As I’ve interacted with a number of adoptive families, I’ve seen the hearts of many mothers and fathers, weak, but strong in Him, thrust into the divine opportunity of imitating the love of our Father who has adopted us as His own.

Sara Hagerty, a mother to four adopted children, writes of the love that’s shaped in the hearts of parents who have wrapped their arms around sons and daughters who are not theirs biologically. This excerpt from Sara’s post, “Unnatural Love,” gives testimony of a heart that’s being trained in Kingdom love, learning unnatural desire for her child that isn’t hers naturally .

 

The myth about adoptive parents is that they come born with a gene which loves that which is not from them — instantaneously — or, they’ve simply settled for a lesser love, one which couldn’t possibly match the love sown when one life produces another of its own kind.

 

To the contrary, adoption is one of many opportunities to try on another kingdom’s love, the love we were made to breathe.
Love which changes those that it brushes up against, the healing love that can happen as one life makes an imprint onto another, has only one source.

And it is in no way natural.

He is in no way natural, normal — at least not in this world.

I can’t yet fully trust that what feels normal and natural, to me, is a sign of His kingdom and His nature. To love her, I don’t — first — look to what I feel. I can’t. I’ve spent several decades in an inertia-of-life which is natural to man, but unfamiliar with the ways of God. I live embedded in a world that, although created by Him, is not His world. And His-speak is not yet my-speak.

His ways are not my ways.

To tune into the fullest expression of this love, the fullest expression of His love, requires more than just a natural feeling or desire. My heart needs to be trained to desire, to love.

So I ask Him to dress me up in love, for her.

I position. I wrap my arms around what feels foreign (and, well, is foreign) and exhale prayers that what He sowed — familiar to me and into her before she knew me — would come forth. I act the part, not out of falsehood but as one who is learning that I am keeping beat with a rhythm which this world can’t produce.

God knew her frame before I held it and He knew that she would be mine.

And after I’ve reached deeply into Him and He has spilled out over me to move muscles I’ve barely ever stretched, love starts to take shape. His love, in me, for her.

Then, what’s been simmering in my prayers and stirring in the heavens, surfaces. She flashes her almond eyes at me beneath long, black eyelashes she inherited from another mother and my heart drops into my stomach. Hours logged praying that her skin would smell like my skin and she would wear my life’s shape, receive a response.

His kingdom comes down in the moment I feel what He’s been training me to do.

He teaches us a love that’s not natural, but it is astounding.

Read more from Sara Hagerty’s post, “Love, Unnaturally” >>

Many know the statistics of fatherlessness in our nation. We know that it plays a major role in gang violence, teen pregnancy, suicide, drug abuse and distribution, and even sex trafficking (some statistics of fatherlessness >>). We know that it’s bad, that it’s prominent, that we ought to do something about it—we donate money towards causes that look legitimate, we pray when we remember we ought to, we try to not avert our eyes from the problem.

Still—even with all of these good and conscientious things we can do that are legitimately helpful, even with the burden for the orphan weighing heavily on our hearts, we are able to totally separate ourselves from those who need comfort. We picture Oliver Twist or Sarah, from The Little Princess when we think of the orphan—or worse still, “the orphan” becomes a faceless generalization.

I was asked to write about “fatherlessness,” and have discovered that I barely have an idea of what that really means. I can read articles and study statistics, look hard at the psychology of a child without a father—but to what child will that bring comfort? What child will know they are seen and heard and loved? A specific person, with a face and thoughts, a personality, attitudes, hopes—a branch from a dead root, a bereaved person, lonely.

Where are the children we can reach? In our churches, our neighborhoods, hopping our fences and cutting through our back yards. What can we do when this problem seems so large and unstoppable—so overwhelming? Go find the orphan—bring the justice that acts and comforts right to their faces.

But are we ready to be that answer? If the abortion law is changed, would we be ready for the babies that will now survive the womb but still remain unwanted? Are we ready to walk the rescued victims of sex-trafficking through healing and deliverance? Could we really take up the call to empty the foster care system and take in the abused and neglected children?

