Food for thought

I know this blog typically is pretty light hearted, or at least I purpose it to be, but today is going to be different.

I have been up since 4 AM thinking and praying. I've spent the last two years of my professional life wrapped up in the foster care system. Unfortunately, it has not always seemed to be focused on it's true purpose, protecting and nurturing abused and neglected children and providing them with a permanent home. Lately, that has made me jaded, as I'm sure earlier posts have reflected. Over the last couple of months God has begun to give me a fresh perspective that has brought me to consider the Body of Christ's roll in caring for abused and neglected children.

About a year ago Jeff and I did a small group study on James with some dear friends. Since that time God has continued to work on us in the manner James describes, which often includes difficult circumstances. James chapter 1 is dedicated to the work of trials in refining and humbling us. I never realized it before, but right at the end of the chapter is this verse:
"27Religion 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."

There it is!! God calls us to develop compassion and humility through our own personal trials and then to utilize this in ministering to the most vulnerable among us, "orphans." I'm not sure how God is going to use these revelations, but am grateful for the fresh perspective! I hope you too are encouraged by this call to Christian service. Truly, if the church took this to heart, we'd have no need for a bureaucratic system of foster care because Christian families would open their homes to children in need. Just something to think about!