JOYFUL PARENTING!

Where the Rubber Meets the Road
One of the things I love about being a parent, and about talking about parenting, is that it is the most fertile ground I know of to work out the truth of the Gospel. It’s the real “rubber meets the road” stuff of life, don’t you think? And talk about daily! Never a day goes by where Stephen and I don’t need direct access to God’s power and His life-giving words to us or to our children. For me, there is little more exciting and challenging in this life than the realities of working out my faith in the life of our family. If the good news doesn’t “work” in our homes, if it is reserved for church services, Sunday school, and the occasional outreach event or mission trip, then we are missing something--big time. What a joy it has been for us to see God’s miracle working power in the lives of our children, right in front of our eyes!

Hugging a Board

One of the first experiences we had with our son Pasha, who came home to us 10 years ago at age 5, was the awkward experience of trying to pick him up and hug him. I am not exaggerating when I say that it was much like embracing a 2x4 with appendages. I remember grabbing his little legs and wrapping them around my waist, realizing that he had no idea how to be held like that. It was simply not a part of his experience in the orphanage, nor in his Russian home. In the end I think that was just an outworking of the fact that he did not yet know how to receive that kind of love, the loving, safe embrace of a parent. As time went by he learned to be held and to hug back; and as time went by, he learned how to give and receive love.


Home, God’s Response to Desolation 
“God places the solitary in families and gives the desolate a home in which to dwell…” Psalm 68:6
What a continuous privilege and honor it has been for Stephen and me to partner with the Holy Spirit in replacing desolation with a home! Interesting that the scripture says that a home is God’s answer to the desolation that so many of our precious adopted children have experienced. The Thesaurus defines desolation as despair, unhappiness, gloom and misery. We parents have the God-given opportunity to replace this desolation with its antonyms: favor, comfort, happiness and joy. This is ours to do.

Help us Lord to create homes where the desolation wrought by being an orphan has no place in our children. May our homes be full of Your favor, comfort, happiness and joy!