2, I can go on if you'd like...) there is NO reason that we should have families that look like mine. There should NOT be interracial marriages, there should not be trans-racial adoptions, BUT GOD... And the church should be a picture of restoration and healing...racial reconciliation in American can and SHOULD happen within our churches!

Alright, other great things Bryan said:

“Any Christ follower that does not question how they can care for the “least of these” is living a Christianity not compatible with the gospel.”  He goes on to say that it does not mean we are SAVED because we care for the orphan, it means we consider the orphan BECAUSE we are saved.  

He quoted Wayne Grudem, “The Bible is the transcript of the heart of God.” And says that there are 2000 verses that reflect God’s heart for the poor, widow, fatherless, and alien. How can we claim to have God’s heart if we don’t have his heart for that?

Bryan says that American Christianity sends the message that you can make all the $ you want, live in whatever zip code you want, send your kids to whatever school you want, and spend it how you want…. And still follow Jesus. But this isn’t the call to discipleship we see in scripture.

Donna Theonnes on REST for the Weary Mom....

Yesterday was such a rich day for me. T4A was kicked off with a pre-conference for adoptive and pre-adoptive mamas (about half of the women were waiting for their "babies" of all ages to come home).

Dr. Theonnes spoke about rest for the weary mom and her talk, in and of itself, brought me rest. First of all, I LOVE hearing women speak from God's word about God's word. I have to admit, I'm not big on women's ministry functions because sometimes they barely scratch God's word. I mean, I know these fellowship times are important, but I also know that God has gifted women with gifts and abilities to open up his word and bring it to bear in our lives and I think women need God's word more then anything else.  Dr. Theonnes is one of those women he has gifted to speak from his word and help us apply it to all aspects of our life.

The topic of REST is something that is relevant and meaningful for every mother and woman. God's word powerfully speaks to us when we find ourselves weary or heavy laden. I love how Donna refreshed us with the gospel as she reminded us of the necessity for REST.

Donna spoke from Ephesians 2:  Ever considered that a "how to mother" passage? I can say I never did before listening to Donna's talk, but I think I am beginning to realize how much of these passages that point us back to the gospel are really a "how to" for everything. How do you find rest? In the reality that we were dead BUT God.

Here are some of Donna's very practical and biblical points:

How Do you find Rest?
  Rehearse the gospel. Remind yourself that your righteousness comes from JESUS, not you. You cannot prove your righteousness through your "mothering" or through your children's successes.

 Establish boundaries. If we are rehearsing the gospel to ourselves constantly, then we will be able to set boundaries. We don't have to say "yes" to prove ourselves and we don't have to do everything. Our righteousness is not determined by being the best coach for our children's volleyball team, homeroom mom, all-star home school parent, and ministry leader at our church. God gives gifts to the church so that one of us doesn't have to do it all.

 Satisfied with God's will. This gives us freedom from wanting something that isn't ours. God is in control of all aspects of our life which allows us to rest in where God has us.

 Trust God with our children.  Donna reminded us: "You are not the primary influence of your child's life." Jesus is. You have to be faithful to love your children like Jesus, but you can never change their heart. It is God's doing, not yours. This is not an excuse to be inactive, but a truth to rest.

 

Dan Cruver on God's Eternal Love

“God’s massive, cosmic story of adoption IS the real world” –Dan Cruver

Dan Cruver is the director of Together for Adoption and author of Reclaiming Adoption.

He just spoke to us from Psalm 36. His message was so powerful...not even sure how to sum it up. 

  

What does God really want from you?

Wow, isn’t this a question that I am sure every believer has questioned throughout their life.

Here are some verses to consider:

Micah 6:8- walk humbly, do justice

Psalm 86:3- give justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s case

James 1:26, 27- care for the orphan and widow, keep unstained from world

But does that “sum up” what God wants from us? Here are some other verses…

Matthew 22:37-love your God with all your heart, soul, and mind

Psalm 106:1- praise the Lord, for he is good

Is it one or the other? Absolutely NOT. Dan tells us that the question is a false question. It is NOT what does God want from you, but who is God. The answer? God is an eternal fountain.  

Dan gives an incredible illustration of us trying to drink from Niagra Falls…he talks about how foolish it would be to think that we could try to diminish Niagara from our tiny, little mouths.

