The Fatherless

I’ve really be wrestling recently with whether I want to be involved with kids like the ones that live at the DHP for the rest of my life. It is not easy. It is not even fun really. It is definitely something I could choose to not be a part of for the rest of my life if I wanted too. Kids like these are easy to avoid. Hect, they have been avoided their whole lives.  I have had thoughts like “only 5 more months, then my life will be easier. I can just teach during the day and then go home and relax at night. I won’t have to worry about all the crap these kids have been through. I won’t be around them, so I won’t have to care. I can avoid them when I’m finished here.”

Those thoughts really bothered me. But I didn’t know why really. I felt like it was fine for me to just want to take care of my future family, so why was I feeling so uneasy when I had thoughts like that?

During his family night talk one Sunday night, George answered that question for me .

 

He started his talk by saying that “Sarah” had come into his office to have a chat. George loves talking with Sarah because even though Sarah can be a wild woman sometimes, she is very perceptive and tuned into herself, to others, and to life. George said Sarah was talking about her life…about the pain of losing people she cares about, about feeling abandoned, about how difficult it is to trust, and about how she feels about herself.

He then shared a quote by Winston Churchill who was prime minister of Great Britain and who had a hellish childhood.

“What greater tragedy can there be than is presented by the spectacle of a child whose life prospects and hopes are smashed at the very outset of his or her existence.”

George said “I know many of you in this room have had that happen…hopes smashed, life crushed, you’ve been hurt and abandoned, disappointed by people who were supposed to love you.”

Then he paused.

“Even though people may let you down…” he said, “ …God has an extra special love and concern for you guys in this room.”

He then continued to share how the Bible talks over and over and over again about the very special love that God has for kids who have lost fathers and mother, who have been abandoned or abused or neglected, who have suffered.

James 1:27 “Religion that is pure and genuine in the sight of God is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress.”

George shared this verse, of which I was very familiar, but then proceeded to share lots more Scripture about caring for the fatherless.

Duet 10:11 “Celebrate the Feast of Weeks—give a freewill offering and include in your worship the aliens, the fatherless, and the widows. Remember you were slaves in Egypt. Be joyful—include the fatherless in your feasts.

Duet 10:18 “He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing, and you are to love them…”

Psalm 10:14 “But you, O God, do see trouble and grief; you consider it to take it in hand. The victim commits himself to you; you are the helper of the fatherless.”

Psalm 68:5 “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing.”

George shared a lot more from Job, Hosea, Zechariah, Malachi, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, etc.—all showing the special concern that God has for the fatherless.

 

That was it.

God had spoken to me through George. He clarified yet again what I have felt for a majority of my life—that I, too, am called to love the fatherless, abandoned, hurting.

I don’t know what my future will be. I don’t know what I will be doing or what my family will look like, but I do realize that God has given me a special desire to love the unloved.  I can’t say I am necessarily excited about that because I know it will be challenging. I also know it is truth and through that I will have more joy than the joy I could have from an “easy” life. I now realize why the “I desire the easy life” thoughts I was having just weren’t clicking. God was yanking at my heart…and I can’t avoid that.