If I am honest, I don’t think that I am ready to be the answer to these big prayers, though I want to be. But I know that God can prepare me, can prepare us, the Church, to bring justice to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and to open prison doors (Isaiah 61:1) . The vital question is, how do we prepare for something so great? Lately, my cry to God has been “Oh God, raise up anointed laborers who have tarried in the place of gazing at YOU and who have taken the time to prepare themselves to be an answer to their prayers.”
Our preparedness is birthed from the place of knowing Jesus intimately. When we look at Jesus, we become like Him. The first and most important way we can prepare is to gaze upon Jesus; to spend, long and loving hours in His presence. We need to be encountered by LOVE Himself. We must look at His character and His nature. He is the best teacher and will show us how to love, discipline and walk broken and hurting children through healing and deliverance.

Secondly, we need to ask God to fill us with love, JOY and power. I want to walk in the power of Isaiah 61 and see the brokenhearted actually healed and the captives actually set free. This verse is not just speaking of physical captivity. It is also spiritual. The children that are coming from broken places will need to be freed from many places of bondage– fear, suicidal thoughts, manipulating behaviors, eating disorders and the list goes on.

Third but not last, we need WISDOM from the throne room of God. God says to ask for wisdom and He will give it. We can gain wisdom through reading the Word, learning from other people, taking classes, reading books, and staying in the place of continual learning.

May we stand before God filled with love, joy, and wisdom abounding in our hearts, that He may be able to entrust us with the fatherless generation we are crying out for.

God of justice, give us grace to be an answer to our prayers and anoint us to be bringers of justice.

-Danielle Helmer

Each Friday at 6:00am at the International House of Prayer of Kansas City, we pray for the fatherless. I have had the privilege of leading this prayer meeting for about a year—and what a gift this has been to my heart! We pray often from Malachi 4:5–6; we agree with the Lord’s promise in this passage to send the spirit of Elijah, turning the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of children to their fathers.

During the course of this year, I have asked the Lord what He says concerning Malachi 4:5–6, and He has convinced me at a greater level of His jealous, strong, and enduring love for children. He has put dreams and desires in my heart for these children that I know are His own. Above all, He has convinced me of the wisdom of standing with Him in the place of prayer for their precious lives.

In the place of intercession, I have become certain that my prayers are effective and necessary. The uncreated, all-powerful God loves to partner with weak and broken people who pray that He will pour out the desires of His heart on a hurting and dying world. This is how He has set up His kingdom!

In the face of such daunting crises like fatherlessness, we, even in the Church, tend to imagine that we can bring a real solution to the problem by using our own strength. We cover these self-dependent efforts with spiritual language, forgetting to heed the Word’s countless exhortations to pray. When we don’t pray, we end up discouraged in our pursuit of solving the problem and with our inability to bring any real and lasting change—ultimately we pull out of the fight altogether.

How much differently would this situation look in our own cities, in our own nation, and in the nations of the earth if the Church began to partner with God in prayer, believing Him to do what He’s promised He would do in His Word?

I have a vision for a Church rising up with intercession, believing God to do what He longs to do for every fatherless boy and girl. I have a vision for a Church rising up, full of godly families, compelled with love for Jesus, and carrying the burden of His heart.

–Vanessa Cisneros

“I dedicate this post to all the moms out there who find themselves day in and day out in the fires of monotonous moments with their children – moments with the potential for severe and sweet transformation and holy encounter… if embraced and yielded to…

I recently was struck with the truth that He is not looking for a better me but a lesser me.  He does not want better morality from me but greater dependency. I’m not to imitate the Vine but abide in it.

Thus, when I begin to live separately from Him – even in moments or hours of time – when I leave that inward dependency that alone bears true fruit, my first and primary wrong done is not the rash word I speak or the sharp tone I use, but rather my initial parting from my only Source of life. The offense is first found in my independence and autonomy from Jesus. Yes, my words and actions are wrong but not because I’ve failed at perfecting my imitation of Him but because in my pride, I’ve separated myself from the Source who alone brings forth the sweet fruit of godliness in me. My repentance to the Lord is not first or fundamentally a prayer of, ‘Forgive me for that word I spoke,’ but rather, ‘Forgive me for separating myself from You, for assuming self-sufficiency.’ My confession to my children is not first the sin of impatience but the sin of independence from the Patient One.

And so again, as we journey these most precious flames of parenting, of loving God and loving one another, let us remember that He is not looking for better morality from us but greater dependency and faithful cleaving to Him – the kind of clinging to the Vine that alone bears true and lasting fruit. Our joy and aim is to at last give up the art of imitation and to truly partake of His impartation, His life and light abundant.”