Dan says, “God is an eternal fountain of love that is, by nature, a giver….We can’t live the Christian life well, if we think of God as primarily wanting from us.”

What does this mean for us as we care for orphans? Here are Dan’s 4 main points:

1. There is a strong connection in this Psalm to what Scripture calls

Sonship. Sonship means that we are GIVEN all the rights and privileges of THE Son (Jesus!) through adoption (chew on that for a bit!!)

2. Drinking from the fountain of the Father’s lavish delight in us

actually empowers us to live on the razor sharp edge of the world’s

profound brokenness.

3. Orphans need Christians who feast on the abundance of God’s

house and whom God causes to drink from the river of his delights

(Psalm 36:8).

4. Christians who experience God the Giver are much better equipped

  

Who is the God who GIVES?  Psalm 36:8 gives us that answer.  Psalm 36 is talking about God’s steadfast love and tells us that we are able to drink from the river of God’s delight.

We are given the river of God’s delight! I don’t think we even begin to grasp and understand what that means…

Dan makes the point that this eternal river of God’s love was, in fact, eternal.  Meaning, it has ALWAYS existed. God did not create love when he created earth. No, God has had a river of love flowing for eternity.

[sidebar…what is going to follow is going to be tricky to explain in a blog post…Christians will get it because we’ve read, studied it for a while, but my dear friends who read my blog who are still questioning Christianity, I promise this isn’t freaky sci-fi stuff, it is such a beautiful truth once you understand it....we might need to grab a cup of coffee and talk more about this in person. I’ll post Dan’s video clip on this once it’s up on the website, because he explains it so beautifully!]

Ok, so how does God’s love flow eternally? Through the trinity. God is 3 persons, but 1 God. He has ALWAYS been 3 persons and ALWAYS will be 3 persons, but he is without a DOUBT 1 God (we see it everywhere in scripture). God has ALWAYS, for all eternity,even before creation, had this perfect love that was flowing between the Father and the Son. 

And then God created! He made Adam and Eve and they drank from this perfect love, this fountain of living water! They communed perfectly with God almighty.

But they turned against God. Walked away from his eternal, perfect love. And the penalty for this was death. Because of this, humanities’ ability to participate in this great LOVE, to drink from this incredible fountain of LIFE has been severed.  We are cut off. But GOD…who is RICH in mercy and steadfast love…made us ALIVE in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2).

What God did was sacrifice HIS son…he ruptured this perfect love that had flowed between himself and the Son for ALL eternity, SO THAT we could be brought back in to this family of God!

This is a precious, incredible truth. Like I said in my talk on Gospel Suffering yesterday, we do NOT understand God’s love for us, because we do NOT understand God’s love for his SON. OH, if only we knew the DEPTHS of God’s love for Jesus, we would be broken by the reality that he sacrificed that perfect flowing river of love in order to bring us, wretched sinners, into his eternal family. What a glorious God we serve!

Tullian on the Gospel and the Law

Tullian Tchividjian is a pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Forida.

He spoke this afternoon on the law and the gospel. His talk came from Romans 7:7-8:4  His talk was about the Gospel and the Law...but it sparked wonderful thoughts about our adoption for me...here is my main thought after listening to his great message (followed by my general notes/thoughts from his sermon).

The LAW shows us the reality that we NEVER should have been adopted. Grace shows us that our adoption by God was ENTIRELY his work. And the finality of our adoption by God reminds us that it is God’s grace, not the law that KEEPS 

Tullian reminded us this afternoon how easy it is to think that the goodness of a deed makes us “godly.” Even as Christians, we tend to drift toward thinking that God is concerned mostly with the fact that we obey (but the reality is, God also cares about WHY we obey). 

He says, “Jesus demolishes ethical behavioralism, he smashes an external righteousness” Tullian went on to say that we are activists by nature and explains that the we naturally lean as humans is thinking God is lucky to have us. We naturally drift toward thinking we can earn favor with God through good works.

I spent some of my formative years as a child in a “sloppy agape” kind of church. We heard about God’s “agape” love all the time, but never about his law. If you are coming from a similar background, sometimes we think of the word “law” as a taboo Christian word. The word “law” seems like something for Jews or the Catholics, not something a grace-based Christian talked about.

