Part Three in a series chronicling our first big family road trip.
Thursday and Friday were spent at the Together For Adoption Pastors' Conference, put on at Southern Seminary for pastors interested in adoption or in leading adoption ministries in their churches. We did the sorts of things that people do at conferences: sing, listen to preaching, attend breakout sessions, and meet people. But what most people want to know is what we got out of it, what our family's future holds, and our hopes for OBC.
We don't know much about our future, but we did leave the conference with a greater burden for caring for widows and orphans. I have been praying that God would put that burden on our hearts, and it appears He is.
As OBC moves to a period in which we concern ourselves more deeply for the lost around us, I am praying that we will also concern ourselves with the suffering around us. Perhaps God will use Emily and I in that change. He is awakening us as a people to the needs our lost neighbors have for the Gospel- perhaps that compassion will make us also more sensitive to the physical needs of the poor.
For the Cooks, we've resolved that any adoption or foster care we may one day do would be done only as an answer to God's call to care for the poor. We've been tossing the idea around for a while, led now to this part of the journey. Adoption is a central theme of the Gospel, and we would love to picture it by adopting children of our own. But the desire for that picture, or the picture of a multi-ethnic family, can't be the reason we adopt children. They aren't tools in our plan to preach the Gospel we love- they're orphans we're called to love because of that Gospel. So we're just going to love them and see what God does. Nobody preached that at the conference but, strangely enough, God used them all to remind us of it.
The main thing we got out of it was a deeper appreciation for the Gospel that has saved us. How great the love lavished upon us all that we should be called the Sons of God! And be given the spirit of sonship- that we should call Jesus our older brother. Who is like the Lord?
God has been very good to us indeed. And he's patiently working in our hearts to bring about that kind of mercy from us as well. Will we adopt children one day? Will you one day have a family member who isn't a part of our family right now? We don't know, but we are looking for ways to care for widows and orphans. When you do that, as some families in our church have found, you can wind up with a fatherless child in your home and a heart to adopt it. Knowing the goodness of our God, that could be us one day.
No comments:
Post a Comment