From Susan:
You Are Welcome!
We are starting already to anticipate the blessings sure to come of the week end many of us will enjoy together at the third Hope at Home Conference, September 27-28. Our Hope at Home Team is so looking forward to giving a smile and love and a warm hug to everyone who walks through our doors! We are excited at the wide variety of walks of life that you will represent…adoptive parents, foster parents, waiting parents, friends and others called to encourage those who are caring for the children of the world – those children who are so loved by their heavenly Father.
Signing Up!
So, we want to describe what you will be signing up for, with the hopes that you will join us! You will be signing up for sharing a week end with others who have felt a call to give and receive God’s love for God’s children. You will be signing up to be welcomed with loving arms by others who share your call, passion, hopes, dreams, struggles, testimonies, prayers, and joys. You, who spend your lives caring for others, will be signing up to be cared for yourselves, in a way that will equip you to return home and be strengthened to enjoy and care for your children.
Food for Life, Strength for Life
Our time together at Hope at Hope 2013 reminds me of a familiar picture we have all seen. It is the simple sketch of the man with a fishing pole, with the caption,“Give a man a fish and you feed him today; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
I would love to have a picture that says, instead,
Hold that hand and you strengthen that person for today; place their hand in God’s, and you strengthen them for a lifetime!
It is what I think of when I read I Samuel 23:16. Jonathan first helps place David’s hand in God’s, “Jonathan rose and went to David and strengthened his hand in God.”
Then, 7 chapters and many challenges later, David is equipped to access the needed strength for the life that lay before him, on his own: “David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.” (I Sam 30:6).
Growing in Love
And the simple truth is that we expect that together we will grow in the height, depth, length and breadth of the love of Christ for us, in a way that directly influences our ability to love our children well, not so much in response to how well they love or appreciate or please us, but rather in response to how well our Father has lavished His own love upon us and upon them!
We go forth to Rest in Lavish Love. With Real Families, Real Help, Real Hope!
We can’t wait to see you!
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