Tullian spoke about the law in such a wonderful way. The “law” is far from being something Christians should know nothing about; rather, the “law” is actually good! It is a reflection of God’s perfect character. It is the law, Tullian says, that helps us to see God’s perfect nature. Romans shows us that it is because of the law that I even know I have lust, murderous thoughts, or a covetous heart. The law is a mirror to show me the darkness of my heart.

And that is where we draw the line in the sand. THAT is what the law does, but it is SO important to know what the law canNOT do:

 The law CAN show us our hearts, but it canNOT  cleans and regenerate our hearts.

 The law CAN show us God’s perfect nature, but it canNOT make us like Christ.

 The law CAN show us the depths of our sin, but it canNOT make us grow spiritually.

I also spent some of my formative years as a child in a more legalistic church background and this is where we get into trouble. If we are not aware of what the law canNOT do, then we will drift toward legalism. Tullian sums it up with one great word: “Slavery.” When we try to make the law do what it canNOT do we make ourselves slaves.

I agree with Tullian that we can be so quick to enslaving ourselves to the law, even though we have been made free from the law (Romans 8). This produces so many problems in the believers’ life and I see it in the women I counsel or talk to all the time. It produces pride when things are going well and it produces despair when life is hard. But it NEVER produces the gospel-centered life we are called to.

Tullian says, “You will NEVER, EVER find rescue for your weary soul by going INWARD to yourself.” He goes on to say that we KNOW that we only get INTO heaven by God, but we act like to “stay in” we have to look to ourselves.  He gave a great example of Joel Osteen and Bob Jones. Bob Jones was the poster boy for Christian fundamentalism when I was a Christian and isn’t someone most Christians want to identify themselves with. Tullian talks about how they are BOTH equally legalistic, because BOTH of them are telling you one thing: do more, try harder. Of course, “one does it with a stick and one with a carrot”, but they both tell  you…come do more.

“To say the law does not change us, it does NOT reduce the place the LAW has in our life.”  The LAW is to show us the depths of our darkness. The law shows us that our greatest problem is not patience, but idolatry…not anger, but murder…not lust, but adultery. The “law shows us that our best is never good enough, it smashes our rose color glasses that we think of ourselves through….the law constantly reminds us how dependant we are on the gospel.”

Okay….I know this is getting to be a longer post, so I will try to wrap it up soon. ALL that is really good…how does this tie in with adoption? Just a few of my quick thoughts on how adoption ties this all together:

-Adoption SCREAMS of God’s grace… We are reminded in Romans 8:1 of the reality that we have “no condemnation” in Christ and then a few verses later we are told about some of the REALITIES of this work that Christ did for us (look back to Romans 7 to see what Paul was just talking about). So after we are told that Christ has done EVERYTHING for us to save us by grace, Paul shows us a fruit of that grace in Romans 8:14-17. We are told that we are given the spirit of adoption as sons of God! We are given the gift to be able to call God, “Abba Father!” We are told that we became heirs of Christ. All of Romans 8 wraps up with how NOTHING can separate us from God’s love.

Gospel-Centered Parenting

I am a big fan of Tim Chester. I love how he takes God’s word and brings it to bear in our every day life. I just sat through a workshop with Tim on parenting and having a gospel centered family and it was pure gold, worth the full price of the conference....and we're only 3 hours in.  :)  

Tim spoke of the purpose of parenting. I loved Tim’s definition of “gospel centered parenting”:

“Gospel centered parenting is missional parenting as we use our parenting and family to display the gospel story.”

This is a great picture of the purpose to our parenting. Our family is a stage in which we can re-enact the gospel story over and over for our children, our neighborhoods, our friends, and our extended family.

Something else I resonated with was Tim talking about the danger of taking parenting “techniques” that may or may not have worked for various parents and making them THE way to parent or raise your children.

He said, “parenting is an inexact science…in the rough and tumble of daily life it is tough."