Read more from Dana Candler’s post, “Clinging to the Vine as a Mom” >>

 

 

Jesus does not stand passively by as a new report of child abuse is made every ten seconds in our nation, and he is not indifferent to the appalling 3.3 million child abuse reports involving an estimated 6 million children in 2009 alone [1]. On the contrary, He is living to intercede for us and He is patiently and mercifully waiting for the day that He will return to the earth and bring justice to every oppressed, abused, and enslaved child. More than that, He is praying that the Church will draw near to His heart in worship and prayer, that we would be His hands and feet in releasing justice to abused and neglected children.

Though the epidemic of child abuse may seem daunting, God’s solution is practical and accessible for every believer to engage in a vital way. The primary means to answering the cry of abused children is in the place of prayer. God is the source of all love, power, and wisdom, and the closer we draw to His heart, the more fruitful we will be in expressing His heart to others. We can also raise awareness of this crisis, give financially, and volunteer with the Orphan Justice Center or another ministry that is rescuing, adopting, and restoring children.

Whether you are single or married, rich or poor, you can powerfully engage in God’s solution today. Child abuse is not a socioeconomic or cultural problem—it is a sin problem in the heart of humanity. Child abuse occurs at every socioeconomic level, across ethnic and cultural lines [2] and we can all pray, give, serve, and raise awareness in our spheres of influence to eradicate it.

As we actively confront child abuse today, we will alleviate many other problems that are directly connected to this calamity. There will be less teen pregnancy, psychological disorders, violent crimes, and incarceration, because people who were abused as children are significantly more likely to experience all of these. We will also save hundreds of billions of dollars that we can invest in God’s Kingdom. In 2008 alone, we spent 124 billion dollars on child abuse and neglect [3]. As sin abounds, God’s grace abounds all the more, and today Jesus has arms wide open, inviting us to join Him in bringing salvation, healing, and restoration to His children.

Erica Grimaldi

[1] National Child Abuse Statistics, Chilhelp; Accessed April 7, 2012: http://www.childhelp.org/pages/statistics#gen-stats.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

“I would like to make a hearing for the fatherless child that is right here. In America. In your town. Maybe even your next door neighbor. It is time we see the fatherless right in front of us. To take that a step further, we can no longer step over the gang members dying in our streets, the teenage pregnant girl who is deciding if she should keep it, or trafficking victim that is robbed of her life and innocence. We can no longer step over the fatherless child in the ditch – in the name of justice – to send aid to another country. Loving your neighbor means loving the person right in front of you. Justice is not justice unless it helps the person right in front of you.

In the eyes of God, there is no favoritism. The scales of justice are balanced: the international orphan and the fatherless child next door are equals. But from my observation the scales of justice have been tilted, heavily in favor of the international effort – the children in Africa, China, Haiti, or Mexico. The scales of justice are imbalanced. The need is right in front of us.

We are called to see the fatherless. We are called to join our Creator, as John Ronald writes, to be subcreators – co-laborers with Him in protecting, providing for, and defending the fatherless. It is time we see the fatherless in our community – in our backyard, and to love our neighbor by doing something about it.”

Read more from John Sowers’ post, “Balancing the Scales of Justice” >>

I remember the little boy who walked into my classroom at the beginning of the school year, body stiff and trembling. I remember his pained eyes and rigid frame that silently screamed, “Don’t touch me.” I remember the deep ache I felt in my stomach when I learned that this precious boy had been sexually abused.

In 2009, approximately 3.3 million child abuse reports and allegations were made involving an estimated 6 million children. [1]  Each day, more than 5 children die as a result of child abuse. [2] We’ve seen these children. You may know them personally. You might have been one of them yourself.

Beyond seeing them, we must remember them, and answer our Lord’s call to act on their behalf. In Luke 10, Jesus gives the account of a man who was stripped, beaten, and abandoned with little life left in him. As this man lay alone by the side of the road, bleeding and straining for breath, three men each traveled down this very road. Two of them saw. Yet, they passed by, doing nothing for this one that lay dying.

But the third man saw, and upon seeing, was moved to act. He came close to the bleeding wounds, to the bleeding heart, and bandaged them. He gave of himself. His time, his energy, his resources, and his money. He showed mercy to the broken and battered one.

After speaking of this man who displayed God’s mercy, Jesus then gives us the instruction, “Go and do the same.”

