Our home and dinner table can be very crowded places.
When cousins and friends stop over near the dinner hour, we can crowd quite a few people around whatever "feast" we are having. Sometimes it is the "exquisite cuisine" of boxed Kraft Mac and Cheese with hot dogs cut up in it, and other nights we dine on the "culinary delight" known as Little Caesar's Hot and Ready pizzas. Once in a while, Amber, and I, enjoy the company of JUST our four children, Logan (14), Scout (12), Quaid (9) and Sawyer (7) around our dinner table. We savor the humorous and always exciting details of their adventures at school. Any person entering our home during our family dinnertime may have one of two possible reactions. Many would think that Amber and I are ALREADY absolutely crazy having FOUR children to take care of, to feed, to teach Common Core math to (ugh!), to wipe runny noses for, to run to this theater event or to that friend's house for. Four kids certainly keep two parents plenty busy and plenty stressed out. The second group visiting our house may have different thought on our rarely quiet home. They would more than likely feel we have the PERFECT sized family. Two adults, three boys, and one "princess" of the house make up the quintessential-sized family. Until recently, I found myself as part of this SECOND group. A six person family is perfection. I am the eldest of four boys. While my three brothers and I certainly tested the limits of my parent's sanity and also their faith in God, my memories of what family, home, and life were meant to be, always seemed to land at having "four and no more" kids. Amber comes from a similarly sized family with three brothers and one sister. So when we both married in 1999, we knew that having a MORE than two children would be in the plans for our family. And so mini-vans have become the only vehicles we know. And I think I settled, like so many other people's stories, into feeling that FOUR children were the sublime amount for our family on 19th Street. I mean, vacations and eating out were already tough enough. My wife and I have become masters at making the "dollar menu" feed our family at various fast food joints. It has almost become a contest to see how little we can spend when sharing french fries and large, REFILLABLE drinks. When it comes to vacations, we always have an "invisible" child so that we can book a room for two adults and only three children. Who wants to have to book two rooms when you can EASILY fit six people into one? That rare, full family movie outing MUST be a matinee at a theater that has FREE refills on the popcorn and pop. In our number of six, we feel blessed. We feel "just right." We feel... content. In my experiences, God is not one to allow our faith and relationship with Him to simply be one where we sit "CONTENT". In His molding and shaping of Amber and my hearts, he made us look around our "insane" dinner table of six and see a vacancy. There was room STILL at our table. Now Amber noticed this unseen vacancy at our table, in our home, and in our family LONG before me. ME? I'm still thinking about how LOW I can make that dinner bill at McDonald's. I am most concerned with HOW I'm going to afford taking us to next super hero movie. Me? I'm perfectly blessed. I feel "just right". I feel pretty "content." So the journey we're currently on began with JUST Amber traveling down it. I was slow, hesitant, and fearful to even CONSIDER what we're NOW moving forward on. When I have the honor of speaking to middle and high school students at our church's youth group, I LOVE to preaching out of the book of James. James! The book with "quick to listen and slow to speak". The book of the Bible about "taming the tongue." It is a book of the Bible PACKED with wisdom that challenges me on a daily basis. While I will hoot and holler over the "classic verses" from the book of James, there was one that was beginning to totally take over my wife's heart. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27 "To look after orphans"...that ONE, seemingly LITTLE phrase that so many other families on this same journey as we are now on cling to was capturing my wife's heart. ME? For a long time, I felt I had the Christian life "in the bag." Attend church? CHECK! Pray occasionally? CHECK! Read Bible sporadically? CHECK! Listen to Hurting People So I can Appear Christian? CHECK! And I think in my "pretty good" relationship with God and living out my faith, my safe and comfortable spiritual life makes sense. I have become one that can SPEAK a "good Christian game" but NOT really LIVE it. So when Amber approached me about domestic adoption and then eventually international adoption, my response demonstrated one that had very lukewarm, COMFORTABLE faith and "perfect"-sized family. "NO ?!? Are YOU crazy?!?" The consideration of adding to my "just-right sized" family would mean actually LIVING out my faith. So a journey of transformation has truly begun. Through the process of beginning a journey to adopt an orphan from China, God has GREATER plans than just finding a child a home. God will change the HOME of a young child. God will change the hearts of a selfish, lukewarm man. Amber and I sense that this journey is already transforming us, transforming our children, and hopefully will impact and transform those that see (or read) about this very real journey in a MOST REAL and transparent way. Yep, our dinner table can be a very CROWDED place, and we LOVE those moments with friends and family. But God has revealed that there is STILL room at our table for more, and that our hearts can make room for more. Please pray for us as we begin this scary and exciting journey. May all of our eyes be open to the "open spots" around our each of our dinner tables. May we keep our hearts open to who God places there. Blessed with Life, Jay
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"Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the EAST and gather you from the west" Archives
March 2017
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