In parenting methods and parenting books we are often given the impression that there IS an exact science to parenting. If you do A and B then you will get C as a result. Not only is this a pretty arrogant way to approach parenting, it is an unbiblical way. WE cannot produce godly children. WE did not write the plan for their life before the foundations of the earth were lain. But we CAN be faithful to God’s call to live out and speak the gospel of Jesus to our children all day, every day. Tim proposed that we align ourselves with the gospel and become gospel-centered parents. We want to share the gospel with our children over and over. To know how to do this, we need to have good parenting principals and then create methods for our own family out of an understanding of those principals (but not make those methods gospel truth for every family).

So what are some of the principals?

Here is the picture Tim has given us for being gospel centered in our parenting...these are highlights from his talk and I think vital to raising our children in the love and instruction of the Lord:

1. The Main Goal is to model loving authority  

• The aim of teaching our children that it is good to submit to us is that it is good, ultimately, to submit to God’s loving authority.
• We should parent our children in a way that models the good and loving authority of God in our life.
• The family unit is the place where a child learns that they do not live for themselves, but for others
• Selfish-parental rule fails in gospel centered parenting. Parent rule is to reflect God’s rule, which is not tyrannical, but loving and gracious. A parent centered family means everything revolves around the parents rule, desires, and wishes.
• At the same time, children ruling the family also fails in gospel centered parenting. In letting our children rule and run our home, they do not learn that it is good to live under God’s rule
  
  

2. The Main hope is that your child will know and serve God

• We SAY that this is the most important thing to us, but do our daily or weekly lives reflect that reality
• What matters most to us is what ends up mattering to our children
• Is our hope for our children to see them grow up to be wealthy, well educated adults? Or is your hope to see them making choices and sacrifices to serve Christ. What do you want for your children?
• If you want your children to serve Christ in a radically, whole-hearted way, then model that in your everyday life. Expose them to costly ministry. Nothing, even good things, can be more important in our family then knowing and loving God or they become our idols.
• Call your children to treasure Christ in such a way that they are willing to sell and leave everything to gain and know Christ

3. The main focus is your child’s heart.

• What is the reason why your child misbehaves? Behavior comes from the heart. True, food additives, ADD, etc can amplify these behaviors, but the cause is always the heart.
• What this means is that the GOAL is to change hearts not behavior. It is EASY to change behavior through all sorts of discipline techniques (good and bad), but what needs to happen is to change the heart.
• If your ways are to teach your children the ways of the Lord, then your discipline will be calm, clear, consistent, and concentrated on the motivation of their hearts.
• The GOAL is not control (that may be your agenda, but not God’s agenda), the GOAL is heart change.

4. The main battleground is your heart.

• “What makes the difference between good parenting and bad parenting is what is going on in my heart” –Tim Chester
• Often, what skews our own discipline of our children is the idolatrous desires of our own heart. We want something specific and when we don’t get it (Jams 4:1), we fight.
• We need to be aware of our weaknesses and our sinful desires so that we can repent of our sin. When you notice yourself frustrated or angry, step back and ask yourself about what desires are driving you to feel frustrated and angry
• Involve your community and share life with a part of your Christian community so that they can see and point out what seems to be going on in your heart.

5. The main theme is grace.

• Children are natural-born legalists, we have to teach them grace.
• Children are LITERALLY a grace, a gift from the Lord
• Good is great, therefore we do not have to be in control. God is glorious, so we do not have to fear others. God is good, so we don’t have to look elsewhere for satisfaction. God is gracious, so we don’t have to prove ourselves.
• We need to teach our children those above truths. Think about what it would look like in your life and in your children’s life if each of those truths are not believed by you and/or your children
• "That is why grace is so important. If you don’t get grace then parenting will crush you, because you will fail, but there is grace…both for you and your child"

( On a side note, I've heard similar thoughts from Elyse Fitzpatrick and she talks a lot about gospel-centered parenting. I have not read her book, "Give Them Grace" but I am looking forward to doing so and writing a book review soon.)

The Church and Social Justice--Darrin Patrick

Over the next two days I will be posting my thoughts and reflections while at the Together for Adoption Conference If you want more of a specific outline of what the talks are about, check out some of the other live bloggers like Josh Reich's or others.

Darrin Patrick is a pastor of the Journey Church in Saint Louis. He just spoke on Social Justice and the church.

    Darrin spoke about the tension of loving God and loving people.

    Tension?