The month of April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. As we look at these children, may we lift our eyes to the Lord, considering His “go and do the same” call. How can we give our time, our resources, our energy, and our finances to be an expression of God’s mercy?

God of mercy, show us our part. Use us as instruments of Your mercy.

[1] U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children’s Bureau. (2010). Child Maltreatment2009.Available from http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/index.htm#can

[2] United States Government Accountability Office, 2011. Child maltreatment: strengthening national data on child fatalities could aid in prevention (GAO-11-599). Retrieved from http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11599.pdf

Recently, I was preparing to share about the fatherless to a mission’s organization. I was wrestling with the idea of talking to this group, not because I didn’t have things I wanted to say, but because I wanted it to be much more than me talking about a very moving issue. There are some potential pitfalls with any justice issue because it is the tendency of all men to move in their own strength. Because these justice issues, including the subject of the fatherless, have good potential of stirring one’s emotions, it can be very easy for us to move into human sentiment and zeal. Even unbelievers in secular arenas have a voice out against human trafficking and are building schools and homes for orphans. But truly, if Jesus is not at the core of our ministry, it is not true justice.

Feeling the weight of this as I prepared to share with this group of believers, I wasn’t after merely stirring people’s sentiment. I wanted something much deeper, because I knew that God wanted something deeper. After talking with my husband, we decided to shorten my talk with this group, and instead devote some of the time to prayer and intercession. To my great joy, the leadership of the ministry, not knowing of my intended plans, asked me to do just this. They asked me to lead a prayer meeting! I shared a little, and then we prayed. We lifted up the fatherless before the throne in heaven, asking Him to break our hearts for them. We entered into the place of prayer together, and the Father of the fatherless drew us into His heart and gave us a taste of what He feels. And some did begin to weep, not because I prodded their emotions, but because they went to this place of prayer and met God’s heart.

Yes, weep over the fatherless. But why do we weep? Why do even the unbelieving weep over orphans, trafficked victims, and starving children? Why do people bring orphaned children into their homes?

The reason we weep, the reason we put our hands to the crises around us, is more important than can rightly be expressed in writing. God is looking for much more than our tears and our reach to doing something “good” in our fallen world. He wants to bring us into the very burden of His heart. We need His vision, and if we are not praying, we do not have it. Being a part of a church’s orphan ministry can’t even give it to us. No one can tell it to you or describe it to you in writing. It is deeper than words, and attempting to put it into words only seems to lessen its weightiness. We have to go get it ourselves, and we can only find it in prayer.

God has called us to do everything in partnership with Him. How can we partner with Him unless we are talking to Him? Our vision will remain too small and our ability to bring true justice hindered unless our effort to minister to the fatherless is born out of an intimate prayer partnership with Jesus. God wants to do something that is beyond our own ability, something not fueled by our human zeal and sentiment, but by the power of the Holy Spirit. Even more than loving orphans and setting them in families, God wants to save a fatherless generation and raise them up as apostles, worshippers, preachers, teachers, missionaries, and lovers of Jesus who will give their allegiance to Him all of their lives.

Thus, as I have shared with others before, I say again now to all of us, trembling. If we are not consistently committed to a lifestyle of going deeper in intimacy with Jesus through His Word and through prayer, we need to wait on orphan ministry, and really any ministry. We cannot build our ministry on Him if our inner lives are not built on Him. So let’s give ourselves to setting Jesus as the first place in our hearts and lives, and may His love overflow from us in our ministry to others.

Kinsey Thurlow

April 3rd will be a great night as we hear from our OJC Leaders, highlight Safe Families, Foster Families and Adoptive Families, as well as hearing stories and experiences from our OJC and Safe Families Volunteers, Family Coaches, etc.

We’ll also have a time of training at each of these events that you will NOT want to miss. We are lining up some amazing speakers to speak to us about Justice, Working with the Poor, Understanding Poverty, and many other both practical and theological topics that move our hearts closer to Jesus and encourage us in works of justice for the fatherless and the orphan.

When: April 3rd, 6pm – 8pm
Where: IHOPU Campus, Room 107,
12901 S. US Highway 71, Grandview, MO 64030
Who: Anyone interested in OJC or Safe Families KC, All OJC Volunteers/Staff, All Safe Families KC Host Families, Volunteers & Staff
How to RSVP: http://ojc_april_2012.eventbrite.com

Please RSVP so we can make sure we have enough space.