    How can there be tension? That seems to be the last thing we think of when we hear the calling to “love God, love people” but if you have ever been involved in social justice issues, like orphan advocacy, then you can resonate with Darrin’s words. These two realities we are called to (love God and love people) do go hand in hand, but only if you look to God first. Only if we get the gospel right.

   When we are involved in social justice, it is so easy to see the needs all around us and feel overwhelmed. In trying to meet people’s great physical needs, we can loose sight of the gospel. Darin spoke about Christ’s constant tension and reminded us that his main ministry was to preach the gospel, the good news. Darin said, ”Jesus was never so distracted by the needs of people that he failed to meet their biggest need.”

   At the same time, those of us who are not involved in social justice, but spend a majority of day thinking through and talking about deep theological truths…we’re missing out on an implication of the gospel. When we think of the fact that Jesus’ main ministry was the word….we should not sigh a breath of relief that we can then sit back, inactive participants in trying to meet the desperate needs of those around us. Darrin reminds us of the common evangelistic question, “What happens if you die tonight?” and spoke about how while that question is desperately important, if you are poor and marginalized it is NOT all that matters. What also matters is, “What happens if I have to live tomorrow.” “Living” for those in desperate situations is a harder reality to face sometimes then death itself.

  So the good news of Jesus is NOT orphan care, feeding the poor, or eradicating racial injustice. But it IS without a doubt an IMPLICATION of the gospel. 

Pre-Conference for Adoptive Mamas

So what happens when you get a bunch of women in the room and start talking about Jesus and your children? Tears...

Today was so refreshing, encouraging, and uplifting. This morning Dr. Donna Thoennes  spoke to us about "Gospel Rest" and it was such a relevant, applicable topic for every single mom!!  (I'll post a summary of her talk sometime tomorrow)

We also had a great line up of ladies on two different panel discussions: Noel Piper, Julie Gumm, Kristen Howerton, Melody Liezau, and Dorthy Bode. It was great to see all the different perspectives from women, from different ages, who have each adopted through different means (international, domestic, fost/adopt), and literally from all over the world.

Each of these women are an inspiration and if you are looking for good things to read...check out their blogs.

The conference starts tomorrow! I still have to get all my kids packed up to stay the weekend at my aunt's house and finish preparing for my workshop tomorrow on "Raising Your Child to Care for the Orphan", but thanks to Donna's wise words, I'm going to "say no" to the pile of dishes in my sink and get to them on Sunday. :)

Check in throughout the weekend for summaries from the different speakers. First up tomorrow morning: Darrin Patrick 

Together for Adoption Conference THIS WEEK!!!

I am so excited for the T4A conference this week. I feel really honored to be able to be a part of this great ministry and I look forward to meeting families from all over the country who are passionate about orphan care and passionate about the gospel.

I will be one of the conferences "live bloggers" throughout the conference. So if you are unable to attend, I will be writing up a summary of the different sessions along with many of my own that I am sure will be inspired by our time in worship, prayer, and the word.

I am really looking forward to hearing from Donna Thoennes,Tim Chester, Darrin Patrick, Dan Cruver, Tullian Tchividjian, Bryan Loritts, and Jeff Vanderstalt.

If you are in Phoenix and have Friday/Saturday open still...register (special rate for Arizona residents)! It's not to late and it will be such an encouraging time to ALL believers, not just those who've adopted (promise...no guilt trip will be laid on you if you haven't adopted children...this conference is first and foremost about our adoption by God!)

we've got a due date! :)

Vermon and I have been saying "sometime in November" for a few weeks now, but when exactly has remained up in the air. Back in August when we made the decision to become parents again, November felt a long time away and I thought we would say "November 1st!" But the closer we get, the more room there is for nervousness and questions like, "are we SURE we're ready?" Vermon and I joke that God has pregnancy last 9 months, because if it was any shorter people would never have the confidence to try to get pregnant in the first place. Somehow having a baby come almost a year away gives this illusion that even though you aren't ready now...you can get there, but if we were all honest, weeks leading up to new baby there is probably an uneasy questioning about how this new little person will change our lives.

  But it is up to us when we want to "be ready"...we could put it off another week, another month, or change our minds entirely...so how exactly do you pick your own due date? If I let things on our calendar determine when it would be the perfect time, then this baby would never come... Instead we're going to have to clear out our life for the end of the year while we adjust to life with a newborn and a 4th child.

So, we got out our calendars and looked at the next 3 jam packed/full months and decided to circle, Monday, November 28th...so I guess that is sort of our due date! Our names will go on the CPS registry and that day (or within a few days) we will get a phone call...

I've been busy re-organizing the house, finding space for new baby clothes, and trying to read what I can about helping newborns heal who have been exposed to drugs. I've begun to clear out our calendar for December and started thinking about how to get our family to survive on Spaghetti for 6-8 weeks. So, I guess "nesting" isn't just something that happens in pregnancy...it must be a God-given instinct to expectant adoptive mamas too. :) 

where does a beginner start if they are thinking about foster care, but hesitant?

I had a great question posted on a post I wrote a few weeks about about the need for foster families. If you ever have a question that you'd like me to answer, feel free to leave it here and I'll do my best!

 It was such a great question I felt it required an entire new blog post! The question was...

“My husband and I have been considering foster care but are worried about the impact it will have on our very young children. Do you have resources you’d suggest or ways to start looking into working in foster care for the beginner?”

  

    I completely understand that fear! Our family has had different opportunities over the years to have different children (various ages) a part of our family for short (or long) periods of time…we have had to say "no" more often as our family has grown because we didn't feel we had the capacity to meet that child’s needs while at the same time meeting the needs of our current family.

    When we started our foster parent classes, our agency told us that it was vital to know your current family well before fostering. It is important to make sure that you (and everyone in your family) are in a position to expand your role as mother, father, brother, or sister. 3 years ago we were in a position to bring a 4 & 7 year old sibling set into our home, but right now we could not do that. There have been certain teenagers we have let join our family and live with us for a period of time, but we couldn’t say yes to just any teenager. With each choice we have to examine the impact it will have on our family unit, our marriage, and our children. We want to make sure we can disciple each child and teach them, by God’s grace, to fear and love the Lord above all else on this earth. That being said, if you waited until it did not impact your current children at all  then you would never take a child into your home. Caring for the orphan will cost all in your family and that is okay...because it will also be life-changing.

    What resources would I recommend for a beginner? There are some great books I would recommend for parenting children who are coming from traumatic pasts, but I think those books are more helpful once you have a child already living with you. For a beginner who is leaning toward foster care, but is worried and not sure if they could do it, my BIGGEST suggestion would be to start getting around other foster families and foster kids. You will see some things that scare you and look overwhelming, but you will see MANY more situations that you will think, "we could do that! We could love and meet that child's needs." You could do this through attending a foster care support group, asking to spend time with families in your church who foster or have adopted, or volunteering at a local shelter for children. The more you are around children who need families, the less scary the faceless “foster kid” will be.

   I would also suggest attending an orientation class. The orientation class is the "first step" toward becoming a foster class. It is about one hour and is usually done by a foster parent who shares their experience, explains the process, and tells you what to do next. Then, even if you have not decided to foster yet, I would suggest you go a head and take the foster parent classes (a 10 wk, 30 hour class) through a local agency (families in our church have used ChristianFamily Care and AZ Baptist Children's Services and spoken highly of their experiences with those agencies). I think the scariest thing is the unknown. These classes fill you in on ALL the "horror stories" and potential scary things of foster care, but also provide training, resources, and encouragement. 

   Hope this is a helpful start!

Open doors, permanent walls

Marcel attempted to explain to my dad what our family is like. His explanation went something like this:

    "Grampy, our family is kinda like a house that always has open doors. The Pierres are the walls, so we're permanent. No matter what, we will always be family, because we're forever family. But we always have our doors open, that way people who need to barrow a family for a little while can come and make our home their family while they need us."

   I think this is such a great analogy for what we want our family to be. Our children have lived here for 2 and a half years now and have seen many people "join" our family for periods of time. We've had older single people who have shared our table and been "family" to them and foster kids spend weekends with us. There is a steady flow of neighborhood kids coming in and out and half their "aunts and uncles" are in no way related to Vermon or myself (except through Christ!). We've had teenagers live with us, children needing family spend weekends or weeks with us. We truly have a home with open doors. (in a future post I'll write why this is!)

   Our kids love this about our life and Marcel often tells me how fun it is to have so many people who are "like" brothers, sisters, grandpas, aunts, and uncles. But when there is a change, it is challenging for our kids. When a temporary friend moves out of our house (or off our couch), or a kid we provided respite care for a few days goes home... Marcel and Mya both talk about how sad it makes them and how hard it is. But I am always amazed and proud of how their little hearts process through their feelings and come to the conclusion that we are blessed to be able to be family to people who need families, even if it is for a short period of time!

    One thing that is on my mind a lot with our upcoming new baby is how it will affect our kids to have babies living with us who we potentially won't be able to adopt. We have no way of knowing if we will foster 1 or 10 babies before we can adopt, but we know we want to love each one as though it were our own. Many people have already begun to talk about how challenging that will be and no doubt it will be very painful!

    I am praying constantly that God would bring us a baby who will need a forever home, but I also know that although my heart has many plans, it is the Lord's purposes that will prevail (proverbs 19:21). I know that if God plans for us to have ten babies, it is because he planned for us to adopt that tenth baby before the baby was ever knit together in her mother's womb. I know that each child we have in our home we will have because God has ordained for us to cross paths with family members and case workers that we never would have crossed paths with. I know that each baby we have, even if it is for days, is because we are to love and nurture and care for them as though they were our own.

So loss will be hard, loss will be painful, but as a mother, what worries me the most is the loss and pain my kids will go through. I have begun to prepare them that we do not know if this baby will be in our forever family, but that God has called us to love her. Mya and I have been talking a lot about what it means to "suffer for Christ" and how this is a suffering that will be hard, but will bring such blessing because we will be able to love a baby who needs love desperately. I know I cannot shelter my children from difficulty or pain and so I talk with them and teach them how to "count it all joy" when trials come, and how we can truly "rejoice in our sufferings."

Missionary: Who I am, Not What I Do

My new post is up @ Together for Adoption: http://www.togetherforadoption.org/?p=11939

Loving Your Friend Through Infertility

Just read this series of blog posts called: Loving Your Friend Through Infertility I appreciated so much about the series and encourage you to take the time to read it. It is grounded and rooted in the gospel, honest, and helpful if you have friends struggling with infertility.


I worry sometimes that I might be the last person that a couple who faced infertility would talk with because I am so passionate about advocating for orphan care. While I do believe adoption is an AMAZING way to grow your family, it still doesn't cure the pain and heartache that comes with infertility. It would be terrible if couples struggling with infertility were fearful to speak about their suffering because they were worried they'd be expected to "cure" it through adoption. Adoption should be seriously and prayerfully considered by ALL Christian families (yes, I said it...ALL!) in the church, not just ones who struggle to get pregnant. 

Angry.

Imagine being a child or teenager, covered in bruises from your most recent beating, hungry, cold, and all your belongings in a grocery store bag. You are tired. Your parent was just taken away in a police car and you are scared. But you don't get to go home to a safe family who will at least give you a clean bed to sleep in...instead you will spend the next few nights sleeping on a cot in the office of child protective services...until they finally find you space in a homeless shelter.

I have been trying to focus on the positive aspects of adoption and lay off my ranting and raving about all the problems with how few people actually adopt and foster. But tonight I am just angry...angry to tears and discouraged by the fact that for every 10 Christians in Arizona (or maybe more like every 100, or 1000) there is only 1 child who needs a home, but still Christians are not answering the call. Actually, if 1 out of every 5 churches in Phoenix took in ONE child, this problem would be solved. There is ONE single church in Phoenix that has more members in the congregation then there are children who need a family tonight. Yet, tonight, the churches of Phoenix are failing to care for their orphans. If we cannot meet the needs of the few thousand "orphans" in Arizona, how are we going to begin to address the much more complex and desperate situation of the world-wide orphan crisis?

The Arizona Republic today posted an article about the CPS squeeze and talked about the strain on the foster care system. Less foster families + more children= huge problems. They ran out of foster homes, group homes, homeless shelters, and now children are sleeping in the child protective services offices.

When I worked in the domestic violence shelter, I had a first hand experience of seeing CPS workers come to evaluate children who had marks/signs of abuse and the caseworker often dismissing clear signs of danger and abuse because it wasn't bad compared to other cases. What is going to happen now that a CPS caseworker knows that if she opens a case on a family of 6 children, she will have an impossible time getting them a home? They will be less likely to open cases, quicker to overlook signs of danger or abuse, and children will be hurt as a result.

Who is going to care for the orphan of Phoenix? Could it be possible that God is calling SO FEW people to foster care/adoption that there is the abundance of children in need...or could it be that some of God's church is disobeying?

New addition to the Pierre Family!

It's official! We're expecting!!

In November we will be re-opening our foster license. We will be a foster family to a baby girl 0-3 months old. Of course we would love to adopt again, but it doesn't typically happen as quickly/easily as it did with our older 2. We are looking forward to this new journey! We do not know how long we will get to keep each baby girl, but we are thankful for the opportunity to love and care for some babies.

When we told Mya, she spent ten minutes dancing around the house in her underwear singing, "We're getting a baby girl! ooohhh yeahhh! oooo yeahh! Its a girl! A baby girl!" and today I overheard her reassuring Judah that he'll always be her favorite baby, even though she might be a little busy now helping mommy with a new, smaller baby. She also begged me to buy Judah a potty so that she can start potty-training him. "Mommy, we don't want to mess with two babies in diapers at once, so we should get to work and make Judah use the toilet." And every night she's been praying, "God, please bring us a baby girl who was getting abused so badly so we can love her and help her get better."

Marcel on the other hand has been having "conversations" with Judah as well. He's been trying to teach Judah how to resist girl germs and told Judah it's time to get serious and start praying Mommy and Daddy change their mind and get a boy instead...otherwise, the women won't outnumber the girls anymore. His prayer a few nights ago was, "God, please have CPS drop off a boy by accident."

And Judah is clueless about how his world is about to change...but is excitedly saying that we're getting "a babay" :)

new posts @ T4A

I have been terrible at updating this blog. It is really ironic to me that even though I am NOT in the least bit technological and could happily survive with a journal and a pen and be rid of computers entirely, that so much of my writing is involving blog updates, status updates, and tweets (that word never existed in my vocabulary a few months ago) and #i-still-don't-get-the-point-of-#s-in-tweets.

Thank you to all who have been reading/giving feedback... here are my newer posts:

"Easy to Forget"  - A look at Ephesians 1 and how easy it is to forget what we have gained as a result of our adoption...and the wonder it is to remember!

"Obedience vs Legalism"   Sometimes the same action has different motivations...knowing your Father makes all the difference between an obedient life and a legalistic one.

"Rocks-Its All I Can Offer" What can I offer God?

"Getting to Know Dad" Reflections on getting to know God and how it influences our conversations with him

"Temporary Pain"   Suffering can be crushing, but it is temporary. Your Father will help you lift your head above the waves to see what is waiting on the shore line...

thankful

The sweetest of friendships are the ones who walk by your side through many seasons of life. They love you at your lowest, embrace you at your weakest, endure you at your most foolish, and rejoice in your happiness. There is no way to know who will end up being these friends, because it takes time, mistakes, ups, downs…but most of all, time.

 I am so very thankful that God has blessed me with sweet friendships like these. I look around me and I am filled with thankfulness that God has loved me directly through such rich friendships, but especially for these friends who have bore with me for decades. These friends are overflowing with God’s love in a way that always pursues me, is patient with me, is kind toward me, and is quick to forgive me.  They never let me stay stuck in resentment, bitterness, jealousy, or fear. They show me what it means to be like Jesus and what it means to live out 1 Corinthians 13. Life is richer because they walk it with me.

Thank you mostly my dear husband and best of friend…my sisters Lauren, Amber, and Heather…Aunt Chris & Uncle Brent 

Philippians 1: 3 “I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

Team Keehn

I am very excited for the Keehn family. Heather and Bryan were apart of our church family while Bryan was going through medical school until they moved out of state so Bryan could finish residency.

They are pursuing international adoption. Check out their blog: Team Keehn 

To raise money for their adoption, Heather will be selling these hand-made adorable onesies. They would make a great baby shower gift.  You can see more styles on their blog.